As a photographer with a wealth of experience shooting with different subjects, two of the common buzz words that come up are photojournalistic and editorial photography, especially when it pertains to weddings. What do both of these terms actually mean? And what do they actually entail?
Oftentimes, photojournalistic refers to a style of photography that captures the moments of the wedding day with minimal input from the photographer. This style pays homage to street photography, where photographers would often wait and anticipate the right moments to capture. Just like street photography, photojournalistic photography is mainly taken without intervention or inputs from the subjects. Certainly, there are many beautiful images that are captured this way. However, the best images that result from this style require a combination of the ideal moment (to highlight something of interest), background/location (for good composition), and lighting (to bring the image to life). In many cases, especially without much input from the photographer in this style- the perfect alignment of all of these ingredients leaves much to chance.
This is where the benefits of editorial photography come in. Editorial is a type of photography style that is often associated with purposeful and artistic images that are crafted to showcase the subject. Many images in fashion magazines are considered editorial because of this, since the idea of fashion is to sell a dream, a lifestyle, and emotions that the viewer can identify with. However, in many cases, the subjects or models in fashion imagery do not have the raw emotions that are seen in other styles of photography like photojournalism. This is intentional to shift the focus of the images to the fashion, the colours, and the product(s) that are being promoted in the photograph. This focus away from the subject or model is also the result of the pace at which the images are taken, where the photoshoot itself occurs very quickly and without any time to connect with the subject. If we contrast this with classical portraiture, the emotions of the subject always come forth to the surface. As you can see, there is no perfect style of photography. Personally, I believe that being adamant on shooting in just one style is both unrealistic and uninteresting based on everything I discussed above. For example, our eyes are the windows to our soul, and being able to capture the raw emotions through a gaze at the camera is something both special and beautiful. This is not something that is prevalent in photojournalistic photography, and the images lose some emotional impact because of that. This is why I work in a narrative-driven style that prioritizes telling the story of your most important day. Whether it involves shooting as a photojournalist, an editorial fashion photographer, or just as a normal portrait photographer, (or even taking elements from each style), you can rest assured that you are getting the right style at the right moment without a need to put any labels on it
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