Reportage Wedding Photography

Reportage wedding photography is a style I love to shoot. I tend not to restrict myself to just one style and will adopt different styles during different times of the wedding day.

Reportage photography can fall into a few different areas such as, candid, documentary and photojournalistic. These styles of photography are all about capturing the day as it unfolds. Photographers used to use the development of the 35mm film which carved the path for reportage wedding photography as these cameras were lighter and smaller which made it more discreet and which enhanced the photojournalist style. Looking back at photographers like Walker Evans, Robert Frank and Cartier Bresson, these great street photographers had a unique style with which they were able to capture the true spirit of the person. Cartier Bresson once quoted “A velvet hand, a hawk’s eye, these are all one needs”. This means to me that you need to be gentle in your approach and fully aware what is going on around.

How do I use Reportage wedding photography?

Different times of the wedding day will lend themselves itself to reportage wedding photography. This may be right at the start of the day while the bride is having her make up applied or just after the ceremony when everybody is gathering around the bride and groom to congratulate them. This is when peoples spirits are at a high and with some choice timing you can capture a variety of reportage/candid shots of the bride and groom interacting with the guests.

Photographing the speeches is one of my favourites for reportage wedding photography. This is where I like to be mobile and not stay in one area as I always try and capture an image of the person being spoken about. This can be a great time to capture laughing but also some tears as it can be an extremely emotion time. This all adds to building up a story of the wedding day.

In the pre wedding meeting I do explain to the bride and groom that my normal style of wedding photography is a combination of different styles which I portray as a story in their beautiful wedding album.