Thinking outside the box: a creative couple's "anti-engagement" Shoot

BY MICHAEL BUSSE

AS WEDDING photographers, we’re always collaborating with our clients. They have their own style, level of comfort with the camera and artistic background. It’s up to us as photographers to follow a client’s vision when what they want expands past normal garden varietals. Having taken a non-traditional approach with our photography before, we attracted Mar and Doug, a couple who were searching for more than simple coverage.

It started with a simple inquiry. Mar and Doug wanted a shoot referencing the 1960s cinema they loved, films like Dario Argento’s Suspiria and Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le Fou. The couple’s wedding Pinterest board was a kaleidoscope of their love of sexual tension and vintage intimacy. I dipped into some of the films on the board, looking at how characters dressed, the camera angles, the lighting, the film quality, their body language, the plots and subtle intensities. I built bridges connecting these movies and Mar and Doug’s love story, which involved a long-distance relationship and a lot of time spent on trains.

With a separate day before the actual wedding, we constructed a shoot with Dario Argento-esque lighting, throwback hair and makeup, a vintage wardrobe, and a mix of film and digital. We shot at a gorgeous house in Ditmas Park and downtown Brooklyn’s Transit Museum, to serve as a nod to their relationship.

For the shoot, they became characters in their own play. It started with them expressing distance, longing and need. Eventually I wanted them to come together, without quite trusting the fact that they were in each other’s arms. They got so into character that we blurred the lines of what an engagement shoot is. It was hard to recognize it as such, which was what we were going for.

BY REBECCA YALE

As wedding photographers, we are usually hired for the wedding day, with the occasional client adding on coverage for other events. A destination wedding, however, presents a unique opportunity to capture not just the day itself but to tell a long-form documentary story where we capture the essence of the wedding weekend.

By documenting the bride and groom over multiple days, I am given the opportunity to get to know them better and approach the weekend as a documentary, travel and portrait photographer all rolled into one. Staying either with or nearby the couple means we can capture inbetween moments that make our coverage multi-dimensional.

I craft my stories with layers for an in-depth story of a celebration unfolding over multiple days. My approach begins by establishing wide landscape shots then midrange shots—like portraits and documentary moments—and, finally, moving in tight for details and still-life images.

For a wedding I shot in Ravello, a village on the Amalfi Coast in southern Italy, I stayed at the same hotel as the guests and created a flexible coverage package. The extra days on site meant I was available to capture the couple during the often overlooked in-between, comingand-going moments. I was able to capture establishing shots of Amalfi’s staggering cliffs, shoot an intimate mini-engagement session in nearby Positano, forage for Ravello’s famous lemons, lush greenery and Limoncello for detail shots, and shoot postceremony portraits among the gorgeous Italian architecture.

BY ANNA AMBROSI

“We don’t want to spend too much time standing around taking group pictures.”

Hands up if you have ever heard that type of comment from a client. At the very beginning of my career, I could see their point: My clients wanted to enjoy the party, not tick boxes on a shot list. After a couple of years, I adopted a different point of view.

Some clients who wanted “just candid moments” came back after their wedding and asked for specific pictures with specific people, whether it was because a family member was pressuring them or because they regretted not having them taken. After my own wedding, the pictures dearest to my husband and I were the group portraits.

I began to research a better way to take family formals at weddings. I soaked in inspiration from old family pictures and recent fashion group shots by Annie Leibovitz and James Van Der Zee.

I understood that I needed to have the couple and family fully on board to pose and take the time to get to the result I was aiming for, so I decided to offer family formals as an add-on service. That guaranteed that families who elected to participate knew what was coming, particularly because I aim to take the stylized portrait between the ceremony and the reception.

With these portraits, this is the story I want to tell: a unique moment in history in which two families, with all of their millions of stories and heritages, become one. Everything is set aside to make room to celebrate the one thing that connects us all: love.

BY SANDRA COAN Studio photography used to be the standard. If you wanted a family photo, you went into a studio. That was how it was done—for years. But by the 1990s, the popular style was photojournalism and that gave way to lifestyle.

Capturing families at home or in a park feels authentic and saves money otherwise spent on rent.Many photographers I have spoken to shared that despite the popularity of lifestyle family photography, they are being drawn to the classic look of studio portraiture and more clients are asking for it.

For the past 13 years, I’ve worked exclusively in a studio. I work with two backdrops, use studio lighting and shoot film. The “modern twist” in my portraiture comes from less-structured posing. My goal is to create images that have connection, emotion and spontaneity, but with a classic studio aesthetic. Shooting in a studio has allowed me to scale my business and stand out in a saturated market. Most importantly, clients like the convenience of coming into a studio and rave about my “clean, timeless” look. There is a strong demand for studio work.Los Angeles photographer Caroline Tran is known for her soft, modern studio portraits, while Taura Horn, a family photographer, has found shooting in a studio to be convenient for both her and the families she shoots. Patrick Le shoots primarily lifestyle family photography, but has added studio work by demand.

“I think people want something classic, something that has longevity and will stand the test of time,” Le says.

After a few years of taking photos on Bora Bora, Helene Havard moved to Tahiti, where she carved out a successful wedding photography brand.

“We don’t really have photographers coming from the U.S. in Tahiti, as it is a very expensive destination and very few people can afford to bring their own photographers,” she says. “Plus, there’s already plenty of photographers in French Polynesia and couples can find anything they need here.”

In 2015, to stand out in a crowded marketplace, Havard started taking photos by drone with her husband, Samuel, from Flying World Pictures. “In spring of 2016, we gained international recognition for our drone wedding photography,” she says. “Since then, we’ve incorporated it as an upsell to our customers, along with video.

“Our ability to find new spots to shoot in also makes us more competitive—we know the place we live in extremely well, which benefits our clients greatly.” Some of her favorite locations to shoot include the island of Moorea and Huahine—“they are the most connected with nature,” she says.

The secret to thriving in an exotic location and staying competitive as a destination photographer in your own backyard boils down to three mantras, Havard sums up: “Always innovate, stay creative and use the knowledge you have as a local shooter about your home base to your advantage. Someone coming in from afar will never know everything you know.”