Aldy Way

Reportage wedding photography describes a style of photography that is discreet, unobtrusive and candid. It really is also recognized as wedding photojournalism, or documentary wedding photography, and it really is particularly suited for couples that want the emotion and feeling of their day captured on camera.

In a nutshell, it works likes this...

Your wedding photographer takes images of your day, as it unfolds, with minimal intervention. The challenge is for him to be in proper place at the perfect time, in order to not miss anything significant.

So for this cause you are going to have to be comfortable with your photographer 'following' you around for most of the day. He should really of course be discreet about it and not interfere with anything, but you may well have to make an effort to ignore him!

You do want all-natural pictures immediately after all!

If you're not keen on a fly-on-the-wall method, you must quite possibly think of some other wedding photography designs.

Now the biggest challenge with reportage wedding photography is capturing the tiny, intimate issues that regularly go unnoticed. For example, brief loving glances between the bride and groom. (I call these 'love looks'!) Or the young bridesmaids holding hands.

These are the particulars that certainly show the magic of the day.

One other factor to feel about is this type of photojournalism calls for a certain sort of personality. If your photographer is loud, brash, and draws attention to himself, he in all probability will not be the top at blending into the background.

So when looking at a reportage wedding photographer's portfolio, you really should also take into account their personality, and how that could impact their photography on your wedding day.

Virtually every single couple I speak to wants a mixture of reportage wedding photography and regular shots. Apparently we just cannot resist getting a couple of formal group shots!

But if you want largely documentary style wedding photography, you will have to maintain your list of group shots to a minimum. It is not possible to have a fantastic set of all-natural photos, if you give your photographer a list of 20 group pictures to take.

Since when they're going on, he's missing all the very good stuff! (Like the intimate moments I mentioned earlier).

So ideally I suggest getting four to six group pictures at most.

A different point to mention about reportage wedding photography is that it tends to work really in black and white. When there is no colour in an image, it makes you concentrate way more on what's truly happening inside the photo.

Colour can oftentimes be distracting and draw the eye away from the main topic. Black and white also creates a timeless, nostalgic feel. And it genuinely compliments photographs that show an intimate moment, making it additional particular.