The Best of Wedding Photography.pdf - Free

1. THE EVOLUTION OF WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY
Like all art forms, wedding photography has
evolved over time. No era, however, has demonstrated
a greater advance than that seen in recent
years. The increased quality of the images
produced by today’s photographers has transformed the
industry and elevated wedding photographers to the respected
status of true artists. This has, in turn, raised the
bar financially. For the best of the best, wedding photography
can now be one of the most lucrative specialties in
the industry—a far cry from the “weekend warriors” of
forty years ago.
Today’s wedding photographer works unobtrusively. While he or she may
set up the situation, the participants define the action. Photograph by
Becker.
TRADITIONAL WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY
In the earliest days of photography, weddings were photographed
in styles that captured the bride and groom in
stuffy, overly formal poses. With the emergence of the
wedding album, which incorporated group portraits of the
wedding party and the bride and groom with family members,
posing remained stiff and lifeless—no doubt a byproduct
of the required length of early exposures. As the
style and variety of wedding photography progressed, posing
techniques closely mimicked the classical arts, and
there remain many flawless wedding portraits in evidence
today from those early years.
It is against this backdrop that wedding photography
evolved. In this early style, each shot was a check mark on
THE EVOLUTION OF WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY 7