“Wedding photojournalist” captures impromptu meth deal on “your special day”
July 2, 2007
Usually I would post photos on a Monday, but instead, I’m going to write about how batshit the term “wedding photojournalism” makes me.
Weddings — 98% of them — are pathological, and that includes the businesses that feed off of weddings like the male hairy angler attaches to a female. The sickening excess, the gift registry, the “my special day” bullshit and the fevered concomitant planning. All of that. I haven’t even gotten started. But every time I read something about “wedding photojournalism” I react like Tod Goldberg reading Marilyn Vos Savant in Parade magazine. (Disclaimer: This is not my personal crusade against a bad wedding that I had, because I’ve only had bad experiences as a guest. And, well, I’m sentient.)
What is photojournalism? Visual reporting. Visual reporting that is not for a client. From whom do you get approval when you’re a photojournalist? An editor. Not your CLIENT. Even if a photojournalist isn’t in Baghdad or at a mob trial, but capturing a small-town race or festival, he’s not doing it to please a client.
In a blog post on a wedding site, the bride concludes that she and her husband-to-be want a “wedding photojournalist,” and provide several pictures as examples. Funny how the “photojournalist” (not just this photographer) always catches the couple in a kiss, or running across a beach looking like a Hallmark card, or posed on the same beach holding the bouquet in front of the navel. How natural! How unstaged! It’s not a sitting portrait, so it’s “wedding photojournalism.”
Consider:
“…hates posed photos anyway so he was very into this idea of having a photojournalist. The candid heartfelt moments from our wedding are probably what we want to remember years from now. Plus if I’m not happy with the lack of “posed” photos, I know a million photographers in Chicago who could do some bridal portraits after the wedding.”
I think that any wedding photographer should do those kind of shots along with portraits. But don’t fucking call it “wedding photojournalism.” When your wedding photographer decides, during your wedding, to switch his allegiance from you to a photo editor (or just drops you as a client), and starts taking some wide-angle shots of a meth deal going down behind the meat carving table between the bride’s brother and the governor, or of a cock-fighting ring that’s operating in the limo, or of a trade of top-secret documents for weapons at the cash bar, and then sends those photos to his editor (or pitches them to several), then I guess you could call him a photojournalist — because he’d no longer be working for you, the client. But even if you managed to get copies of those photos, are they what you want as reflections of your special $28,000 day as a princess?
Entry Filed under: Observations. .
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1.
Anne Almasy | July 3, 2007 at 12:02 pm
We actually had lunch yesterday with a local news photojournalist who is starting to shoot weddings. We all laughed about how the term “photojournalism” doesn’t REALLY apply to weddings. After all, we’re not there strictly to provide a visual report of the day; we’re there to make our client happy.
So at some level, I agree with you.
But your complaint really only applies to terminology.
Call it whatever you want: photojournalism, documentary-style, organic, unposed, candids, whatever. The idea remains that a “wedding photojournalist” is trying to capture more than just the standard line-em-up portraits. We’re aiming for emotion and action. We want to tell a story about the couple. If that story involves the couple running down the beach looking like a Hallmark card, rock on.
No matter how much you despise the term, you surely can’t deny that “wedding photojournalism” has an appeal that the old stiff, 100% posed, “traditional” images did not have. I dare you to hire someone who is NOT a “photojournalist” and still wind up with the same fluid, evocative images.
A couple’s wedding day may be the only day in their lives when they are surrounded by all of their family and friends in celebration. There is no better opportunity for incredible photos demonstrating their love for one another, and the amazing support of the people who care about them.
2.
kineticloop | July 4, 2007 at 9:24 am
Anne, I love your photos. They’re the best wedding photos I’ve seen. Your group photos and your eye for details and unusual moments are really impressive. And if someone has to look for a “wedding photojournalist” to find a photographer as good as you are, then so be it.
My complaint does mainly apply to terminology, yes. The fact is, according to the NPPA, a photojournalist practices the “art of news communication by visual image.” Wedding photojournalists don’t act as trustees of the public or inform on public events, and don’t work through news organizations.
I don’t think I gave the impression that I have a problem with the “photojournalistic” style of wedding photography. I understand the aesthetic of the WPJA. The style comes closer to the NPPA’s ethics code than typical wedding photography, which is almost always staged and manipulated (It also suffers from a gag-inducing frequency of cliches.)
You needn’t defend the very concept of a wedding — I just loathe the ridiculous excess and cost of most of them.
3.
fairest | July 8, 2007 at 10:49 pm
this was great. heres to staying single!
4.
kineticloop | July 9, 2007 at 10:06 am
Thanks! Here’s to real photojournalists (especially those featured in VQR Summer 2007).