Help me find a certain style of wedding photographer.

March 4, 2015 10:02 PM

I really like the "Luciana Flower Comb" and "Augustina Flower Vine" photos on this site. They're a bit "Laura Nyro in New York in the late sixties." The lighting contrast and the dark background and the small hit of color from the lipstick are very appealing to me. I'm getting married and would like to hire a photographer who can produce shots like this in his/her sleep, but I don't know what to search for -- what terminology, etc. "Goth" is not what I want, and "vintage" is too broad. Would "chiaroscuro" get me anywhere?

I am in Los Angeles, if you know of anybody. I feel like I'd probably be more successful getting a music photographer who moonlights doing weddings, but I'm not sure how to find that, either.

posted by mirepoix to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

Pretty much any reasonably good photographer can get shots like that - a lot of what you're seeing is stuff that's done after the fact in Lightroom (or similar software). A good photo editor could take a decent portrait photo taken with a long lens and wide aperture and make them look like that. It's getting those shots in the first place that's key.

Part of what you're paying for with a good wedding photographer is not just taking photos but knowing how weddings work schedule-wise and when and how to get the shots in that environment. You will have a very narrow window of time between the ceremony and the reception to get photos - a good wedding photographer will know how to use that time to their best advantage; a concert photographer might not.

Do keep in mind that your venue will have to have a suitable background to shoot against (and space to set up lighting equipment ahead of time), that you'll need some time to do posed shots (more than you might think, but see how much time your photographer thinks they will need), that single person portraits like that are going to look different than couples photos, and that unless you truly are having a goth wedding, your makeup is not going to give you that same contrast unless you want to pay for photoshopping.

Some words to describe what you're looking for: desaturated, shallow depth of field, posed shots with off camera flash, muted earth tones. Ask potential photographers for examples of wedding shots that might line up with those terms and the sample photos that you like.
posted by Candleman at 10:53 PM on March 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

Looking at these, particularly at the bokeh (out of focus) areas of the images, it looks to me as if these were shot on film. The out of focus areas have a "crunchiness" to them that is hard to replicate with digital. At the very VERY least, I think the photog is using a vintage lens on a digital body. So that might be a good place to start - film photographers. They are somewhat rare, but there are wedding photographers who still shoot film! The best way to find them is to search for "Fine Art Wedding Photographers."

Nirav Patel is in the Bay Area, but he will travel for weddings, and his photos evoke the same mood for me. He shoots digital, but his images are similar to these in feeling - underexposed, moody, non-traditional, and they feature stunning, gorgeous light. Might be worth checking out his work. If he's not available, he may have recommendations for folks with a similar aesthetic.

Good luck and congrats!
posted by Fiorentina97 at 4:52 AM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

I came here to mention Nirav Patel as well. I immediately thought of his aesthetic when I saw those.
posted by teamnap at 6:12 AM on March 5, 2015

It's true that almost any good photographer could take pictures like that, but the best professional wedding photographers each have their own style. Also, while a lot of it can be done in post, it's a lot easier if the shots were taken with that in mind. And it will also be a lot easier if you don't have to try to find someone separate to do post processing on a photographer's images (wedding photographers generally either do their own postprocessing or have someone specific that does it for them). If you hire someone who has one style, and try to get them to work in amother style, it's going to be a bad experience for both you and the photographer. Do yourself a favor and find a photographer whose aesthetic is what you are looking for.
posted by primethyme at 6:27 AM on March 5, 2015