The History of Reportage Wedding Photography


>

Reportage Wedding Photography is nonetheless believed by a number of to be a recent trend in photography. In fact it has a lengthy heritage and was sometimes named candid photography in the context of a wedding. Noticed by extreme traditionalists (a rare breed now) as a new fad, it was felt to threaten the supremacy of the medium format camera with its staged shots and posed set ups.

In the old style, photographers generally had a massive camera set up on a tripod and even a hood over the head of the photographer. This Especially formal and rather posed art of portraiture was born, like so countless of today's cultural norms, of technological limitations. Way back when, photographic technologies required lengthy exposure times, long winded plate or film adjustments and "preserve still" poses. Quick 35 mm film basically solved this difficulty, once again with specific limitations. Lighter cameras holding rolls meant that photojournalistic approaches could be applied to wedding photography.

The game changer was that wedding photography required no longer to be posed. Wedding Photography could now grow to be Reportage Photography. Precious moments, unrepeatable in a pose are only possible with the participants being unaware that a camera is in use. Rapidly film provided this to a degree, although the fastest film was ISO 1600 or 3200 and had been rather grainy. In reality the grain produced by rapidly film (which enabled action freezing photojournalism in low-ish light) became a signature "appear" discovered in Time magazine and other iconic journals.

Naturally, wedding photography began to borrow this appear and start demanding the grainy black and white look. The grain is of course a form of visual artefact - a distortion of the truth in reality. Today's technology now takes this various actions further with the equivalent of ISO 102,000 out there on some machines. A shot at ISO 6400 is now considered routine - affording incredible reportage wedding photography solutions to the photographer - with no grain in sight.

At times the contemporary, digital photographer is asked to add a simulation of celluloid film grain to otherwise pristine photograph. Although it can look outstanding, it is an intriguing fact of aesthetics that a photograph can seem far more timeless and real with artefacts added to it.

Part of the maturation of reportage wedding photography has to be the evolution of the Wedding Album. Rather than present the married couple with a rather simple book with most effective pictures placed in order of preference, the wedding photographer's task now includes the design and layout of a book that well tell the story of the wedding. Photographs are placed in a digitally printed book, in chronological order. Every photo relates to every single other photo as portion of a linear story, bringing vividly back the memories of the massive day.