In the earliest days of photography, weddings were photographed in styles that captured the bride and groom in very formal poses. Even with the emergence of the contemporary wedding album, which included group portraits of statuesque groomsmen and bridesmaids, and the bride and groom with family members, posing remained stiff and lifeless. As wedding photography progressed, posing techniques still closely mirrored the posing techniques of the great 18^th century English portrait artists, like Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds.

Englishman David Worthington is a wedding photographer who has great respect for and knowledge of the posing and lighting principles of the traditional wedding photographer, yet combines his traditional skills with a healthy knowledge of digital and Photoshop skills to consistently produce the “idealized” wedding image.

It is against this backdrop or formality that wedding photography evolved—or rather, rebelled. In this early style, each individual photo was a check mark on a long list of posed and often pre-arranged images from a “shot list” stuffed in the vest pocket of the wedding photographer’s tuxedo. Even spontaneous events like the bouquet toss and cake cutting were orchestrated to reflect the classical posing techniques. Spontaneity had all but disappeared from this most joyous of ceremonies. Amidst such a regimented creative environment, it is not at all difficult to see why there was an active rebellion among brides and wedding photographers. In short, this rebellion turned the world of wedding photography upside down.

A class of wedding photographers known as wedding photojournalists, spurred on by their unbending leader, the articulate and provocative Denis Reggie, rebelled against the lifelessness of the art form. These wedding photojournalists believe that capturing the emotion of the moment is paramount to good wedding imagery. The story of the true and naturally unfolding story of the day’s events would be the end result of such a mindset.

Everything about the methods and techniques wedding photojournalist is different than those of the traditional wedding photographer. The new breed shot unobserved with fast film using available light. They used 35mm SLRs with motor drives, as opposed to Hasselblads, and on-camera flash became a last resort for the wedding photojournalist.

As you might have guessed, 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, noting that every photographer with a 35mm SLR would soon take over the niche of the professional wedding photographer.

Brides want spontaneity and real moments recorded at their wedding; the kind only a gifted wedding photojournalist, skilled at observation and with fast reflexes, could provide. Photograph by Marcus Bell.

Instead, for the first time, brides were now 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 were now able to 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 imaging and we now find ourselves in the midst of a true Renaissance.

Once viewed as a near-deplorable way to make a living, wedding photography now draws the best and brightest photographers into its ranks. It is an art form that is virtually exploding with creativity—and with wedding budgets seemingly knowing no bounds, the horizons of wedding photography seem limitless.

Real emotion, not contrived or scripted emotion, is what is expected by today’s brides. Here, the photographer captured a rare moment while making his formal portraits. Photograph by Dennis Orchard.

Wedding Photography Evolution

Since the late 1980s, when wedding photojournalism really took hold, the trend away from traditional wedding photography has continued unabated, but with some surprising twists. The new Millennium breed of wedding photographer has no problem “directing” or choreographing an image, as long as the results are spontaneous and emotion-filled. This is a surprising turn of events, considering the near evangelical mindset of the pure wedding photojournalist.

Certainly 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. The “hot” wedding photographers now are those who favor a fine-art approach to wedding photography. Each image is carefully crafted by the photographer (not the lab) in Photoshop and the effects they produce are just what the contemporary bride has always dreamed of—a unique and one-of-a-kind wedding album.

The modern-day wedding photographer is among the upper echelon of the photographic elite, both in status and in financial rewards. This book then is a continuing celebration of this great and evolving art form and its fabled artists.

Digital Takeover

At the same time, the move away from film and towards 100% digital capture continues unabated, although the current breed of digital wedding photographers is aware of the increased time and effort involved in being purely digital. New methods of workflow and image editing continue to evolve and new software is helping to aid in the transition.

Digital technology has evolved at roughly the same time as wedding photojournalism, a genre of wedding photography that believes unposed storytelling images are the best way to record the essence of the wedding day. The two go hand in hand as the speed and flexibility of digital capture supports the “on the fly,” unobserved shooting style of the wedding photojournalist.

The proliferation of digital technology is virtually exploding. New digital camera systems are appearing overnight, as are peripheral products that support digital imaging. Almost without exception, manufacturers’ entire R&D budgets are going into new digital products. New cameras with higher resolution, improved imaging chips with added functionality and better software for handling digital RAW files are being introduced with ever-greater frequency.

Regardless of whether a photographer shoots weddings digitally or with film, the impact of Adobe Photoshop has permanently changed the style and scope of wedding imagery. The photographer in the comfort of his home or studio can now routinely accomplish creative effects that could only be achieved by an expert darkroom technician in the past. Photoshop and its numerous plug-ins has made wedding photography the most creative venue in all of photography. And brides love it. Digital albums, assembled in Photoshop, have become the preferred album type of brides and the style and uniqueness these albums bring to the wedding experience make every bride and groom a celebrity.

