On my blog, we are all about full color photography. It's not that we love the colors more than the black and whites, it's that the full color images help you to find inspiration and ideas for your own affair. They show off the details better. But in my home...it's all about black and white photography. The depth, the emotion, the artistic elements.
Well, one of THE most talented photographers in our Little Back Book, Andreas, who focuses his efforts on black and white photography is stopping by today to share a real wedding and a pretty incredible behind the scenes take on wedding photography.
The hope is that through Andreas, you will understand what you need from your own photographer, that if his work resonates with you, you will be better equipped to articulate your vision to the photographer you've chosen.
Tell us a little bit about the inspiration behind your photography?
I've been photographing weddings for six years, and have shot over 200 weddings, and my inspiration has always been the interaction between the bride and groom, recently however that's changed and evolved a little bit. My wife and I have two children, and our daughter is only 2 years old, but I tell you, it's changed how I shoot now. I don't think there is one father daughter dance where I don't think about my little girl and I dancing together like that, and for me, the important photographs are those moments - the interactions between family and the nuances in their expressions.
Those little "slice of life" snapshots are to me, for more interesting than a posed or directed shot. It sounds like such a cliche, but capturing those images that "tell a story" is what I love about documenting a wedding. Those are the types of images I look for when shooting a wedding, and those are the images I show in my portfolios and albums. I typically work with couples that understand what is involved of doing straight reportage photography at a wedding - the reality is that sometimes things don't happen as planned or as you want, and you just have to roll with it. As an artist, the hardest part of the day is capturing a set of images that when presented in a sequence from start to finish, give the viewer the sense of being there first hand.
My photographic inspiration for my work has nothing to do with wedding photography at all actually, but rather, war photojournalism - the polar opposite of weddings! War photographers are probably the most talented photojournalists out there because they make art in a split second in very difficult situations. I almost never look at other wedding photographers for "ideas" or inspiration, because I don't want to find myself at a wedding trying to copy or repeat a certain shot or look that I saw somewhere else. I think the only way to be original in this industry is to simply be the one that documents what happens, not to direct or pose anything at all, and that's what I've been doing for a while now. Some couples get it, some don't, and that's perfectly fine with me.
A friend of mine said that if he were to get married all over again, he wouldn't even hire a photographer, just a good journalist - I guess that's what I try to be when I shoot a wedding: a story teller. I capture images of shy kids, nervous brides, proud fathers - these are the characters that make up the stories of each wedding day, and that's what I focus on.
My goal is to provide the couples that I work with, a highly edited, selective group of photographs that show that sort of emotion in the image. I focus on composition, the light, and the emotion, and try to capture images that mean something, rather than just shooting thousands of random snapshots and then calling it "candid photojournalism" - anyone can do that with the cameras that we have these days. That's not art though.
So much more to come!