Different styles of wedding photography

Traditional –v- Modern

Cambridge wedding photography

At Angle Photographic we believe that wedding photography is the communication of the emotions of your day with pictures.

How we communicate your emotion is up to you but we realize that without knowing what your options are that you can not make a choice. The purpose of this blog is to show you the differences between traditional and modern styles of wedding photography and to explain how these differences will effect your wedding day. These two styles are not mutually exclusive so the differences between them do not have to be as pronounced as they will appear in this article but to give you more of a choice I will make the differences seem greater.

With a traditional approach to wedding photography you will be much more aware of your photographer throughout your day as the majority of the pictures will be posed and will be taken using a flash. This will make the pictures look like they were taken in a studio with your venue as the backdrop. The experience will be much more like a fashion shoot as people will be carefully positioned for the portraits. For larger groups it will be necessary to use portable portrait lights with umbrella attachments which will make the photographic experience much more formal.

With both the traditional and modern styles of wedding photography I ask the couple for a list of group portraits to make sure that we don’t miss a crucial picture. With a traditional wedding this list of pictures can be extended to other pictures taken during the day such as bride on her own with the bouquet at the door of the house, bride with Dad at home and in the car etc. This way I can make sure that there is a posed picture for every portrait that you want.

This does not mean that I will only take the pictures that are on our agreed list and that every picture that I take will be done using a flash. What it does guarantee is that every picture that is particularly important to you, will be done in this way.

In contrast to the posed method of traditional wedding photography is modern wedding photography which frees you to fully enjoy your day with your guests. Using this approach the photographer is an unobtrusive observer of your wedding day capturing your emotions as they emerge. The photographer will still be conscious of taking certain classic pictures but he will and take them naturally without the use of a flash so that there is no disruption to your enjoyment of your day. If this is not possible then he will engineer a result to make sure that you receive the best possible memory of your wedding day.

The more you enjoy yourself the greater the difference between modern and traditional wedding photography as there will be no need for the photographer to disrupt your enjoyment for some pictures. If people are freely moving and laughing and joking with each other then the photographer can easily remain unnoticed to enable him to naturally capture the key moments of the day.

I hope that you now see the differences between traditional and modern wedding photography. There will be overlap in both directions as the people who opt for the modern packages often want some formal group portraits and the people who want traditional wedding photography also want some spontaneous pictures to remember key moments. I hope that this will enable you and your photographer to gain a greater understanding of the type of wedding pictures that you are looking for. If the photographer has a clear understanding of what you want then he can make sure that he delivers your pictures taken in the way you wanted.