Slideshow.

To Tweak Or Not To Tweak?

That really is the question!

When I started on the journey to make the "Masters of Wedding Photography" films back in 2004-2005 and again for the second in the series a couple of years later; I had probably been in a position that no other photographer on earth had been in before. I had had the opportunity to watch ten of the most skilled wedding photographers in the world shoot: from start to finished product.

That is to say, I watched them photograph their clients and then watched what happened to the images in post production. Not from all of the ten but of the few who used photoshop as a means of creating art from the images they had just captured.

The contrast in styles are very apparent in the images but it's the ethos of the photographers that really brings me to the question of this post, "To Tweak Or Not To Tweak".

The very thing that makes Yervant for example, shine, is the manipulation of his images until the final look is acquired. He himself has said this on countless occasions and has said to me personally that the post-production is a critical factor to his mind. "An image not manipulated is unfinished" to be precise.

A year before the making of Masters of Wedding Photography,

Martin Schembri told me, "I don't care how it's achieved as long as it is" when talking about an image of his own that to me, looked for all the world, like a rembrandt painting.

That brings me to the opposite side of this ethos and the work presented by "Photojournalists" like Denis Reggie, Jeff Ascough and George Weir all of which pronounce a preferred "non-manipulation" of their images in post production, yet most if not all, do in some way manipulate the images they produce: whether by conversions to black & white to various sepia tones etc.

So what is the thinking of those two camps?

I have mused on this over the years and I remember a well known wedding photographer saying to me that another photographer whose work we were discussing, "didn't' have the skills,(digital) to produce the kind of work produced by Yervant.

This Photographer himself was one firmly in the "non-manipulation" camp and the comment surprised me. Was this the same for those whose images are left virtually untouched?

Did they lack the skills? It's worth thinking about.

The conclusion I have come to over this question though is really by way of a question. Just what is manipulation of an image?

Before the age of digital capture and computer post-production we had film, and before colored film we had the choice of black and white or nothing at all. When color film became available photographers still shot black and white film by way of choice.

Now, in those days, professional photographers developed their work in dark rooms and the process included, how long an image should sit in developer and just when to pull that image and "fix it" along with dodging and burning and a multitude of other treatments. In short "manipulate".

So the question should really be, "To Tweak a Bit or Quite a Lot" or to produce images as closely as possible as the human eye has observed it. Even this approach though, would require a degree of manipulation.

I must admit at this stage that I have a preference for images that look natural and unposed and I love good black and white images above just about any other. The thing is though: those images are not natural and they are not what the eye sees. We as photographers make the choice wether to convert to black and white or to leave an image in color or we make the decision to load mono as apposed to color film.

Those choices are not just artistic ones. They are, in their own way, manipulations before the image has even been taken.

I have just shot a wedding that for some reason just didn't look that great to me with normal post-production work and so I started to mess around with color and textures.

Two of those images I have posted below. My choice was governed by my need to see the images the way I did in my mind when I shot them.

To me then the answer to this question is quite simple....."To Tweak Or Not To Tweak"?

If you think it needs it and the image will benefit as a result!

Or... as Martin Schembri put it, "I don't care how it's achieved as long as it is".

Understanding Photography Styles

Recently I have been trawling through some popular wedding magazines and noticed just how many so called "styles" of photography there seems to be within the pages of those publications.

It seemed to me though, that a lot of what is printed is actually very confusing for potential brides and grooms looking to book a professional wedding photographer.

Notice that the end of the last sentence was "professional wedding photographer" the emphasis on the word "wedding". Although there are lots of great photographers out there, I think it's important to sort out just who is who and what is what!

Let me explain: Knowing what I know as a wedding photographer, I would never book anyone to shoot a wedding that was anything other than a full time wedding photographer. Those photographers who's sites have buttons leading to links for "commercial, portrait, corporate or any other kind of work are not professional wedding photographers in my humble opinion.

A professional wedding photographer is somebody that earns a living from shooting nothing but weddings one hundred percent. I'm sure there will be tons of photographers that would disagree with this statement but to me it's simple to understand.

If you bake cakes all week and shoot weddings at the weekend then you are an amateur wedding photographer. If you fix cars from Monday to Thursday and shoot weddings on a Friday and Saturday then you are an amateur wedding photographer. And if you use a camera to shoot news articles or fashion or corporate commissions all week long but shoot weddings at the weekend then you are an amateur wedding photographer.

The reason is simple: weddings are like nothing else. they are not like shooting sport or fashion or corporate or news or anything else and they come with a very specialized set of problems.

So to get back to the start of this post: the first thing for a bride and groom to know is that the person or persons commissioned to shoot their big day is truly a "professional wedding photographer".

