BEST OF WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY, 2ND EDITION
- Techniques and Images from the Pros

The focus of the modern wedding photograph is emotion and intimacy, and through the tools available, like digital capture and Photoshop, the end result is romance. Photograph by Marcus Bell.

In the earliest days of photography, weddings were photographed in styles that captured the bride and groom in stuffy, overly formal poses. Even with the emergence of “the wedding album,” which incorporated group portraits of the groomsmen and bridesmaids, and the bride and groom with family members, posing remained stiff and lifeless—no doubt a byproduct of the required length of early exposures. As the style and variety of wedding photography progressed, posing techniques closely mimicked the classical arts, and there remain many flawless wedding portraits in evidence today from those early years.

The tools at the disposal of today’s wedding photographer are vastly superior to yesterday. This classic wedding image captures the romance and mystery of the wedding by incorporating areas of softness and high contrast to define the mood of this inconspicuous bridal portrait. The image was captured by Englishman Steve Tarling and then treated in Adobe Photoshop until the right mood emerged.

Today’s wedding photographer works unobtrusively and while he or she may set up the situation, the participants define the action. Photograph by Becker

As you might guess, the traditionalists recoiled in horror at this new breed of wedding photographer. They denounced the grainy and often out-of-focus “grab shots” created by the photojournalists, and they predicted that the final days of wedding photography as a profitable and predictable livelihood were at hand.

As at many other times in history, a spirited clash of ideas and artistic differences spawned a new era of enlightenment. For the first time, brides were able to make real choices about how they wanted their once-in-a-lifetime day recorded. In addition to pristine color and a wealth of storytelling black & white imagery, brides can now choose from a diverse range of styles, imagery and presentation. Add to the mix the incredible and explosive creativity introduced by the advent of digital imagery and we now find ourselves in the midst of a true Renaissance.

Masters of the medium, like Yervant Zanazanian from Australia, are gifted at creating the subtle intangibles in an image. In addition to flawless posing and emotion and design, note the hourglass shaped highlight covering the steps. Artful burning-in and dodging was required to produce such a skillful effect.

This book first appeared a little more than two years ago and this is now the second edition. During that short time, I have “discovered” dozens of new and amazingly talented wedding photographers, most of them of the photojournalistic persuasion. The trend away from traditional wedding photography continues but with some surprising new twists. The new breed of wedding photographer has no problem “directing” an image, as long as the results are spontaneous and emotion-filled. This is a surprising turn of events, considering the almost evangelical mind-set of the pure wedding photojournalist. To be sure, there are many more of these kinds of photographers who exhibit the same fervor for the “captured image,” but there are also a growing number of new photographers who don’t particularly care if they are purists, in the photojournalistic sense.

There are few limits to today’s wedding photography. How about a posed kiss and dip in the middle of Grand Central Station? New York City wedding photographer, Regina Fleming did the honors.

The little picture is just as important to the wedding album as the big picture. Here Anne Ledbetter captures an impromptu photography lesson at the wedding.