What are the most demanded and highly paid wedding photography styles? Is it better to stick to one wedding photography style or combine several ones?
The first thing you should do is to discuss what style to follow with your potential clients. Choose among classical, artistic, themed, lifestyle, naked, fashion, portrait, photojournalistic, drone, etc. wedding photography styles that can make any bridal photoshoot memorable and wonderful.
Although the variety of styles is virtually limitless, it is better to turn your attention to the ones that are trendy this year.
Micro ceremonies and intimate celebrations. The popularity of grandiose wedding celebrations is fading nowadays, whereas intimate weddings become trendier, which has a considerable impact on the development of photography styles. Today photographers do their best to capture every important detail and emotion in more intimate settings.
Nature-friendly and sustainable tendencies. With the growth of people supporting sustainability, many couples choose eco-friendly wedding photography, so photographers started to conduct many festive photo sessions in outdoor locations under natural illumination.
Involving technology. Technological progress influences wedding photography styles considerably as well. Nowadays drone photography, VR experiences, and live-streaming to demonstrate celebration to remote guests are not a novelty in the wedding photography field.
Strong and vibrant color schemes. Strong and vibrant color schemes have become very popular today. Such bold palettes result in original photos filled with energy.
Moody and film-like photography. Wedding photography with a cinematic style can be recognized with deep shades and dramatic illumination. This shooting style is widespread among couples who want to get exquisite and emotional photos.
This classic style is characterized by the predominance of posed portrait photos. As a rule, traditional wedding photography involves the creation of images to organize in an album.
Usually, the newlyweds, their families, and other guests are captured in these photos. The main task of the photographer is to shoot important moments of the wedding, for example, the first kiss of the newly married couple.
The work in this style that requires a lot of time is usually spent on posing. Newlyweds can express their ideas and wishes regarding the content of pictures and the design of the future photo album.
Many wedding photographers prefer to work with natural light instead of using a flash. This technique is perfect for outdoor weddings. As a rule, the bulk of such modern wedding photographs are created in the so-called golden hour, when the lighting is optimal for shooting high-quality images with a predominance of soft and warm colors.
In order to start photographing in this genre, you need to learn the basic rules of working with light, shadows, and white balance settings. You can also try to practice this style during the pre-wedding photoshoot, which the future newlyweds often order.
This is one of the wedding photography styles based on capturing true emotions. Unlike many other genres, it does not involve posing. When working in this style, the photographers must become invisible to the guests and keep an eye out for all the important moments. This way, they can get incredibly lively and emotional photos.
In order to become a photojournalist, it is necessary to have extensive experience and good skills. A professional photographer should be able to focus on the most important things and capture the most touching moments lightning-fast. Also, a real expert should be able to change the camera settings quickly to place the necessary accents properly.
The main purpose of this wedding photo style is to photograph portraits of people on their wedding day. This photography direction is characterized by a large number of beautiful images that demonstrate sincere emotions as well as an atmosphere of happiness and excitement.
They can be staged or spontaneous. High-quality wedding portraits are usually the ones that couples admire the most.
This may seem unbelievable, but film photographers continue to work in many areas very successfully. Photography for weddings is an ideal direction for film shooting. Natural sunlight helps create incredible shots with a film camera. Unlike digital photos, film pictures are distinguished by soft, muted tones, creating a special nostalgic atmosphere.
Outdoor film pics are especially impressive. Such photos taken by film wedding photographers are always relevant and original. It is worth noting that such a photo session is quite expensive and can take a lot of time, but it’s well worth it, and many couples prefer this specific style.
This popular approach is a mixture of wedding photojournalistic and traditional styles. It is often used for engagement photography. The main feature of this style is the emphasis on composition, background, and lighting. This type of shooting implies spontaneity and demonstration of sincere emotions.
There are also some elements of landscape shooting style, as much attention is paid to the background. It should be the artistic basis of the photo, together with the pure feelings of the newlyweds. In order to succeed in this genre, you need to master the basics of photographing landscapes and look for inspiration from seasoned landscape shooters.
Based on the name of this wedding photo style, it becomes clear that its main purpose is to photograph people in places remote from their place of residence. Most often, such photo shoots take place in other countries.
In addition, there are many artistic details, as well as elements of the photojournalistic genre. Also, this style includes features of the editorial style photo, which is similar to images created for magazines and focuses on architectural and cultural features.
Artistic wedding photography is distinguished by a special emphasis on creative details. Its main purpose does not come down to capturing important events. A professional photographer working in this genre seeks to create an image similar to a work of art while realizing all clients’ wedding photography ideas.
In order to achieve this effect, it is necessary to pay special attention to lighting and composition. In addition, such photos require careful and long preparation and image editing. The work definitely pays off, as such creative & aesthetic pictures will never go out of style.
