My photographic style : creative reportage

My photographic style: creative reportage In the world of modern wedding photography, there are a large number of photographic styles: fine art, fearless, moody, documentary, film, traditional, etc. Each of these styles corresponds to a certain number of aesthetic codes. But it is also what the photographer chooses to photograph that determines the style.

The Fine Art style

The Fine Art style Fine Art photographers produce soft and bright images with pastel tones.

Fine Art photographers focus on the aesthetics of reception venues, decoration. They photograph couples by having them pose in these sumptuous settings.

There is a search for elegance and refinement, which gives a magazine side to the images.

This is generally not what I seek to show in my wedding reports. And consequently, couples who are looking for this rendering are generally not those who contact me.

The work of Jose Villa below is a perfect representative of this photographic style, specific to the world of weddings.

The Fearless style

Fearless photographers, they are the adventurers!

These are the ones who like to go looking for the little beast! They are never content with the photo they have just taken and continue to shoot to go looking for THE perfect moment, the funniest, the most unusual, the most moving. There is a logic of performance, commitment in this way of shooting. And the rendering is very lively, very punchy!

The excellent Fabio Mirulla is right in this style!

style-photo-mariage-fearless-fabio-mirulla

Le style documentaire

The documentary style (or photojournalistic), it’s pure storytelling!

The aesthetic research is certainly not absent but it is above all the story to tell that guides the choices of the photographer.

The idea here is to tell the wedding as one would tell any other event or subject. Authenticity and spontaneity are the key words here!

As an example, here are some photos of William Lambelet.

style-photo-mariage-documentaire-william-lambelet

The Moody style

This photographic style produces darker images, more “drama”, more “cinema”, with warmer tones and desaturated verses.

There is a cool and trendy side in this photographic genre, which is very popular on networks.

Here, it is the profile of the couple that matters. It is they and their styles that are highlighted.

The Quirky represents this style well.

The Analog style

These photographers work with films! But why on earth do they bother to shoot only with films in the age of all-digital!? Simply to obtain an aesthetic rendering specific to film photography and medium format cameras. Here too the rendering is elegant and subtle and stylized.

Here is the example of Analog Wedding.

The traditional style

This photographic style corresponds to the way weddings were photographed before the advent of digital. So we understand that it’s a bit out of fashion today. Many moments are posed, official, even artificial. Typically, it’s the camera look at the time of signing the registers…

On this type of service, few spontaneous moments are photographed. In 1995, when we only had a few rolls of 36 poses to immortalize a wedding ceremony, we tried less things. We stayed on the fundamentals. It’s understandable! But we are in 2024…

I stop here but know that this list is not at all exhaustive! In absolute terms, there are as many styles of wedding photos as there are wedding photographers. And most of them evolve between several styles.

My own style? The creative reportage!

I have never sought to stick to one of these styles. On my first weddings, I was primarily looking to make sure that my clients were happy with their photos. Every time a couple trusted me, I was simply looking to progress, to meet a certain degree of demand and to do what seemed necessary to me. I was shooting spontaneously, without ulterior motive. Without a pre-established list, without a box to check. And without thinking about my next Instagram post. And it’s still the case!

If I had to put a label on my photographic style today, I would say that it would be a hybrid version between the fearless style and the documentary reportage style. But it is in a completely unconscious way that I took these directions! When I shoot a wedding, I am constantly observing, scrutinizing, feeling the things that are happening in front of me. I shoot thinking about the story I am telling. I also like to add a touch of creativity, by looking for new lights, unusual framings, etc.

That’s why I like to use the term creative reportage to describe my photographic style.

Creativity is a wild spirit and a disciplined eye – DOROTHEE PARKER

In any case, it is not the search for a photographic style to reproduce that guides my way of shooting. It’s the situations that present themselves in front of me. And what I want to do with them. I love to photograph the sweetness of your feelings during an intimate couple session as much as the madness of the dance floor! I love to stage the witnesses for a creative group photo as much as to slip into a compact crowd when everyone is kissing at the end of the ceremony.

I photograph what is both beautiful and true.

And I can assure you that there is beauty and truth everywhere! In the gaze of a loving grandmother, in the light of a stormy sky, in the tenderness of a spontaneous embrace.

However, this approach to creative reporting works on condition of having an essential ingredient: the feeling! A mutual trust must exist between us. This mutual trust will allow me to completely free my creativity and go for ever stronger images. On your side, this trust will allow you to free yourself from the presence of a camera and completely forget that you are being photographed!