I try not to put myself into a niche, but if I’m forced to use words to describe my photography style, I’ll probably say I’m a “documentary wedding photographer”
But what the heck does “documentary” even mean?
It means I will tell your story, as honestly as I can. I’ll capture the people and the special details, as well as the mundane stuff. I’ll get tons of candid photos of your family and friends, as well as portraits that show how beautiful you looked on your big day.
I promise to photograph you and your family with compassion and love. I’ll tell your story through that lens, focusing on joy, laughter, and sincere emotion.
There are so many styles of wedding photography. If you’re searching for a wedding photographer, and you feel yourself responding to those more emotional, candid moment based photos rather than than posed, arranged portrait-style photos, you’d probably be happy hiring a documentary wedding photographer to capture your day.
Your photos will be quirky, fun and utterly “you”
I try my best to photograph details with that documentary viewpoint too. I feel like photos of objects and things become so much better and more meaningful with a little spark of humanity.
A documentary wedding photographer finds their inspiration in real moments. Things like your first kiss, or your walk down the aisle are obvious moments to photograph, but a good storyteller will capture so much more than the obvious. A good documentary photographer’s work can bring back exactly what your day felt like, to communicate, to immortalize the emotion of the day, so you can feel it even years later.
A good documentary photographer will see the subtle details that made your day special, the things that make your friends and families unique, the things that matter most, the things that make you laugh or cry or feel things.
Even portraits can be documentary in nature. You don’t need to look at the camera or pose with the fake smile you practiced in the mirror. You can just hang out and interact with the person you love, you’re going to look happy and in love, and that in itself is so beautiful.
Weddings are how we celebrate family and love; they are one of the few traditions we have left in our modern world. We gather to create ceremony, we bravely pledge forever to the one we love, surrounded by community, we assemble those we love the most, in the same way people did hundreds of years ago. All cultures, all traditions, celebrate the formation of a new family in their own incredible way.
I’ll take photos of how pretty y’all are gonna look, I promise! That’s the cake! But the icing on that cake is going to be those little moments, and photos with the people who love you so much they may have even travelled across the world to witness your happiness.
I just want your photos to matter to you in more than a superficial way.
Humans are myth makers. We tell stories, we create narrative to make meaning of our lives. A documentary photographer is a storyteller. They record and capture fleeting moments, artfully showing you what happened to you, around you, using their voice. They distill the whole crazy experience into images that will bring you back to the day in an instant.
I love to photograph the way you look at each other right after your vows, like you want to scream WE DID IT, like you want to laugh and giggle and jump back down the aisle together.
These huge feelings are there and gone in the briefest snippets of time. But they are not small things. These feelings will get you through tough times together, and will remind you why it’s all worth it at the end of the day.
A good documentary photographer has a compassionate eye. They will capture your love and relationships in subtle ways – the tilt of a head, the flash of a smile, the wobble of a chin, a quiet tear sliding down a cheek.
Find a photographer who gets it, someone whose portfolio feels like “you.” Hemingway tells a story differently than John Steinbeck, Picasso paints a scene differently than Matisse. Find that special photographer who tells stories in a way that appeals to you most. There are so many photographers – I promise you can find the right one!
There is something tangible and incredible about a great photograph. It is a crystallization of emotion, it is a story you’re still writing. It’s 1/1000 of a magical second, transcribed, immortalized, and it is powerful and so special.
You deserve to revisit why you love each other, the subtleties. You deserve to celebrate your love, to feel things when you see your wedding photos.
It’s not just for instagram. It’s real. Remember it.
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