Horst P Horst said something to the effect that the quality of the image “…has to do with eye appeal”.

Eliot Erwit, in an interview with Australian photographer Peter Adams, said:
“Good photography is not about zone printing or any other Ansell Adams nonsense. It’s about seeing. You either see or you don’t see. The rest is academic. Photography is simply a function of noticing things. Nothing more”.

Okay…..I don’t fully agree with the Ansell Adams bit, but I do agree with the principle behind Erwit’s rather forceful statement.

I entered wedding and portrait photography when Monte (Zucker – website here) and the other wonderful guys from America were trying to educate us Aussie clods about posing and lighting. And they did a terrific job of it too. Most quality Aussie photographers owe a lot to Monte, Leon Kennamer and the like.

And quite so. Wonderfully simple lighting concepts (most of the time) and effective, elegant posing (all of the time) and above all else – animation and life in the subjects (something many photographers have forgotten in the search for perfect pose and perfect light!)

Here’s where my quote comes in: “Good Wedding photography is not about complicated posing, painted backdrops, sumptuous backgrounds or five lights used brilliantly. It is about expression, interaction and life! The rest is secondary”.

Elliot Erwit also said: ‘All the technique in the world doesn’t compensate for an inability to notice’.

(If I seem to quote lots of other photographers, it’s not me showing off, it’s simply a reflection of the richness of information already dispersed to us…we just don’t always remember. Or study. It’s also often easier to pin our hopes of greatness on a new lens, or another light)

But the most blindingly simple thing anyone ever said to me about Wedding photography, was also this simplest: “Weddings are a social ritual. What makes a Wedding different from all the other social rituals? How do you show someone a Wedding who has no idea what this event involves, or how it progresses”?
(Tony Whincup Anthropologist, New Zealand Master of Photography and educator in photography.)

You see I’d been led to believe that Wedding photography was all about the right pose, the right light and a written-down series of manufactured images.

And it truly is. But that is the beginning, not the pinnacle.

For me, the most important aspect in photographing a Wedding is involving yourself with the event and the people. It’s about the vivacity, the interactions and sheer life force that is bought to the surface. (I just love it when people think I’m a friend of the couple they just haven’t met yet, which happens to do photography!)

If you’ve studied and practised posing, observing lighting, and learned to assess an environment you’re halfway there. But how good are the images going to be if your priorities are with the technical, and not with the activity happening before you?

A beautifully posed and lit image of a subject who has gone dead-behind-the-eyes is exactly that. The subject has no FEELING in, or for the image. They may agree they look good, and in the absence of an alternative – they will accept the image.

There is nothing wrong with an image construction. Advertising photographers deal with it everyday. But still we come back to the essential of a people picture that goes far beyond technique. And that is the photographer giving life to the creation they have assembled. Otherwise, why would so many people say, so often, and with such conviction that they like “caught” images of themselves rather than the posed?

I challenge you to think of the eyes and entire body language of a person. You know when an attractive person is REALLY relating to you?…and you also know when that same attractive person is suffering from “The lights are on but no-ones at home”.

People go “dead-behind-the-eyes”. And it is the mark of the true Master photographer that you can see the life within – even in a solemn or reserved portrait.

Great looking people still have to be animated in a positive way to look great. The pose is a contributing factor to the success of the image – not the be-all and end-all.

We only have to look at the brilliant portraits made for such magazines as “Vanity Fair” to understand the importance of interaction and communication between photographer and subject.

Lastly,

The most distressing thing to hear from any photographer is that they’ve “Seen it all before”. Sad, because that means there’s nothing left to see. It’s something I try to never say, although I might well suggest great familiarity with it all. Every wedding has a skeletal resemblance, but the musculature is always different. Saying you’ve seen it all before removes your ability to react to, and respond to wonderful interactions. It makes you cynical. Cynicism is one of the greatest contributors to a lack of creativity. And if you cannot be creative – then how can you gain satisfaction and enjoyment from an occupation based on creativity?

In this day and age it surprises me that so many photographers believe there is only one attitude, one way of doing something, and one acceptable result. Take digital for example. The number of well-educated and experienced photographers who say, “The only way to get quality is on film” is unbelievable. They have obviously distanced themselves from the information and education surrounding digital. Or is it clinging to the known out of fear of the unknown? Are we afraid of having to learn new things and of being the “new boy again?”. I think the answer, for many of us, (sadly) is yes.

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