I have been very fortunate for the last string of six years. I have been selected each year with having one or two of my clients’ weddings featured in bridal magazines. 2009 was a great year in terms of my having the honor of photographing several beautiful and elegant weddings. Several of them, in my opinion, were worthy of magazine publication. My clients, Rosemarie and Sam D’Angelo, was certainly one of those weddings and the magazine, Metro Detroit Bride agreed. In fact, not only were their images published, but the wedding was the feature wedding and provided us with a two page spread. Click here to see their blog post link from last September, and here to see their wedding highlight slideshow. Congratulations Rose and Sam!!!  One Special Note: Carolyn Hefner, Wedding Planner Extraordinaire of the first class China Closet, was somehow left off the list of vendor credits.  Without Carolyn’s focused attention to details, creative vision, and meticulous planning, the day would have fallen short of the extraordinary event it became.

The Real Wedding Photojournalist

So what is a true “wedding photojournalist?” He/she is a photographer who is dedicated, from beginning to end, to photograph a wedding like a Time Magazine photographer might photograph the “day in the life” of President Obama. His/her desire is to capture the actual story of the day with all the emotion, drama, and reality that develops without any prompting whatsoever. A client who selects a wedding photojournalist or a documentary wedding photographer should be doing so because they are not interested in contrived, staged, posed or set-up style photographs that their photographer creates for the sake of making a “perfect” photo. This client has no interest in having photographs made that are more like illusions or portrayals of truth, controlled by the photographer. A client choosing a documentary style photographer does so because they desire for their photographer to capture the reality of the day with all it’s beauty and all it’s flaws. Emotional, spontaneous, quirky, unique, energetic images of the day that a skilled and artistic photojournalist will seek to capture, with careful anticipation and thoughtful composition.

The wedding photojournalist usually arrives well before the bride is dressed and stays until they take the last photo of the bride and groom well into the reception. At times, finding him/herself up close and personal so that the photographs make the viewer feel as if he/she is a participant of the moment. Other times during the day, the wedding photojournalist steps back to seek imagery that includes the environment and elements within the scene to help make interesting compositions. These images are those that you would find as a single image used by a magazine that provide much detail. The who, what, where, why questions are all answered in one image. The end result is a narrative collection of images that show actual emotions and experiences of the days events.

A true photojournalist will not work off a list of photographs that the bride provides him/her (except the list of formal portraits). The goal of the photographer is to allow the day to happen without any intrusion. The photojournalist stays out of the way as best as he/she can and allows the personalities and memories to develop without any help. A traditional or hybrid photographer will either work off a list provided by the client or have a memorized list of “must have” photos he/she accomplishes each and every wedding: the same pose or set up, just different bride and groom. The perfect client attracted to the style of a wedding photojournalist is more interested in having a collection of photos that are real to life, memories of their unique day, photos that will show how the day actually unfolded, and are not concerned about making sure everything looks perfect. If you are requiring your photographer to create “illusions” of reality, employing him/her to contrive and stage the photos to ensure they portray moments of “love”, “passion”, and “happiness” that the photographer directs (something more like a fairy tale), then you should be more inclined to choose a traditional or hybrid style photographer.

Photojournalism is a skill, not just the name of a style of photography. The very best wedding photojournalists have the unique talent of anticipating and capturing moments and simultaneously able to position themselves so that they frame their images in powerful compositions that tell a story in a single photograph. Often a photographer using this style has experience in journalism – newspapers, magazines, etc. If not, the wedding photojournalist learns his craft through finding inspiration from those who have media backgrounds. They find their inspiration from outside the world of wedding photography, studying great journalists and media photographers like Henri Cartier Bresson, Sebastião Salgado and James Nachtwey. They also associate themselves and collaborate with wedding photographers around the world who having had prior journalism backgrounds, who have made the successful transition into wedding photography.

Many photographers claim they are wedding photojournalists because they capture “candids” during the wedding day to some degree. There is a difference between candid and documentary photos, however, which separates a true wedding photojournalist from every other wedding photographer. There are some pure photojournalists who will not pose one single photograph through out the day. These purists typically won’t lift a finger to “beautify” a messy bride’s room, or move details, like the bouquet or the bride’s shoes, to better light or a more pleasing setting. There are those photojournalists who do fudge a little and break the rules for staging some portraits and provide some creative license when photographing inanimate objects like the bride’s jewelry, flowers, and hanging dress. For those “less pure” photojournalists, their breakdown between posed and documentary style is more like 3 to 5% posed/contrived, 95 to 97% non-posed. A more “hybrid” style wedding photographer will have ratio of posed to candids in the range of 30/70 or even 50/50.

