What is Wedding Photojournalism? Below is an interesting article published in USA Today a few years ago. Happy reading.
Wedding photos, hold the cheese
By Jim Hopkins, USA TODAY
SAN FRANCISCO — Popular culture and technology are upending the $3 billion wedding photo industry — turning traditional pose-and-say-cheese photographers into paparazzi-for-hire.
Experts call the trend "wedding photojournalism." It's a style that rejects photos of brides gazing demurely at bouquets in favor of the edgier look of news magazines. "A slip showing, or a hair out of place, or maybe the little flower girl running across the altar in the middle of the ceremony," says Denis Reggie, one of the nation's most highly sought wedding photographers.
Statistics on the number of weddings that get photojournalism treatment aren't kept. But experts say the trend began in the early 1990s among the wealthy, then went mainstream about 5 years ago. Elizabeth Beskin, a partner in Sarah Merians Photography & Co. in New York, says about 90% of the 600 weddings her studio shoots annually include photojournalism — up from 10% in the mid-1990s.
Wedding and Portrait Photographers International, a trade association, recently boosted the number of seminars on the subject. And an Atlanta company, the Wedding Bureau, was launched 3 years ago to represent photojournalists — including Pulitzer Prize winners — who want to get into the field.
Wedding imagery is big business. As many as 100,000 photographers compete for 2.2 million weddings a year. Add a videotape, and the average cost is nearly $1,300 per wedding, about $2.9 billion a year.
Black-and-white photos in the manner of |
Life
magazine are hot. Videographers are adopting the photojournalism style. And advances in digital photography are bringing down costs, putting the style in reach of budget-conscious brides and grooms.
For many couples, photographs and videos are among the most expensive items in a wedding budget. That makes it all the more important to shop carefully.
Fees charged by professionals range from about $800 to well into the thousands. Prices depend on the time the photographer spends snapping photos or making a video and the number of prints and albums ordered.
The Internet is a good resource for advice and lists of professionals.
Capitalizing on the trend, photo giants Kodak and Fuji sell disposable cameras that brides give to guests to capture candid moments — with interesting results after the liquor flows. "You hear about some of the pictures they get under the table," says Los Angeles photographer Robert Evans, hired by Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston for their $1 million wedding last July.
Kennedy style spreads
Reggie — who charges $20,000 per assignment — says wedding photojournalism went mainstream in 1996. That was the year he was hired by the late John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette for their wedding.
Reggie's iconic photo of Kennedy spontaneously kissing Bessette's hand was plastered across the front pages and covers of more than 1,000 newspapers and magazines — further spreading the style's popularity to middle America.
Driving the trend:
-
Popular culture.
Today's brides and grooms grew up in an age of
People
magazine
, 60 Minutes
and, now, reality shows like
Survivor
and MTV's
The Real World
. Couples demand a more authentic, less varnished look.
"Reality became king," says Reggie, who photographed Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's 1997 wedding to TV journalist Andrea Mitchell.
Robert Thompson, a professor of popular culture at Syracuse University, worries the trend reflects the latest stage in a media-saturated American culture. "You are now not hiring a wedding photographer — you're now hiring paparazzi," Thompson says.
-
Technology.
Digital photography makes wedding photojournalism more affordable because it is less costly to process and edit than conventional film.
By Amy Deputy
After the wedding ceremony, Carol Lynne and Greg Howard spend a few moments alone together.
The average U.S. wedding costs about $19,000, excluding honeymoon, says
Bride's
magazine. Photography and videography average about 5% of the total — the third most-expensive item in the budget. Kodak wants photographers to push for closer to 10%.
Capturing real moments
With consumers willing to take more risks, traditional news photographers are drawn to a business once snubbed as cheesy.
Gary Higgins, 41, a former TV reporter in Lafayette, Ind., shoots videos in a style that combines the reality TV shows
48 Hours
and
The Real
World
— complete with interviews of family and guests. Armed with the latest technology — a $43,000 camera — Higgins says his work captures everything, including "the bumps and bruises."
Amy Deputy, 38, quit her job as a picture editor at the
Baltimore Sun
2 months ago after snapping her first wedding photo last year. Greg and Carol Howard hired Deputy for their wedding last October in Columbia, Md. They didn't want generic "cookie-cutter" photos, says Greg Howard.
"We wanted somebody who had an eye for that unscripted moment."
Tags: Wedding Photojournalism Harrisburg, Kalim Bhatti Photography, Documentary Wedding
