Do you ever worry about overstylizing your shots?

Qarik

I am not talking about funky post processing. I am talking about capturing a quality or scene that wasn't "really" there at the wedding or between the couple...as if you are manufacturing a moment for the sake of capturing a beautiful frame.

I know it's kind of weird question. Maybe the PJ stylists maybe less prone to this. It's delicate line...you have style and a job to create a beautiful story out of the day and your client picked you based on your style and poortfolio. But can you go over the top with an image(s) artisitically even though you and your client is happy with the capture? heh.

Sometimes I see beautiful beautiful wedding images but I don't know if those images are truly reflective of the couple or the day. heh, I am not sure if I am getting my point across in a clear manner.

Maybe another way to put it..can a photographers ego or hubris "get in the way" of his photography..ie getting "portfolio" shot at the cost of capturing reality?

mmmatt

I set up poses but rely on them for the story I tell. Happy, or intimate, or fun or whatever, I don't like to dictate the "scene", and I don't care for any of the traditional goofy wedding party shots. I only do any of that suff by their request which isn't often.

However, If I have a couple who aren't "beach people" and we're near a beach I'll get them on the beach. Who wouldn't want that? If we go there even just for photos, it is still part of their wedding day.

Matt

tenoverthenose

I think this is much less of a problem once your style has developed and you stay half way consistent. My clients have a pretty good idea of what their photos will look like by looking through my portfolio.

That having been said, taking photographs is a two way street for me. It's as much about using a camera as reading your clients. Thankfully, after seeing my portfolio, my clients have a lot of trust with my vision.

smurfy

I feel my job is to deliver the illusion of the day that the couple wants to remember, not necesarrily the cold reality of what it was. It will include only real moments, but they will be carefully selected and edited to help all the memories to be beautiful, powerfully emotional, funny, or touching. Even if the wedding was full of stress and problems, the images the b & g receive will focus on what I believe they will want to remember, not what they would be happier forgetting. I explain that I am not a PJ photog from the start, and will give gentle direction to bring out romance, flatter the form, etc. If the clients want to hire a true PJ photographer, they can. If they come to me, it's because they want the illusion.

zoomer

Yeah I do it all the time.
I always try to get a couple fairy tale shots in there somewhere.
I feel the need to challenge myself artistically every shoot.
If I were just there to record the events that would be pretty boring to me.

sabesh

smurfy wrote:

I feel my job is to deliver the illusion of the day that the couple wants to remember, not necesarrily the cold reality of what it was. It will include only real moments, but they will be carefully selected and edited to help all the memories to be beautiful, powerfully emotional, funny, or touching. Even if the wedding was full of stress and problems, the images the b & g receive will focus on what I believe they will want to remember, not what they would be happier forgetting. I explain that I am not a PJ photog from the start, and will give gentle direction to bring out romance, flatter the form, etc. If the clients want to hire a true PJ photographer, they can. If they come to me, it's because they want the illusion.

Well put. I aim for similar results too. Cheers.

Tim Kamppinen

I worry more about not stylizing my shots enough... honestly, I want to capture things in a way that looks different (more dramatic, beautiful, exciting, etc.) than what you would see with the naked eye. However, at the same time I still want to photos to record the day and the actual events and surroundings...

Luckily, I don't need to do all that in one shot. The thing is, the photos that photographers put on their blogs and in their portfolio are usually going to be the really artistic, stylized shots (whether they are set up or not is really a different matter). However, if you looked at the entire set of delivered photos from the wedding, I'm sure you would find plenty of shots that serve as a more literal record of the day. The thing about those shots, though, is that they're usually much more interesting to the B&G and the guests than they are to random visitors to the photographer's website. Hence, they don't get put on display nearly as often.