It’s not about Posing - Documentary Wedding Photography 101

In what might be described as the Monday-est month ever, I’ve found myself really spending a lot of this down time just…thinking.

It’s been two months since I shot a wedding and these quiet months have been a welcome break in my calendar. Not only is it important to recharge my creative battery, it’s also a brilliant opportunity to reflect on my business.

I’ve been looking back at some photos from the last year, a process I always do in the downtime to understand how I can improve and see the moments that I’m really proud of capturing.  One thing that strikes me over and over again is just how emotional this job is and how people focused I have to be. Another thing that’s obvious to me, is how I really started to track away from editorial trends in the wedding industry and focused far more on a documentary approach to photographing weddings.

I’ve discovered a passion

Going to the awesome Nine Dots Gathering in November cemented my feelings. This way of shooting speaks to something in my soul that I can’t ignore. I’ve put together a post, explaining my thoughts and feelings on documentary wedding photography, and what it means for the people who choose me to capture their wedding.

I’m going explain how it impacts things like group and family portraits, how I cover things like drinks receptions. I’ll share some of my favourite images along the way. It’s a long read, so I recommend getting a brew on and may be a top shelf biscuit to go with.

What is documentary wedding photography? 

There’s one principal at the heart of documentary, Wedding photography  - as intervention as possible. There’s a lot of space for different visual styles within this ethos. Clever composition, intimate and emotionally lead, and fine art all have their places. 

Other photographers might feel differently, but I consider this means photographing something when and where it happens. Asking someone to repeat what they’ve just done in a nicer light is not documentary photography, because you’re no longer capturing a spontaneous event.

A documentary approach to wedding photography embraces this challenge. it’s the acceptance that we cannot control our working environment or the light, or even the subject.  

Group Photos

Most of the couples I work with want their day mostly captured in a more relaxed, candid style. However, they also want a few group photos. I completely get this! I’m always happy to make time for a small number of group photographs. This is one part of the day where I have to completely abandoned a documentary approach or these photos would never get taken. For photos including all relatives I tend to do them soon after the ceremony, and it’s a very simple job. Later on, we might try something more dynamic with younger guests. 

Couple Photos

Wedding days don’t usually mean back to back couple photos for me. Typically (but not always), couples get ready separately, come together for their ceremony and confetti photos, then again for group photos, through their meal and speeches, and then a little bit for some dancing. The word ‘typically’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting here! Events don’t always play out like this, and no two weddings are the same. What often happens though, is that couples don’t spend a huge amount of time together in natural moments during the day. This means the opportunity for documentary style photos of them having a quiet moment together rarely presents itself - but when it does I’m all over it!

It’s quite important to most of the couples I work with that they get some nice photos of the two of them on their wedding day. It’s a fairly key expectation of most wedding photographers! Couple photos aren’t something to dread, but instead a chance to have a moment together, calm among the chaos, or just more chaos, depending on how you approach these things. I still believe in as little intervention as possible, instead preferring to let your connection to reveal itself naturally.

I think I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but the quickest I’ve ever shot couples portraits on a wedding day is eight minutes. There are lots of reasons why this happened and actually the pressure at the time was fantastic. The usual amount of time I like to spend couples photos is about 20 minutes. The truth is, that’s all you need with me. I’m always looking for human connection so once we found that, taking portraits is a breeze.

Drinks Receptions/Cocktail Hour

Weddings usually include two opportunities for me to get in among people, grabbing candid photo opportunities. These are between the ceremony and the food, and between the food and the dancing. If the group photos and portraits are done and dusted within about 45 minutes, the rest of the time is spent watching and waiting for moments. This is a documentary photographer’s time to shine! I do not stop looking and waiting.

Here are the sort of things I see (swipe across to see them all).

Details

I like to photograph details in their proper context rather than alone, or artfully arranged. This means I do not photograph dresses hanging from trees, or rings nestled inside a flower. There are so many ways to capture details that convey the true meaning of why this is part of their wedding day, and I’d rather find those then spend time arranging something just so.

My Approach on a Wedding Day

I love capturing normal stuff. Wedding days feel like such a bubble, when ordinary people spend a whole day doing something totally outside of their normal lives. And all those people have a connection to each other, but they’d never otherwise all be in the same place. I just think that’s mindblowing! One of my favourite photographers, Fer Juaristi, said that he likes to pretend he’s an alien at a wedding. That he’s just discovering what weddings are, and he’s sharing his findings. Hearing him say that was like a clarion call to start capturing the bits that make every wedding different. The inbetween bits, the things nobody’s looking for, but that tell a story or even just make me feel something. Laughter, joy, poignancy, romance, beauty - all are present in abundance on wedding days. That’s what I want to show.

A quick aside: I’m always happy to be approached by a guest for a quick photo. It’s not often people get all dressed up and have such a special occasion, and so I get that they might want a photo of themselves.

The most important part of the documentary approach of is that I never consider a wedding to be a photo shoot. First and foremost the photographs I take on a wedding day are for the couple to remember and share their day with their friends and family. I want the photos I take to transport you back to the tiny moment you didn’t know you’d missed, to evoke the thoughts and feelings that you had on the day, to be looked back on with love and lively discussion. To be pulled out on a sad day and lift you up.

I start working this way from the moment I get my camera out of the bag. While I aim to let events unfold around me without my intervention, I know I’m not invisible. Photographers stick out like sore thumb on a wedding day! How can we not? I’m not dressed like a guest, and I’m wearing a gold harness with two cameras hanging from it. So my most important job is to get people to relax around me and just accept my presence. I spend loads of time observing people, and I look for framing devices to help me compose my photos. Preempting behaviour is a skill I’m definitely still working on, and every wedding presents so many opportunities.

Who’s it for?

Documentary style wedding photography is not for everybody. If you’re the sort of person who wants to be told how to stand and how to smile brackets (or not smile), then I’m not the photographer for you. If you’re looking for someone who can capture the feeling of the day without making it look like a perfume advert, then I think we should chat.