The next thing to understand as far as the B&G are concerned is to put into context the seemingly endless variety of photographers styles. So at this point I would like to attempt to clear a few things up for potential clients when it comes to actually understanding what those differences are and how to tell which is for you and which are not.

Lets start with the oldest and most recognized. Classic: This is where wedding photography went when it came out of the studio and onto the event itself. The old masters had to garner the kind of experience and skills that would make your average persons eyes water. lighting, large and medium format cameras, tripods, light meters and sundry equipment where the order of the day.

This kind of wedding photography required lighting and posing skills that is very rarely seen today. This style however is by no means dead and there are still a lot of photographers that shoot this way and in this fashion.

Classic wedding photography is for the most part very formal and the shots are carefully posed in lighting that is directed by the photographer whether natural or artificial. Arguably the most famous wedding photographer whose method fits this description is Monty Zucker.

The second style mostly advertised by photographers today is Contemporary : This style of photography is heavily steeped in photographic art and digital manipulation in the post processing stage.

The avant garde look of the final image can actually be light years away from the original and can have various digital treatments to produce the final look. like paintings they can be very hard to define and come in a variety of flavours.

The end result of the images will very much depend on the skill and the particular taste of the artist who creates it.

As for the shoot itself; the photographer takes control here to the extent that a huge part of the proceedings are given over to photography even more so than the old classic wedding photographers. The difference though is that the shoot can go from church to beach, street, city, or a mall escalator. The images can be really striking though, much like original artwork if you pick very carefully, the best person for the job.

Some five year ago I filmed the BBC documentary film Masters of Wedding Photography in the USA and Australia and had the opportunity to work alongside and film arguably the worlds greatest exponent of this style of wedding photography Yervant.

A word to the wise though: I have witnessed "final images" from some very well known photographers in this vogue that have been amazing but the rest of the images have been less than "works of art". Photographers like Yervant are very few and far between so if you are interested in this kind of coverage I would ask to see a considerable body of work from as many different commissions as possible.

Reportage or Photojournalist: Different names to describe covering the event as it actually happens. Now if it was that simple then that description would cover the whole term but it doesn't. This style of photography is probably the most popular at the moment as it comes with less to do on the side of the bride and groom than any other. The problem with this type of coverage is that it is stupidly attempted by so called photographers just starting out in this industry as the easy option.

They turn up with their kit with the attitude that if they shoot three thousand images they will have enough for an album. That may sound amusing but if a bride and groom have just paid the best part of their budget on photography and end up with this as a result then nothing but grief will ensue.

The truth is that this style of photography is without doubt the one most difficult to accomplish correctly.

I could share links here to websites of examples of this style gone wrong but there is so much of it that any bride or groom cruising the web is likely to have come across it.

This type of coverage is much more than someone showing up with a camera and clicking away.

It's about being in the right place at the right time. it's about anticipation. It's about available light shooting, even in low light situations. It's about much much more than being the owner of a pro-class camera. A perfect example of the right side of this style is Jeff Ascough.

The reality: Now that we have an understanding of the various plethora of photographic styles we can get down to the hard realities of wedding photography and choosing someone to cover the event.

It's important therefore to point out that there are endless variations of the above as well as those professionals who downright refuse to shoot outside of their chosen genre.

It's very likely that a bride and groom who appreciate the photographic skills of the reportage photographer would still like and expect to have the family group shots.

It's equally likely that the B&G booking the contemporary shooter will be looking for those "special moments" that are unrepeatable and unexpected.

So in my mind at least, even when, as a professional wedding photographer, you are booked on the strength of your photojournalistic or contemporary images it's important to strike a balance and be as flexible as possible in order to satisfy the clients.

Recent Wedding Images

A selection of some favorite images from last weeks three weddings. It's been really hot and the photography has been somewhat challenging with the contrast in light quality but all of our weddings have been great fun this year with a great buzz happening at all of them.

Two of the below weddings were in Donegal and the other in L/Derry.

All images were shot with Nikon gear. (See previous post for kit rundown).

Some New Images

Some images from our recent shoot at Solis Castle at lough Eske in the very beautiful Donegal. Bride, (Aisling) and Groom, (Ryan) were great to work with, it was a really pleasant day with warm but overcast conditions. Just perfect.

For the Photographers out there: all images are with a 17-55mm f2.8ED Nikkor and a 50mm f1.4G Nikkor apart from the image third from the bottom which was taken with an 80-200mm f2.8. This big heavy lens rarely comes out of the bag, but as it's impossible to get near the alter during the service I find it invaluable for those 'look of love' shots that happen almost always at this particular part of the proceedings. Then it goes back in the bag. The images below were all taken as they happened at the event and were unposed and without direction.

All are conversions from RAW. The third from the top is a split tone blue with a touch of pink in the highlights. You can click on any image to enlarge.

Portrait of Skye

Some Random Album Pages,(Click Images to Enlarge)