Naturalness in wedding photographs

When couples contact us asking for information about our services and our working method, usually they are in the need to have candid and natural photographs. In fact, today they talk a lot about candid wedding photography, reportage wedding photography, documentary wedding photography or again wedding photojournalism, but often in an improper way and only to ride the wave of the requests of the moment.
Indeed, it is not enough to profess to be a candid wedding photographer, but it is also necessary, in order:

• doing it;
• being able to do it;
• achieving excellent results;
• knowing how to reconcile the needs of the clients with our own.

So let's analyze in detail the 4 problems that you clients may have to face.

Giorgia and Fulvio are completely at ease in front of us: keep reading the article to understand how to get candid and natural photos!

What does mean reportage wedding photography?

The word Reportage or journalism is obviously borrowed from the journalistic world. The definition from Wikipedia, is:
Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on current events based on facts and supported with proof or evidence.

How can we therefore decline this term in the context of wedding photography?. Let's analyze the subject in detail!

Raffaella and Marco are getting ready for the ceremony: nothing is staged, despite the spaces available to us were not very large

How to realize a wedding reportage

Making a wedding reportage certainly means documenting the event, but should not think that it only includes candid photographs. To document an event it is necessary to tell it in all its parts, describe its context and environment, the people who revolve around it, with particular attention to the marrying couple.

The photographer must therefore be able to tell a story, to describe the bonds between people, to include the scenic elements that frame the event. He must be able to thrill not only the personally involved parties, but also a stranger who watches the photo shoot: with his photographs he must be able to convey sensations and emotions.

Serena and Leonardo in two representative photographs of their wedding, full of emotions

The wedding reportage will therefore consist of a series of photographs of different genres: some will be more descriptive, such as introductory ones to the various environments, some may be staged such as those of the wedding rings or accessories, others will tell the "behind the scenes" of the realization of the sets. But undoubtedly most of the photographs will be thrilling: it is the event itself that is imbued with emotions and is a catalyst for many spontaneous manifestations of joy, affection, love and fun.

How to achieve the best results

First of all, we are convinced that a photograph is capable of transmitting emotions only if the person who took it actually felt emotions at that moment.
The good photographer is the one who manages to portray a person (and therefore a feeling, an emotion) not as it appears, but in its essence. And to do so he cannot remain impassive while pressing the shutter button: the best photographic portraits, for example, are those that tell the story of the subject through the eyes of the photographer: who does not remember the Afghan girl by Steve McCurry?

But let's continue to talking about the wedding reportage. Photographers who specialize in wedding and couple photography like us work on dozens of weddings a year: how is it possible to ensure that this work is not mechanical, boring, detached? It's very simple: we want to get excited in order to transfer those emotions into our photographs and videos. It is the only way to let you relive that emotion with the same intensity you felt in that moment.
It is therefore necessary to be able to establish a deep and reciprocal connection with our customers, our couples. Precisely for this reason we created over the years a real working method, the Love Story Method, which allows to obtain this result, otherwise impossible to achieve.

In addition to the ability to get excited and know how to transfer those emotions into photos and videos, there are other elements that should not be underestimated that derive directly from that relationship of trust and complicity between us and our customers. Our presence will be taken for granted for you, we do not promise to be invisible because we cannot be and we always want to be inside the action, inside everything that happens, but we will be your friends with the camera, so you will feel completely at ease in our presence.
Here is the key point of everything: feeling completely at ease with us will guarantee you the comfort and the naturalness of your gestures, your looks and the authenticity of your emotions. Consequently, your relatives and friends, witnesses of our empathy, will be more inclined to be photographed and filmed and will hardly turn to us for classic photos with fake smiles.

Here are two examples of how we like to get into the action: we are really very close (even closer than it seems), but we are not considered a nuisance.

Obviously, experience, technical competence and professional equipment are also essential for building a qualitatively superior image. But they are useless without an enthusiastic photographer behind the camera!

Finally you should know that editing is an integral part of the creative process which ends with the delivery of your photographs and film of your wedding. To clarify with an immediate example how important editing is for us, imagine the photograph produced directly by the camera as the score of music. Well, editing is represented by that same music but played an orchestra.
It's ideal to have a single photographer who takes care of you throughout the entire journey from the first meeting to the delivery of the photographs and who takes care not only of pushing the shutter button, but also of the editing process. Only in this way the creative process will be authentic and managed as an handmade product, not an automatic one. Only in this way the final result will present no filter between you and your authentic emotions, which you will be able to relive as if you were going back in time.

On the left you will find a unedited photograph, on the right the same photograph after a careful editing work

How to reconcile the needs of the marrying couple with the artistic ones of the photographer

Usually you brides-and-grooms-to-be don't know anything about photography and you approach a photo studio for the first time in your life during the wedding preparations. Maybe you have experienced the wedding of some friend, but it is certainly not the same thing as being the protagonists of that day. It is right that you have no idea how the wedding photo shoot will be done in practice!
In addition, each photographer has his own working method, so everyone's needs can be different.
How can you be sure that you won't be faced with nasty surprises on the day of the event?

The solution to this problem lies simply in the sharing of information and intentions between the couple and the photographer.
It is therefore very important that not only the photographer talks to you in detail about his work, but also that you ask for information to dispel any doubt that may come to your mind: I advise you to always ask many questions, even if they may seem stupid to you. There are no stupid questions, at most there are stupid answers.

Two other real and candid moments: on the left a scene during the wedding dinner, on the right the groom picks up the bride to prevent her from walking in a puddle

Our task is to clarify our working method and explain all its phases in depth, as much as possible and with extreme sincerity.

We, in particular, request a lot of participation from you couples throughout the journey we do together, because we want to achieve three goals:

• your full confidence;
• your comfort and naturalness in our presence;
• when you look at your photo shoot, you will recognize yourself and go back in time reliving the same emotions as then.

For this reason:

• we will participate with you in the organization of the various moments of the wedding, providing you with advice to obtain the best result from a photographic point of view;
• we will customize the editing of your pictures according to your being, the emotions we will feel and the inspirations we will draw from the environments in which the wedding will take place;
• we will choose together the photographs that will be delivered to you;
• we will design together the photobook layout and its appearance in terms of materials, colors and graphics.

In short, your wedding photo shoot will truly be only yours because you will be an active part of the entire creative process.

Two examples of the photographs we love the most, those in which you are so much yourself as to laugh and have fun without thinking about anything else

Build a relationship with your photographer that goes beyond the professional one. Talk to him, ask him for advice, find out how all phases of the work will take place, from the first meeting to the delivery of your precious memories: it is the only way to get a heartfelt and passionate memory from whom you can experience it really moving.