What is Reportage style Wedding photography?

23 Mar What is Reportage style Wedding photography?

I have been shooting wedding pictures since I started by career in 2008. Very soon after starting my career as a wedding photographer, the reportage wedding style became very popular and well known. And hence, lot of my clients, ask me what is reportage wedding photography and I thought the best way to explain the idea of it, was to write a blog and explicate it with few of my sample images.

Reportage style

For those who are not familiar with professional photography, the broad range of styles and terminology involved in the practice can appear overwhelming. There are various types of photography style in the wedding industry; candid, classic or traditional, contemporary, reportage, black & white, the list is almost endless. Coming back to reportage, is a style of photography that depicts a story or event in a report-like fashion. Unlike traditional styles of photography, reportage photographs are often less formal and portray their characters in a pose-free way that occurs naturally & unnoticeable without being staged.

It’s basically a photo-journalistic approach to tell the story through pictures. We’ve all heard the popular phrase “A picture tells a thousand words”! A true photographer with reportage style will capture the events as they happen in a candid and unobtrusive fashion. It is completely opposed to traditional photography, which tend to control the pace and hold the day up by asking everyone to pose for the photographers. For many this can become frustrating and the resulting photographs would turn out fake – lacking narrative and character of the story.

Reportage Techniques

Reportage style is not that simple as it sounds in my explanation above, There’s more to it than just standing in the background taking photos of the day as it goes along. A reportage style photographer will spend a great deal of time familiarising themselves with your itinerary, venues and faces of an individual in order to capture a sense of perspective as well as natural looking photograph. A professional photographer will use their expertise and ideal techniques to optimise the light and backdrops available for every location of your wedding to ensure your day is documented in all of its glory and beauty.

The photographs produced from this very artistic form of photography are often real, candid and full of emotion, which is why the reportage style is perfect for the most special day of your life, though of course, it’s up to you to tell your photographer what you want. After all, it’s your wedding day!

Whether you are being married close to me in Lancashire or Manchester, further away in London or internationally with a destination wedding, my informal approach will help you to enjoy your wedding. Weddings deserve to be relaxed and enjoyed; and for that reason I choose to work in a fine-art documentary fashion for the majority of your wedding day.

A few reportage samples

Take a look through some of my documentary photography. If you are interested in this style, please get in touch.