The digital wedding album has been responsible for changing both the economics and the expectations of contemporary wedding photography. Photography and album design by Stuart Bebb.

Digital capture also provides the ability to instantly preview images, meaning that if you missed the shot for whatever reason, you can delete that file and redo it right then and there. That kind of insurance is priceless. The ability to review an image on the camera’s LCD monitor is one of the tremendous benefits of digital capture. It may take a few test shots, sometimes, to adjust the camera, but that’s infinitely better than shooting several rolls and then waiting until after the wedding to see what happened. Also the flexibility of digital capture is unsurpassed. You can change film speeds from ISO 100 to ISO 1600 or higher from frame to frame. You can alter the white balance at any time to correct the color balance of the lighting, or you can even change from color to black-and-white shooting modes with certain cameras—all at the touch of a button. The creative freedom afforded by digital capture is unprecedented.

One of the biggest complaints of wedding photographers who have gone digital is the tedious workflow. Often, wedding photographers would find that they were paying the same amount for prints from digital labs yet they had to generate all of the control that was previously done by the lab. So more personnel were needed to “work” the files and money saved in film and processing charges went right back into expensive digital equipment and more computers and ever-changing technology. More than the cost, the time spent in front of a computer monitor had drastically increased.

Digital wedding albums represent a new level of creativity to the photographer. Notice here how David Williams has combined unusually effective images and design elements in a single album page. Note the horizon line that intersects with the black and white for a playful, interesting effect.

What is often not discussed is the ultimate control of each and every image shot digitally. Most of the photographers featured in this book are digital artists, and while they are not above using time-saving shortcuts in the image-processing side of things, they still spend a great deal of time perfecting each image that goes out to a client. Perhaps this aspect of contemporary wedding photography, more than any other, has accounted for the profound increase in artistic wedding images. This fine-art approach has simultaneously raised the bar financially for wedding photographers, allowing them to charge mind-boggling prices for their wedding coverage. Says photographer David Beckstead, “I treat each and every image as an art piece. If you pay this much attention to the details of the final image, brides will pick up on this and often replace the word ‘photographer’ with the word ‘artist.’ ” That simple shift in emphasis has made fortunes for many of today’s wedding photographers. Albeit a select group, the contemporary wedding photographer could represent the highest paid segment of photographers anywhere—a far cry from the “weekend warriors” of 40 years ago.

David Beckstead works hard at the fine art approach to his wedding photography and it has paid off, both financially and artistically. His brides think of him as an artist not just a wedding photographer.

The Internet also plays a huge role in the life of every digital wedding photographer. Online proofing and sales have become a big part of every wedding package. Couples can check out “the take” of images while on their honeymoon by going to the photographer’s web site with the prescribed password—all from the comfort of their hotel room or a digital café. And there is scarcely a single successful wedding photographer who does not have a first rate web site that attracts new clients and out-of-area bookings.

Other recent developments include the use of FTP (file transfer protocol) sites for transferring files to the lab for proofing and or printing and album-design software, which often relies on the use of small manageable files, called proxies, which allow the photographer to quickly and fluidly design the album and upload it for proofing or printing.

As you will see from the photographs throughout this book, the range of creativity and uniqueness displayed by today’s top digital wedding photographers is incomparable. I wish to thank the many photographers who have contributed to this book—not only for their images, but also for their expertise.

I also wish to thank the many photographers who “shared” trade secrets with me for the purposes of illuminating others. Some of their tips and tidbits, which appear throughout the book, are as ingenious as they are invaluable.

While no book can equal years of wedding photography experience, it is my hope that you will learn from these masters how the best wedding photography is created—with style, artistry, technical excellence and professionalism.
As you will see from the photographs throughout this book, the range of creativity and uniqueness displayed by today’s top digital wedding photographers is incomparable. I wish to thank the many fine photographers who have contributed to this book—not only for their images, but also for their expertise. As anyone who has investigated the technical aspects of digital beyond a surface level has no doubt discovered, there are contradictions galore and volumes of misinformation surrounding everything digital. It is my hope that throughout this book you will find many of those mysteries unraveled.

I also wish to thank the many photographers who “shared” trade secrets with me for the purposes of illuminating others. Some of their tips, which appear throughout the book, are as ingenious as they are invaluable.Photoshop is one of the great technological innovations of this or any other era. The application is so richly layered that users find many different ways to achieve the same or similar effects. It is a powerful application too. Many of the effects displayed by the artists in this book are the result of an intuitive approach to solving a specific imaging problem in Photoshop.

This book is not another how-to book on using Photoshop. There are already seemingly many such books on the market. Instead, this book is about those who use Photoshop as a mainstay in their digital imaging business—artists, illustrators, commercial photographers, album designers, wedding photographers, portrait photographers, teachers and a few unclassified professionals will be presented here. It is my hope that you will learn from their innovative and often original uses of Photoshop.