Recording Images "As Is" or not.

When it come to portraits, whether wedding or not, we should make the subject look as good as possible. This includes smooth skin, smoothed out wrinkles, etc.
This has always been the way. Why else would the large format photogrpaphers of old have used such things as variable soft focus lenses and retouching desks?

Dave Parker said:

Snegron,

You were hired because they already like your style, or they would not hire you!

You are hired and paid to do what they want and how they want their wedding documented, your feelings really don't come into it as long as it is:

1 Legal
2 Ethical

There is nothing more or nothing less to take into account, people hire photographers for one simple reason, they like your style and they want you to document their event in the manner they are paying for, it is pretty plain and simple, my artistic sense does not come into the equation when I am negotiating a contract with a client that is paying the bill, I will document the event in the manner in which they want, I always meet with my clients at least twice to discuss the manner in which they want their wedding documented, then I send them a check list with the shots they think they want and let them decide, then that is what I do, period plain and simple, it is their day, they are paying big bucks based on the samples I have showed them and chose to hire me, if I want artistic shots that I can use for my portfolio, then I hire a model and rent the props and take the pictures...

Bottom line, you were hired to do what the client stipulates at the signing of the contract...period. That is why it pays to develope several different styles to meet the needs of any client you might run into.

Dave

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And Snegron,

More to the point.

If you don't like the terms and conditions of shooting wedding photos then get out of the business!

If you "blow" a wedding by acting like some kind of combo street shooter/papparazi sooner or later you are going to get your butt sued!

For crying out loud man, brides hire photogs to make them look like Cinderalla at the ball!

Get with it or get out of the business!

EDIT: Are you married?

copake_ham said:

For crying out loud man, brides hire photogs to make them look like Cinderalla at the ball!

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I do have to say George, that sums it up in one simple statement!!!

Dave

LOL

I'm guessing Dave and George said it all. Though I think George needs to not hold things in, and sugar coat stuff so much.

In the light of the AM I do apologize for my tone - overly harsh. But I stick with the thought behind it.

At a wedding, the photogs job is to make the bride look like the most beautiful and radiant woman on earth.

Sorry am I to say this but perhaps Photoshop maybe helpful here.

copake_ham said:

In the light of the AM I do apologize for my tone - overly harsh. But I stick with the thought behind it.

At a wedding, the photogs job is to make the bride look like the most beautiful and radiant woman on earth.

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True emotions in images can only be captured as they occur, not by posing them or creating them after the fact in a lab or on a computer. This applies to wedding photography as well. If captured properly, wedding images tell a true story of what emotions were present on that extremely important occassion. The responsibility of a wedding photographer is to capture that emotion on film (or digital). That first kiss as a married couple can never be recreated no matter how well you pose all parties involved. My skills a wedding photographer come from my past experience as a press photographer. I was shooting news events as they occurred many years ago, way before the "wedding photojournalistic photography" trend began.

As I see it, sloppy technique or the innability to capture images of events as they occurred is innexcusable. This applies to wedding photography as well. If you can't capture the moment as it occurred, then you are not doing your client any good. Faking the shots or drastically changing the appearance of the bride and groom just to make them look pretty is really not photography. It is just another cute carnival trick equivalent to those gimicky vending machines at the mall that snap a picture and turn you into something fuzzy or cute just to charge you a few dollars.

When a groom looks at his bride, he sees the woman he loves, percieved imperfections and all. Who are we to change what he or she saw in that person? If he married a Barbie Doll or an Ogre, who are we to change her appearance?

snegron said:

True emotions in images can only be captured as they occur, not by posing them or creating them after the fact in a lab or on a computer. This applies to wedding photography as well. If captured properly, wedding images tell a true story of what emotions were present on that extremely important occassion. The responsibility of a wedding photographer is to capture that emotion on film (or digital). That first kiss as a married couple can never be recreated no matter how well you pose all parties involved. My skills a wedding photographer come from my past experience as a press photographer. I was shooting news events as they occurred many years ago, way before the "wedding photojournalistic photography" trend began.