If you are not sure whether your photographer is truly a photojournalist or more of a hybrid style photographer, look at his/her complete work. Ask him/her to show you a complete set of proofs from one wedding. Also, what does he/she show mostly on their blog or website? Do you have to really look hard for posed or contrived images or are they displayed just as prominently as their candid and documentary photos? You will know that your photographer is a true photojournalist if you have to search through hundreds of proofs in one wedding before seeing your first posed image or if you have to flip through several pages of the photographer’s sample albums before finding a few posed images.

Moments of time are “momentary,” never to happen again. A wedding photojournalist doesn’t create moments, he specializes in capturing them as they naturally happen.

I am almost a month late in posting this Press Release that came out last month, but better late than never!

Detroit, MI – January 19, 2010 – WeddingWire, the nation’s leading wedding technology company, just announced Ray Anthony Photography has been selected to receive the WeddingWire 2010 Bride’s Choice Awards™ for Photography!

The annual Bride’s Choice Awards recognizes and celebrates excellence in quality and service within the wedding industry, as determined by recent reviews and extensive surveys from over 500,000 newlyweds.

Ray Anthony Photography is among the top five percent of all vendors in the WeddingWire community, which includes over 100,000 wedding professionals across the US and Canada. Awards were given to winners across 19 different service categories, from wedding venues to wedding photographers.

“We are excited to recognize and honor the success of the top wedding professionals within the WeddingWire Community” said Timothy Chi, WeddingWire’s Chief Executive Officer. “The annual Bride’s Choice Awards program has given us the unique opportunity to highlight the best wedding professionals in each region as reviewed by brides and grooms who have utilized their services in the past year.”

We are happy to announce that Ray Anthony Photography is among the very best Wedding Photographers within the WeddingWire Network, which includes WeddingWire and Martha Stewart Weddings. We would like to thank our past newlyweds for nominating us for the 2010 Bride’s Choice Awards.

For more information, please visit our WeddingWire Storefront today at http://www.weddingwire.com/biz/ray-anthony-photography-brighton/939072ee62402daa.html.

About WeddingWire, Inc.
WeddingWire is the only online wedding planning resource designed to empower both engaged couples and wedding vendors. WeddingWire enables engaged couples to search, compare and book over 100,000 reviewed wedding vendors nationwide, from wedding photographers to wedding cakes. WeddingWire also offers an online community and a suite of cutting-edge planning tools, including wedding websites and wedding checklists, all at no charge. For wedding vendors, WeddingWire provides free online management tools creating the only market opportunity that gives businesses control over their clients, reviews, leads and performance. In addition, WeddingWire has partnered with Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. (NYSE: MSO) to provide its network of local vendors and online wedding-planning tools in the Weddings section of www.MarthaStewartWeddings.com. For additional information, please visit www.WeddingWire.com.

One of the beautiful weddings I photographed last summer (2008), was selected for the Real Weddings section of the latest edition of The Knot Magazine. I have been fortunate to have at least one wedding published each year for the last five years. You can check out the article of Shilpa & Anthony’s beautiful wedding below:

Second Place (Reception Dancing Category)

Fourth Place (Decisive Moment Category)

Sixth Place (Humor Category)

Click HERE to view the show!  It will only be online for three months from this day.

Click the Facebook icon above to take you to my Ray Anthony Photography business page on Facebook. Once there, click “become a fan” and you will have access to viewing my photos and other information I post on Facebook. This will in many ways be similar to my blog, but it will offer you the benefit of tagging photos of yourself if you, too, are a member of Facebook. Are you a member of Facebook? If not, what are you waiting for??? Join today, by clicking here.

I intend to post a few photos from each wedding and engagement session within a few days of each event. This will give you a “sneak peek” of the photos I captured before I post the entire collection of proofs three to four weeks after the wedding or engagement shoot. Yes, you will see them here on my blog as well, but the cool thing about being a “fan” is that you will be able to “tag” your photos. Tagging photos of yourself will make them appear on your own Facebook profile page, as well as the “News Feed” page of all of your Facebook friends! This will give your Facebook friends an opportunity to see your wedding and engagement photos as soon as you tag your photos! Pretty cool, huh? Wish I would have invented this concept!!!

Even if you are not a client of mine, feel free to become a “fan!” Also, I invite you to become a “friend” of mine on Facebook. This is different than becoming a “fan.” I need to approve you as a “friend,” whereas being a “fan” is something you can do without my approval. Just click on my photo on my RAP business page, and request to become my friend. If you are a friend currently and you have not become a “fan,” you still need to so if you want to see the photos posted on my RAP Facebook page.