Wedding Photojournalism Inspiration and Tips
Wedding photojournalism is a style of photography that captures the story and feeling of a wedding day through candid shots of people and moments. In theory, it differs from traditional wedding photography in that it doesn’t typically involve posed portraits or staged shots. Instead, wedding photojournalists capture natural interactions and real moments as they happen. This makes for an informal and, some would argue, more authentic feel to the wedding photos. In practice, there are very few pure wedding photojournalists, as most wedding couples want at least a few posed photos with family members, the wedding party, and their VIP guests. For most wedding photographers, their approach depends on the part of the wedding day timeline, with more photojournalism during in-action moments such as the wedding ceremony and stepping into pose more during moments like family formals.
Here are some of the best wedding photojournalism photos from our group of award winning photographers.
The Best Wedding Photojournalism Photos
Wedding Photojournalism Tips for Photographers
Our friends over at SLR Lounge have prepared a few tips for wedding photojournalism below.
Tip 1: Prepare
Prepare means to have the right equipment for the day of your shoot, and for the moment you’re shooting. For instance, when I’m shooting bridal prep, I’ll usually have a versatile medium zoom lens on, such as a 24-70mm lens handy with a “just-in-case” flash on my camera. This way, whatever situation occurs during bridal prep, I’ll be prepared to shoot it.
Tip 2: Lock-In
When you’re prepping for a moment, you want to make sure you lock-in your settings beforehand. For this set of images, I had the the Bride and her daughter set up by this window. The scene wasn’t going to change so I locked in my Exposure and Color settings in Manual mode, and fired away. You want to make a habit of locking in your settings beforehand so you don’t have any unhappy surprises when you see the images after the moment has passed.
Tip 3: Anticipate
On a wedding day, sometimes we’ll place our subjects and cue the action; other times we simply anticipate the photogenic moments. This may be when the Groom is opening his gift from his bride, or when the Groom sees his Bride for the first look, or the first kiss! All the moments must be carefully anticipated by the photographer.
Tip 4: Now
This is the moment where you become the observer and shoot. Stay calm, carefully compose your shot, and fire away.
Tip 5: Move
Don’t be afraid to move. When the moment is occurring and you know you’ve got your shot, then move around. Change your composition, do a shoot through, capture another expression, take advantage of the time you have in a moment!
