With a reportage style photography, taking a short time out with the just married couple must fit with the overall body of work. For me there is no other way. What’s important is that the images reflect who you are as a couple. Not what I think you should be like as a standard knocked off week in week out.
This would be just repetitive and a bit banal and is something all of us can see on a regular enough basis given it’s the stock method of doing things for many.
Quite often when I’m heading to photograph a wedding I’ll pass a billboard advertising a hotel wedding fair or whatever and it will typically have that cliched image of a married couple. Which to me is just boring.
How long do you want or need to be away from your wedding party? Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, two minutes…? It depends on whatever you are happy with yourself, but nobody wants to be gone for an hour. Not my client type, that’s for sure. And I know that every couple wants to be where the action is. Usually everybody is having a good time at the drinks reception. Given there’s no choreography, histrionics or set ups with regards to candid wedding portraits with the way I work, then what you will get will be a set of portraits that just sums up those moments, and then you’ll be at the drinks reception in good time.
I have always had the mindset that even pictures of the couple should be lively and have a free feel to them. And doing so in a short burst of time certain aids this method of working. Every couple is different. It is my duty to capture that uniqueness as a reportage wedding photographer. And it is something I love to do.
And don’t think that because it can be done swiftly that there will be compromise. In fact the opposite is true. There’s more excitement in a five minute burst. There’s certainly more choreography if it takes an hour. An hour on your wedding day is a hell of a lot of time. I do not think anyone working with a reportage style photography would be keen on it.