As I see it, sloppy technique or the innability to capture images of events as they occurred is innexcusable. This applies to wedding photography as well. If you can't capture the moment as it occurred, then you are not doing your client any good. Faking the shots or drastically changing the appearance of the bride and groom just to make them look pretty is really not photography. It is just another cute carnival trick equivalent to those gimicky vending machines at the mall that snap a picture and turn you into something fuzzy or cute just to charge you a few dollars.

When a groom looks at his bride, he sees the woman he loves, percieved imperfections and all. Who are we to change what he or she saw in that person? If he married a Barbie Doll or an Ogre, who are we to change her appearance?

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If she asks us to change her appearance, then we do that...I am sorry, I have been shooting weddings for over 20 years now and studied under one of the best in the country, right there in Florida, because of his teachings I have made a very good living when I choose to shoot a wedding, your letting your press training cloud you thinking, to tell the truth in the press is required as we well saw a couple of months ago when the AP photographer manipulated images about the war...weddings for the most part are fantasy, we are hired to fullfill the visual aspect of that fantasy as required by the people paying your paycheck...press work has nothing to do with wedding work, it is an entirely different business, if your not doing what your client is paying you to do, then you are doing your client as well as yourself a dis service, this is the one day the bride CAN have the fantasy, and she normally expects the photographer to capture that fantasy, if your a press photographer shooting a wedding looking for the nitty gritty, I would be surprised as your pictures get out there, if you get much work, they don't want photojournalistic captures, they want the fantasy, perhaps your confusing the use of the term "Photojournalistic" in the wedding field "Photojournalistic" is the moving around and captureing the events as they happen, it don't mean you don't do what your customer requests to make them look their best, weddings now a days are far different then the studio shots of 30 years ago, they want a mix, they want to look their best and that is part of our job. If you want to be a press photographer, then work for the press, if you want to be a wedding photographer, then learn a few new skills on fullfilling your clients wishes.

This is about as bad as the big blow up a while back about keeping negatives...

Geeze, some photographers, really over think things and don't realize how much money it costs them.

Dave

Dave Parker said:

If she asks us to change her appearance, then we do that...I am sorry, I have been shooting weddings for over 20 years now and studied under one of the best in the country, right there in Florida, because of his teachings I have made a very good living when I choose to shoot a wedding, your letting your press training cloud you thinking, to tell the truth in the press is required as we well saw a couple of months ago when the AP photographer manipulated images about the war...weddings for the most part are fantasy, we are hired to fullfill the visual aspect of that fantasy as required by the people paying your paycheck...press work has nothing to do with wedding work, it is an entirely different business, if your not doing what your client is paying you to do, then you are doing your client as well as yourself a dis service, this is the one day the bride CAN have the fantasy, and she normally expects the photographer to capture that fantasy, if your a press photographer shooting a wedding looking for the nitty gritty, I would be surprised as your pictures get out there, if you get much work, they don't want photojournalistic captures, they want the fantasy, perhaps your confusing the use of the term "Photojournalistic" in the wedding field "Photojournalistic" is the moving around and captureing the events as they happen, it don't mean you don't do what your customer requests to make them look their best, weddings now a days are far different then the studio shots of 30 years ago, they want a mix, they want to look their best and that is part of our job. If you want to be a press photographer, then work for the press, if you want to be a wedding photographer, then learn a few new skills on fullfilling your clients wishes.

This is about as bad as the big blow up a while back about keeping negatives...

Geeze, some photographers, really over think things and don't realize how much money it costs them.

Dave

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Luckily, in the end I have maintained my integrity and kept true to the art by capturing the event as it occurred. I'll leave the cheesy carnival tricks up to others who operate that way. If this means less clients, so be it. There are many of us who still strive to maintain photography as what it was created to do, capture a moment of reality without the biased perception of an artist. A wedding is a very important moment in time. I am very specific with my clients and let them know that I am there to capture that moment as it occurs. If they accept this, then I am contracted. If not, I am sure they will have no problem finding someone else who can fulfill their fantasies. I don't lose any sleep over it.

snegron said:

Luckily, in the end I have maintained my integrity and kept true to the art by capturing the event as it occurred. I'll leave the cheesy carnival tricks up to others who operate that way. If this means less clients, so be it. There are many of us who still strive to maintain photography as what it was created to do, capture a moment of reality without the biased perception of an artist. A wedding is a very important moment in time. I am very specific with my clients and let them know that I am there to capture that moment as it occurs. If they accept this, then I am contracted. If not, I am sure they will have no problem finding someone else who can fulfill their fantasies. I don't lose any sleep over it.

