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AUCKLAND WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER
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Auckland Wedding Photographer
NEWSROOMS TO WEDDINGS:
THE TRANSITION
What do the Beehive, Eden Park and crime scenes have in common? All prove to be fertile training grounds for news photographers who have made the switch to wedding photojournalism.
The path from the newsroom to photographing the bride and groom is well-worn, even more so now that wedding photojournalism has been on the rise. That’s in part because photographing events for a newspaper or wire service is little different than documenting a wedding for a family, save for maybe an extended deadline.
The transition isn't’t always seamless, although there’s nothing like a you-can't-fail, one-time-only news event with a deadline looming to prepare a photographer for documenting a wedding. In both news photography and wedding photojournalism, the photographer slinks to the background, observing, waiting and anticipating a moment to be captured and displayed as a reminder of the day, as part of a story.
In the latter case, the photos tell the entire story. But in both instances, it's hard to shake the notion out of the photographer that “it isn't a news event”. Wedding photojournalists, normally approach their wedding assignments with the intent of telling a story from start to finish, as they would in the case of a news assignment.
GETTING THE FIRST TASTE
Not surprisingly, many WPJA members took to documenting weddings on the heels of colleagues who also made the switch. The transition was helped by observing wedding photojournalism in action, and the final results. Traditional wedding photography, involving plenty of heavy direction and unnatural poses, would be offensive to any former newspaper photographers.
“I hated the idea of a traditional wedding photographer,” says WPJA award winner Justin Ide, a onetime photographer for The Boston Herald. “But the market changed, the desire of clients changed, and they came around to the style I was doing.”
Weddings have the same set-up. You know there's going to be kisses, dances, speeches, and cakes. That framework means you can anticipate a moment to capture. The practice from anticipating the moment at a news event translates well to the reception hall. “When it happens, we have to capture it. We can't miss it,” Zich says.
Yet there are some differences between the two crafts. For one, you're a welcome guest at a wedding, which isn't so for some news events. Also, at weddings you don't have throngs of competing photographers to go up against. With a news event, a photographer would be lucky to get more than one shot into the paper or onto the wire. That preconceived idea can change the photographer's thinking. “You realize there's much more than that one picture,” Zich says.
But wedding photojournalists also get an unprecedented amount of access to the subjects they're shooting, sometimes spending more than half a day shooting and snapping hundreds of photos that are seen by the audience. “I approach weddings as a documentary project for the day because that's really what it is,” Ide says.
VALUABLE SKILLS
In addition to learning how to use a camera, news photojournalism teaches potential wedding photojournalists how to use available light as well as how to think on their toes.
Working for a newspaper has taught photographers to take shots like “overalls” and “scene setters” that show an event in different perspectives, such as shooting a press conference from afar as well as getting a close up of the speaker. Those pictures help the event or wedding come across as a live, dynamic story rather than just staid photographs.
News photographers are also known for their personalities in being able to loosen up a subject and make them feel comfortable to avoid that “deer-in-the-headlights look,” as Ide says.
When wedding parties insist on snapping some posed photos or group shots, there are skills from the news photojournalism days that can help get through this as well, Zich relates. Frequently, as a news photographer, you get only a couple of minutes to shoot a profile of a celebrity or other figure. “It's great training for a quick, good picture,” Zich says.
And if there's one other thing that working photojournalists have learned from the media, it's learning to live under the pressure of a deadline. Whether it’s a week or two after the wedding that the pictures are due, it's surely more manageable than a newspaper deadline bearing down on you daily.
The rise of wedding photojournalism has helped introduce a number of talented and accomplished news photographers to shooting weddings. As the genre continues to grow, you can be sure that more news photographers will try their hand at capturing that perfect moment, regardless of whether it lands on the front page.
— by Paul Ziobro for The Wedding Photojournalist Association
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bio
Keith Scott has been a professional photographer for over 30 years and has worked in New Zealand, Australia, UK and USA.
He was trained as a photojournalist and knows all about deadlines and being discreet.
Getting the shot is vital and Keith achieves this without taking over the day and with minimal fuss.
He has had photos published in every major NZ publication and is also a published author.
Keith was the first photographer to use digital cameras in NZ and has a high degree of skill in the editing phase. |