What Does Natural Wedding Photography Actually Mean?
Nearly every wedding photographer describes themselves as natural these days. It's become one of those words that's used so often that I'm not entirely sure anybody really knows what it's supposed to mean anymore.
Natural wedding photography, relaxed wedding photography, documentary wedding photography, candid wedding photography... you'll see all of them while you're looking for a photographer, usually accompanied by photographs of couples walking through fields looking suspiciously like somebody has just told them to walk through a field.
I've described my own photography as natural and relaxed for years, but for me it isn't really about a particular type of photograph. It's much more about how I photograph the wedding in the first place.
I don't want you spending your wedding day wondering where you need to stand next, what you're supposed to do with your hands or whether you should be looking at me. I want you concentrating on the considerably more important business of actually getting married and enjoying yourself.
The photographs come from that.
Your wedding isn't a photoshoot
I've written about this before because it's probably the simplest way I can explain how I approach weddings. Your wedding isn't something I've turned up to take control of for twelve hours. It's your wedding, and I'm there to photograph it.
There's quite a difference between the two.
If I'm constantly interrupting conversations, moving people around, asking you to repeat things or stopping something that's naturally happening because I've decided there's a photograph I want to manufacture, I'm changing the very thing I'm supposed to be documenting.
Some of my favourite wedding photographs have happened because I've done absolutely nothing other than notice what was happening and press the shutter at the right moment.
A look between two people during the ceremony. Somebody laughing during the speeches. A child who's completely lost interest in proceedings and decided to do their own thing. A parent quietly watching from the other side of the room. The expression on somebody's face just before a bride walks into the ceremony.
None of those things need arranging.
They just need noticing.
And after 18 years of photographing weddings, noticing those little moments has become a huge part of how I work.
Natural doesn't mean I disappear into a bush
There is sometimes an assumption that being a documentary wedding photographer means I'm going to turn up, hide in the background and refuse to interact with anybody all day.
That's not really me either.
I'll talk to people. I'll have a laugh with your guests. I'll help if something needs sorting. If you're struggling with something and I know how to fix it, I'm not going to stand ten feet away silently documenting your increasing frustration because I'm a documentary photographer.
The same applies when we're taking photographs.
There are times when a tiny bit of direction makes sense. If the light is considerably better two feet to your left, I'll tell you. If you're standing somewhere that isn't working, I'll move you. If we've gone outside for ten minutes together and you're wondering what the hell you're supposed to do, I'll help.
What I don't want to do is turn those few minutes into an elaborate photoshoot where you're performing poses you've seen somebody else doing on Instagram.
There's a middle ground between completely staged wedding photography and refusing to give a couple any direction whatsoever, and that's where I've always been happiest working.
Relaxed wedding photography starts with feeling relaxed
This is probably more important to me than any particular editing style or photograph.
People look more like themselves when they're comfortable.
Most of the couples who book me aren't models and don't particularly want to be models. Quite a few tell me at their first meeting that they hate having their photograph taken. Some are genuinely worried about that part of their wedding before they've even booked me.
I completely understand it.
Put somebody in front of a camera, tell them to smile and suddenly a perfectly normal human being can forget how their own face works.
So rather than spending the day constantly asking people to perform for the camera, I try to remove the camera from the equation as much as possible.
That's where relaxed wedding photography comes from for me. It isn't about telling you to “just relax” — which is probably one of the least relaxing things anybody can say to another person. It's about giving you enough space to stop thinking about being photographed.
Once that happens, I get the real smiles rather than the camera smiles.
And there's a massive difference.
But what about the photographs everybody expects?
Natural wedding photography doesn't mean your parents aren't allowed a photograph of everybody looking at the camera.
I still photograph family groups. I still photograph the two of you together. If there's a particular photograph you want, we'll take it.
I've never understood why documentary wedding photography sometimes gets presented as though taking an organised photograph is somehow against the rules.
There aren't any rules.
Your wedding photographs need to work for you, not satisfy some photography label I've given myself.
The difference is that I don't want the organised photographs to take over your day. I normally get the family groups done efficiently after the ceremony, we can spend a little time getting some lovely photographs of the two of you, and then you can get back to your wedding.
I'm not going to disappear with you for two hours while everybody else is enjoying the reception without you.
You've invited those people because you actually want to spend the day with them. It seems a bit daft if I then take you away from them for half of it.
The photographs you didn't know you wanted
This is where documentary wedding photography really earns its place for me.
Before your wedding, you can tell me about the photographs you know you want. You might want one with your grandparents, one with your children, a particular photograph outside your venue or something involving a person who's especially important to you.
What you can't put on a photography list are all the things you don't know are going to happen.
You can't plan somebody's reaction.
You can't schedule a brilliant expression.
You don't know which guest is going to have everybody crying with laughter during the speeches or which child is going to completely steal the show.
You certainly can't know what's happening behind you while you're busy doing something else.
That's the story I'm looking for.
A wedding gallery shouldn't only show you the parts of the day you remember. Hopefully, there'll be photographs in there that show you things you never even saw.
I've had couples discover little moments in their photographs weeks after the wedding that they had absolutely no idea happened.
I love that.
Natural photography shouldn't mean boring photography
There's another misconception worth clearing up.
Photographing things naturally doesn't mean I don't care about creating beautiful photographs.
I absolutely do.
I'm constantly thinking about light, composition, backgrounds and what's happening around the edges of the frame. The difference is that I try to do that without interfering unnecessarily with what's happening in front of me.
If there's gorgeous evening light outside — what photographers usually call golden hour — of course I'm going to suggest we use it. We'd be bloody stupid not to.
But even then, I don't suddenly need you staring wistfully into the distance pretending you're in a perfume advert.
We'll go for a wander. We'll chat. I'll probably take the mickey out of you at some point. You'll hopefully forget about me for a minute and that's usually when the photograph happens.
The setting can be beautiful, the light can be beautiful and the photograph can still feel like you.
That's the balance I'm after.
Choosing a natural wedding photographer
If you're searching for a natural wedding photographer in North Yorkshire or the North East, I'd look beyond the words photographers use to describe themselves and spend some time looking through their actual work.
Do the people look comfortable? Do you see genuine expressions as well as the big impressive photographs? Are there photographs of guests and family members or does every wedding seem to consist entirely of the couple? Can you imagine yourself in those photographs without feeling like you'd have to become somebody else for the day?
More importantly, look for consistency.
Anyone can show twenty fantastic photographs collected over several years. A wedding photographer has to tell the story when it's raining, when the ceremony room is dark, when the schedule has gone completely out of the window and when the beautiful sunset everybody was hoping for has instead turned into a very British wall of grey cloud.
That's the job.
Eighteen years later, I still photograph people
Photography has changed enormously since I started photographing weddings 18 years ago. Cameras have changed, editing has changed, websites have changed and social media has completely changed how couples find their wedding photographer.
People haven't changed nearly as much.
They still laugh when something's funny. Parents still get emotional. Kids still get bored. Best men still occasionally say things during speeches that they probably shouldn't. Couples still have little moments together when they think nobody is watching.
And those are the things I'm interested in photographing.
Whether you call it natural wedding photography, relaxed wedding photography, documentary wedding photography or candid wedding photography, the label doesn't really matter very much to me.
I just want your photographs to feel like your wedding.
Not a photoshoot loosely based around it.
Real people. Real moments. Your wedding as it actually happened.
That's what natural wedding photography means to me.
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