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I wish you well,

you asked the question, already knowing the answer that you wanted to hear, most of us, didn't give that to you, so now we are cheesy carnival operators...I do take offence at your assumptions, but won't lose any sleep over it either, I have been doing this a long time and have thousands of very happy clients, this summer was a ball, I was doing weddings for grandkids of the first clients I shot many years ago.

Good luck, just be careful what you call other photographers, what works for you may be quite a bit different than what works for others, don't make it wrong or right, just different..remember the first photographers of the 1800's did what their clients wished, and that included moving bodies during the civil war to achieve more impact, didn't make it right or wrong as that was the norm back then, stick to you guns..

Dave

snegron said:

There are many of us who still strive to maintain photography as what it was created to do, capture a moment of reality without the biased perception of an artist.

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I don't recall that as what it was created to do at all. Wasn't it initially begun while looking for a way to make the creation of decorative patterns more economical?

Your definition kind of tosses out the whole "pencil of nature" idea too.

Sorry, but I ain't biting. You're really trying to equate a thing with a photograph of that thing, which is a very serious fallacy. At best a photo is a tracing of an event. But that doesn't mean that it is the event as it was perceived, much less as it "is." While you claim to be attempting to bypass the "biased perception of an artist" you seem to be carrying some extremely strong biases about the nature of photography (much less photographic history)!

You go to a place, you see a thing, you make: a picture. Flat, no motion, limited range of colors, one point a view, no smells, silent. Why would you call this "true"?

If you were hired by the venue's insurance company, you may want narrow documentation. But for an emotional event, where you are there in service of those specific people having a strong emotional moment, the desired photos are not merely to show noun, noun, noun, but rather to show verb, verb, verb -- the experience, the feeling, the connections between people. These perceptions often don't connect in a 30th of a second (or a 10,0000th with strobe) without some coaxing but they are the core of the job. "Photojournalistic style" (your quotes!) isn't newspaper work, it's a style, and it imposes some iconographic ideas onto the material -- but the underlying essence of the material is still there. Think about the origins of that style in the first place -- it's still a fairytale illusion, the bride is after the illusion of photos that have the appearance of society-page shots (mixed with some advertising artifice). She's not after front-page coverage.

The best wedding photos, imo, show the bride why the groom thinks she's beautiful, and show the groom how much she loves him for it. Emotion. Connection. Validation of what they hope is the Great Love of Their Lives.

Servicing the values of the wedding should be the primary interest in the "integrity" of the wedding shooter. Trying to make some unseen picture editor happy is... well, grotesque and sounds dismissive of the reason these people were gathered in the first place.

(PS: I'm off in a couple of hours to the local NPPA chapter mtg, where some folks from the local Papers will be lecturing on manipulation. Hope they're not equally blind to the idea that a photo can't EVER be fully honest in its description)

Hey, I'm just glad he didn't photograph my wedding. Our photog captured my wife as the most radiant woman on the planet. He captured the joy and excitement of the day. The pride of my father-in-law and the pagentry of the wedding service.

Fantasy? Damned right - and it was ours!

BTW, if we'd wanted Weegee to shoot our wedding, we would have asked for Weegee!

bjorke said:

The best wedding photos, imo, show the bride why the groom thinks she's beautiful, and show the groom how much she loves him for it. Emotion. Connection. Validation of what they hope is the Great Love of Their Lives.

Servicing the values of the wedding should be the primary interest in the "integrity" of the wedding shooter. Trying to make some unseen picture editor happy is... well, grotesque and sounds dismissive of the reason these people were gathered in the first place.