If you like to follow the creative trends of glossy magazines, you will definitely like this style. Such wedding photo shoots involve the creation of fashion-based pictures with high-quality backgrounds and interesting poses. To keep abreast of the freshest ideas, you need to look through popular magazines from time to time.
People often think that editorial and photojournalistic types of wedding photography are the same, but actually, there are many differences between them. For example, editorial style gives a photographer a leading role providing them with the power to include wedding photography props and play with various wedding photo poses during a session.
Commercial wedding photography involves features characteristic to commercial and editorial photography to produce amazing pics worth being published in well-known magazines. This style is not about capturing the events of the day but about creating a visually pleasing and exciting narrative.
This is a wedding photography style, where the main focus is on various objects like a cake, decorations, and flowers. Commercial wedding photography is rather formal and requires photographers a thorough planning of the composition, posing, and post-production.
This one is not among traditional wedding photography styles. Despite this, it has a large number of fans around the world. A lot of couples dream to make unusual underwater photos. Such pictures are filled with mystical and romantic images created by the underwater world.
The process of mastering this type of shooting is quite complicated. Besides, it requires special equipment. However, the results will be very original and really impressive.
If you want to follow all the latest photo trends and create unique wedding photography, you definitely need to master drone wedding photo style. It is worth noting that to work in this genre you need to have special professional equipment.
First, purchase a good drone with an installed HD camera. You will be able to capture the beautiful landscapes from the bird's-eye view. The composition is not a key element in this style, as any photo typically looks great from a high perspective. If the wedding ceremony takes place mainly indoors, finding a lot of good angles for aerial photography in such conditions is not a problem as well.
Shooting night photography is a real challenge for many photographers because there are many difficult moments associated with lighting. In order to create good photography for weddings in such conditions, you need to have professional equipment. You could use a radio trigger and an off-camera flash.
The modern market is filled with the most efficient and powerful hardware. Therefore, the search for these devices will not be a problem. In addition, you need to have special knowledge and skills. First of all, you should be able to work with the light and look for right-angle views, as well as set the correct camera settings.
Do you like to shoot fashionable looks, especially wedding dress photography? Use a style that places accents on the bridal outfits. This style is called wedding fashion photography. It is ideal for weddings and engagements, allowing you to create romantic and elegant images with a focus on the wedding clothes of the bride and groom.
A photographer working in fashion photography must be very meticulous. Also, this style is very posed.
Vintage wedding photography style is all the rage today. People like the feeling of nostalgia, evoked with such photos. Many newlyweds hold their wedding ceremonies in a rustic style, which indicates the relevance of this direction.
It is possible to get retro-style photos using the following ways: a photo shoot with a film camera, photographing with special filters that cover the lens of the camera and editing manipulations at the post-production stage. To give your pics a vintage feel, think of adding graininess to them and highlighting brown tones with sepia coloring.
Some people like color photos, while others appreciate the simplicity of black-and-white shots. Many photographers often turn their color pictures into black and white to hide some flaws associated with lighting. This is one of the wedding photography styles, where the main focus is on the objects.
Couples like to have some monochrome photos in their wedding albums. The photographers use B&W film to produce such pics, as well as convert colored shots into monochrome compositions at the post-production stage.
This is one of the most glamorous, theatrical, and posed styles of wedding photography. Lighting plays a significant role here. You need to learn how to work with it correctly in order to get beautiful shadows and silhouettes.
This style is characterized by dramatic backlit images and is great for creating unusual portraits. Keep in mind, that you have to spend quite a lot of time mastering the technique of working with additional wedding photography gear like off-camera flashes.
Unlike the previous example, this style is characterized by light and warm colors. Many wedding photographers use it in their work every day, and there are multiple samples in modern wedding photography blogs. Thanks to the pastel palette, you can achieve a light, romantic mood.
If you want to get gentle and elegant photos, you need to try to shoot in this marriage photography style. The background plays a special role here. It should be perfectly white and clean, without much contrast. Use low aperture values to get a blurry look.
This is one of the newest wedding photography styles. It is distinguished by unusual contrast and saturation of dark colors. It is worth noting that this type of photo is not for everyone. However, it has its own special atmosphere.
Dark colors and contrasting combinations of light and shadows create a dramatic mood. You cannot find pure white here. Light tones are complemented by shades of other colors. This modern style is something fresh and untrivial.
If you prefer more saturated and contrasting colors, you need to turn your attention to HDR marriage photography style. This direction is not very popular today, but still, there are many fans of this photo technique. The major disadvantage of HDR photos are too saturated, unreal colors resulting from improper processing. Very often, the skin tones in these pictures are very unnatural.
Also, working with moving objects while taking HDR images is a difficult task. To master this technique, it is necessary to pay particular attention to details. This applies to both the photographing process itself and further image editing. You need to try to find the right balance between the over-processed and realistic images to get eye-grabbing photos.
