I’ve been a professional wedding photographer in New York City for
years and I’ve invested a lot of time with
hundreds of brides and grooms, and their moms and dads,
on their wedding days and afterwards.

So I’ve experienced what it is people, just like you and me, who
wish their photography to embody all their tears, smiles and laughter,
capture the relationships they have with their loved ones,
and document their life’s most meaningful moments,
really desire to get out of their wedding photography
when it’s all said and done.

With all this first-hand experience if I were asked today to
boil down how to have your wedding photography portray
natural emotions and real moments to just its 3 most relevant keys,
the most important factors of all, they would have to be these:

Secret #1
==========

Disconnect from the “Smile For The Camera” Mode

Ever since you were a little child, your parents
would take your picture telling you to look at the
camera, hold still and smile.

That’s how they took pictures, and in so doing, they
trained you to “mug” for your pictures and “play to
the camera”.

Today, you’re all grown up, and you may be out on
the town one night with your friends, and someone
in your group pulls out their cell phone or camera
and aims it at you and your friends, and what do
you all do?

You “assume the position”! You all stare at the
camera, staying motionless… smiling… waiting
for the picture to be taken.

Just as you were trained to do ever since you were
a kid.

But those aren’t the kinds of images you wish to have to
remember your wedding with – unless you’re an average
bride who’s okay with average photos, but we’ve already
established that you’re probably not that bride.

So you may feel more strongly that the best photos of
you have always been those where you’re not aware
of the camera.

You’d be right about that.

It’s because those “candid” photos are capturing you
being yourself.

When they’re done well, that is, when they catch “definitive
moments”, they capture your personality, your essence.

Were you aware people act differently when they know
they’re being observed?

Just like you may drive more conservatively than you
normally would if you knew there’s a police car behind you.

This is why television shows like “Big Brother” actually
hide their cameras, so they can capture people as they
really are, being themselves doing what they do, rather than
mugging for – or doing things affected for – the camera.

You want to be photographed on your wedding day as the
person you are – not be made into someone you’re not.

And not get a bunch of “smile for the camera” shots.
Your guests will take plenty of those.

Unplug yourself from “playing to the camera” on your
wedding day and you’ll get real moments instead.

Because you’ll be having real moments of genuine,
natural interactions that can be photographed -
and those will make for some great memories.

And great photos.

Secret #2
==========

Tell “Stories” With Photos. Not Just “Take Pictures”

People become photographers out of a love for taking pictures.

And when they get into wedding photography, typically they
look around and say, “okay, what pictures should I be taking?”

Then they see what other wedding photographers are doing.

And they do the same.

(which is why you’re seeing many of the same shots
from photographer to photographer).

But the result is simply a compilation of random pictures
from the wedding.

Emotional impact however, rises when one photograph
builds on the next, and so on, compounding the depth
and layers of the story being told.

You see, there’s a difference between taking pictures – and
telling stories with photos.

Sequences of story-telling photos also fill in the
moments between the bigger moments – and tell us
more about what happened, how it happened, who the
people were, and how they felt.

They shows us Action and Reaction.
Cause and Effect.

And not having any gaps, the series of
story-telling sequences reveal more about
the story than if there were only one picture to
tell us what happened.

Your wedding isn’t just one story, it’s a
compilation of many stories.

They’re stories within stories:

There’s the story of you and you new spouse,
of course. But there’s also the story of your
mother and you. The story of you and your father.
The story of you leaving the family home forever,
the story of starting a new home, of you and your
best friends…

On your wedding day, what comes together,
in one place, at one time, are all these stories of
your life.

Carry these [1] sequences of [2] story-telling
images of [3] these stories and sub-stories
over to your wedding album, depicting them
therein in a story-telling format – and they
trigger fuller, more complete memories of
your wedding every time you look through
your album – because they form stories.

Whereas other wedding albums are mere
scrapbook collections of pictures.

Secret #3
==========

It Takes A Certain Type Of Photographer
To Take A Certain Type Of Photo

Your photographer’s empathy goes a long way to getting
the type of heart-touching images you desire from your wedding.

The camera doesn’t know what photos to take. That task is
obviously up to the photographer.

Some photographers routinely use “shot lists”. Those are
ideas for photos they can get throughout the day. Those
ideas might be based on what the studio likes to sell (i.e.
“clink champagne glasses and smile at camera”).

Or they might be based on what the photographer envisions
your wedding to be. Their “artificial” moment, not your
“genuine” wedding moment.

Being pre-conceived and contrived, all those shots aren’t
based on what actually happens at your wedding.

You want photography that comes out of what actually
happens at your wedding.

Otherwise, they’re not real moments.