(PS: I'm off in a couple of hours to the local NPPA chapter mtg, where some folks from the local Papers will be lecturing on manipulation. Hope they're not equally blind to the idea that a photo can't EVER be fully honest in its description)

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I apologize for not including the first half of your quote, I do respect your opinion. I did want to emphasize the last part of what you mentioned though. I agree with your notion that the photos should show the bride why the groom thinks she is beautiful. It is my belief that a couple have already discovered the reasons for their attraction to each other prior to their wedding day. A perfect example is when I got married many years ago. I instructed the photographer to record the event as it occurred. There was no touching up, dodging, burning, etc. I still have that album and I enjoy seeing my bride as she really was, the woman I fell in love with and married, not some idealized concept of what a woman was supposed to look like per the advertising world of the day. Her percieved imperfections were what made her human and unique.

As for servicing the values of the wedding, what defines "values"? This brings us back to the dillema of either recording the event as is or creating a mood to satisfy a client. Making an "unseen editor happy" is not the goal either. This would simply be replacing the bride and her fantasy with another client's fantasy. I just try to capture the event as it occurred represented by the emotion displayed by the subjects.

As for capturing something flat or with lack of emotion, I must disagree. I strive to capture the expressions of emotion. It is the foundation upon which my entire style is based. My goal is to capture the emotion of the couple on film of a day that only comes around once in a lifetime. It is nice to see clients happy when they get their album, but it is a more overwhelming sense of joy when they relive the emotions they experienced during their scared event. Again, I do value your opinion and respect your different point of view. Your feedback is one of the reasons I enjoy this forum so much.

copake_ham said:

Hey, I'm just glad he didn't photograph my wedding. Our photog captured my wife as the most radiant woman on the planet. He captured the joy and excitement of the day. The pride of my father-in-law and the pagentry of the wedding service.

Fantasy? Damned right - and it was ours!

BTW, if we'd wanted Weegee to shoot our wedding, we would have asked for Weegee!

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Unlike me, Weegee was a sensationalist. Remember his classic picture of Nikita Khrushchev back in 1959? The one where he distorted his facial features? That is the opposite of what I do. As far as I am concerned, he staged many shots to create his sensational images. I don't stage shots. If I have to stage a shot for a client, it is not one that I would consider including in my portfolio. It does not represent my style. You are happy with your style, it works for you. I am happy with my style, it works for me.

p.s. I did not take offense to your "harsh critisism" on your first repsonse to this thread. The beauty of our imperfect world is further seen through our differing opinions. However, it might be less stressfull for you if you understood that when you open the gates by critisizing someone, that person might just disagree with you and possibly say something that strikes a nerve. I enjoy this forum and welcome differing opinions.

It sounds like we have two photographers with two different styles and philosophies about how they handle an event.

So why the animosity. Why would we all want to or expect to shoot the same way. That's the beauty of it.

A bride shops around, finds a style she likes and hires the person. Everybody's happy. Apparently.

Except us?


Michael

Blansky
I would add and third one, painter. Probably in this case he would be the best fit.

Snegron
Wedding "photography" has another way. It is commercial photography not art photography. It has ONLY ONE goal: monney, how to transfer some money from bride's account to photg's account, period. People, like in any other business, do any tricks to get monney, and in this "photography" is nothing different: use photoshoping as need. Give them images, not photographs, they expect, take money and go to the beerstore. Hick.

www.Leica-R.com

I'm currently rereading Sontag's "On Photography", which is essential reading for anyone interested in the question of the veracity of photography. Although I may differ with her on some ideas, what I fundamentally agree with is the idea of photography giving the initial impression of visual fact, while simultaneously revealling little or nothing about the underlying truth.

She speaks of photographic vision as essentially surrealistic - a surface impression tending toward visual fact (i.e. these objects/subjects appear to be "real") but the context being absolutely disconnected from where the camera was at the time of exposure. Which is why photography can be/is powerfully used as a marketting/propaganda tool.

To misquote Winogrand, photography only truly reveals what something looks like when photographed.

I'm also interested in another aspect of your question, which is how photography fits into the larger field of printmaking and 2-dimensional visual art in general. For example, it may be factual to state that some of Da Vinci's sketches may be more "truthful" than many photographs. In the sense that, rather than being merely optical representations, they are an interpretation, based on some inner subjective insight, which may reveal more than a photographic image can.