One question that I often get asked by brides is to describe my style because there are different styles of photography out there. . They want to make sure that the way I shoot will line up with what they want. For awhile I wasn’t really sure of my style, so I didn’t really know what to tell anyone. My style has changed over the years and now I understand more of who I am.
Different Styles of Photography
There are a lot of different styles out there in photography, and I’m not sure that all of them really have a name, so I might just kind of describe them. Originally I described myself as a photojournalist. To me, this means that you are trying to capture the events of the day as they really happened. You don’t really interact with people. For some shoots, this works very well. For weddings, it doesn’t really work that well. The opposite of the photojournalist is the poser. In the poser style, you tell the subject exactly what to do. You give them instructions throughout the whole process. This can make the photos beautiful, but it can take away from the natural feeling of the photos and might not be as fun for the subjects.
Besides those two, there are some other variations. There’s the fun guy. This style aims more at having fun and doing goofy things. The subjects might jump or laugh or doing things with props. Another style might be described as artsy. With this style, you are always trying to do something different an unique. It is much more than snapshots. A variation of the artsy style might be the fashion photography. You would try to match magazine covers and the subjects would be more like models. This can make some really cool looking photos, but the lack of smiles and posing might not be for everyone. I know this isn’t really exact, but I think this describes a lot of the styles.
Now, I’ve found that I do a lot of the styles above and it changes depending on the situation. For engagement sessions, I tend to be a poser and a fun guy. For bridal sessions, I aim to be more a poser, artsy, and fashion. For weddings, I’m a little bit of it all. I’ve also found that clients will want different things.
As far as different styles of photography go, I’m looking to focus more on artsy/fashion photography. I really like the more creative side of it. This might turn away some potential clients, but the ones that do come to me will probably value photography much more than others. That’s really what I want. I want to create something different that I can be proud of, and I want my clients to appreciate it as much as I do.