And only real moments have real memories – with meaning
and feelings – attached to them.

So say you found a photographer who agrees to document your wedding
as it unfolds rather than use those pre-conceived shot lists.

Terrific! That’s a good start.

But now… what makes a photographer take one photo of “this”, yet
not a photo of “that”?

I’ve found that the best, most meaningful, height of emotion
wedding photographs, are only captured when the photographer’s
“trigger finger” is directly connected to his or her heart.

Something in the photographer’s emotional chemistry tells
them when a particular moment is significant to document.

It’s like second nature. It just happens.

They don’t even have to think twice about it.

Here’s an illustration of what I mean:

Assume Photographer #1 is at your wedding. He or she’s
unmarried, doesn’t have children, their biggest joy in
life is partying.

Now, understand I’m not making any judgments here…
other than how a person’s “chemistry” influences what
photos they’re prone to take.

That photographer is likely to have a particular zeal for
party shots. It’s just them, it’s how they’re wired.
To them, that’s what a wedding’s all about.

Now say another photographer has children, maybe lost
a parent. They may be more sensitive to child/parent
relationships.

To them, a wedding’s about family dynamics.

Being different people, the two photographers have
different outlooks on life, wouldn’t that be fair to say?

Both photographers are at the same party. At some point while
people are dancing, your father comes over to you.

He has a tear streaming down his cheek.
He knows the time has come to let go. It’s been on his mind
and in his heart. His “little girl” is off to start her new life.

He’s feeling it. He hugs her closely. No words are exchanged.

The second photographer spies that and he just knows
he needs to document those endearing moments.

The first photographer sees it too but its significance
doesn’t quite register with him in that magnitude. It’s not
in his “emotional lexicon” to “get” the significance of it all.

He’s involved with taking shots of some people dancing.
And so he continues to do that.

The moment was lost on him, you see.
And because of that, the moment was lost.
Forever. Because it wasn’t documented by the photographer.

Here’s a link to story of something just like that with this kind of photojournalistic wedding photography
from a New York wedding I photographed illustrated in it and you’ll see exactly what I mean.

Moral of the story: you could have the most meaningful,
sentimental, personal moments happen – but if the
photographer doesn’t “get” it in his or heart, then he or she
won’t get it in the camera either – and then you’ll never have it
to remember your moments by.

For more – check out my New York Wedding Photographers page.

Come on along!

You can keep up with my photographing weddings in the New York City area here: New York City Wedding Photographer Blog

Looking to see you there!

Regards,
G.E. Masana
PHOTOGRAPHER
www.gemasana.com
(646) 543-1321

Over the years at weddings, I’ve come across, among others:

• Deborah Gibson (what a sweetheart!),

• Michael Stipe (from R.E.M.),

• John Leguizamo (this guy can cut up a dance floor let me tell ya),

• Mario Batali (and yes, he was wearing his customary shorts at the affair),

• and Peter Duchin (the society band leader, and he has this wild story about John and Robert Kennedy chasing a naked Marilyn Monroe around a piano while he’s playing that piano with just his tuxedo pants and bowtie on).

If you’re going to discuss politicians over a meal, this is an interesting way to do that…

• Daniel Day Kim (what a gent!)
  
• William F. Buckley (party animal)
• They get upset if I mention Willow Bay, because, you know, I have such clout… so I won’t mention her.

and someone who really, really looked like Diana Ross, though I can’t say it was her.

Take, for example, a wedding I photographed in January, on Superbowl Sunday.

Now, I’ve photographed a couple of weddings in years past that have occurred on Superbowl Sunday, and typically what happens is that the men make their way periodically to hang out in the men’s bathroom to watch portions of the game on a small screen TV that the washroom attendant brought to entertain himself.

But this last one was different.

In this case, it was the bride who was the die hard football fan and the groom was so not into it that he didn’t know what teams were playing.

It’s usually the other way around.

So, instead of sequestering into bathrooms, she had the DJ set up plasma monitors in the cocktail hour and reception rooms so that she and whoever else could watch the game. Which is what she and they did.

(Imagine what bridezilla-like fury would be unleashed if a groom ever did that! Oh my.)

Now, Peggy & Harry’s wedding (a great couple with amazing photos I’ll post soon), had an interesting twist too. Peggy was looking to do something to spice up their first dance and it was Harry who came up with this idea:

Start the first dance, bungle it, and then, acting as if to try again, launch into a series of dances from classic movies, while those same movie scenes are playing at the same time on monitors behind them – and keep this all a secret from the guests so they have no idea what’s about to happen:

So cool. You have to see it to believe it. I think it beats out all the other “fake-em-out-first-dances” I’ve seen posted.

Here’s their video of it: