June 14, 2024
“Omg omg omg I just looked at them and WOW MICHAELA!!!! You’ve absolutely outdone yourself!!! This is just the sneak peek??? We are so lucky to have you as our photographer, you made the day so smooth and captured the sweetest moments we’ll look back on for the rest of our lives 💕 Thank you soooo so much 🥰🥰🥰”
– Alexa, Bride
You may have heard the term ‘documentary-style photographer’ a time or two, especially if you’ve been hanging out with me awhile. You may have even had the thought, “Oh, I want THAT for my wedding day!”
But what is “THAT” exactly? And how does it look with me as your wedding photographer?
‘Documentary-style photographer’ can mean something different from one person to the next, and Alexa’s and Caleb’s stunning direct sunlight wedding is the perfect portfolio piece to help me define it for you, in my own terms.
With every click of the shutter, I try to see the moment both exactly as it happens and with an artistic point of view. I ask myself: “How can I change how I am approaching this moment– my camera settings, how I’m responding to the light, where I’m standing, how I am framing the shot, etc.– to craft a memory that feels like a real-time rewind for my couples?”
While other photographers might opt to have a heavier hand in your day, I prefer to allow things to unfold exactly as they are, merely shifting my own point of view to capture highly authentic and artistic photographs.
Your mom knows how to button up your dress; she doesn’t need to be directed how or instructed to do it three different times. You and your bridesmaids will interact in whatever way is natural to you; you don’t need to be told how to move and laugh. You and your soon-to-be husband or wife will live out your wedding day know how to be together; you don’t need me to give you a detailed tutorial.
I will give you the space to be together, exactly as you are… and I will be snapping away, all the while.
I easily could have shied away from the (literally constant!) direct sunlight that was present during Alexa’s and Caleb’s wedding day, but 1) that would have required me to totally ignore my aim for authenticity that I JUST talked about, and 2) I wouldn’t have gotten the incredible, true-to-form photos that I did.
(Photographer’s note: It’s funny that their entire day barely had a cloud in the sky because Alexa’s and Caleb’s golden hour engagement shoot was the epitome of sunlight perfection. Feels meant to be, don’t you think?)
So, instead of waiting for the sun to come out from behind a (very short-lived) cloud while capturing the morning’s detail shots, I opted to find a scattered patch of sunlight coming through the trees and keep snapping away, each photo varying slightly from the one before.
And instead of getting frustrated that the bridal portraits weren’t captured in the same ideal shade as the couple’s portraits, I leaned into the light and found myself in total AWE of how the same dress and the same veil on the very same woman can look totally different based exclusively on a shift in lighting.
Instead of grimacing at how much direct light was on the ceremony itself, I embraced the challenge and adapted to the circumstances to capture photographs that are truly magical.
Leaning into the lighting helps me capture a couple’s story in an entirely different way than any other couple’s story… and the same goes for every other element of a wedding day. I embrace what already exists, which enables me to create memories of your most cherished moments in the most honest way possible.
Another part of what sets me apart as a documentary-style photographer is how present I am in the planning process, learning the ins and outs of your love story so that I can help you craft a wedding day that is completely and entirely YOU.
In the case of this particular wedding, Alexa was extremely drawn to color theory and chose her unique color palette very very intentionally. From the exact shade of pink that her bridesmaids wore for their getting ready pajamas to the tablescape pairing of green linen napkins and light coral roses, every color was on purpose.
As a result, it was extremely important to me to highlight this intentional detail in her photographs because it was important enough to Alexa to include in her day.
Your wedding gallery has no reason to be a carbon copy of anybody else’s because you are two entirely different people with an entirely unique love story. It’s my job as your documentary-style photographer to help you amplify those one-of-a-kind details in your “I do” day.
Hear me out on this one… You don’t actually hire me for the photographs.
You hire me for how I hold space for memories, moments, and the people who make those memories and moments.
Memories don’t exist without the humans who live them out, and my experience as your documentary-style wedding photographer revolves around focusing on the people who shape your experience.
One of the most significant differentiating factors of my style as a documentary-style photographer is my emphasis on candid shots of your guests, just as much as you and your bridal party. Not only do you never know when it will be the last photo you see of someone, but those people are truly what make your wedding day what it is. They’ve helped shape who you are, they’ve been key parts of your love story, and they showed up to celebrate you wholeheartedly. That deserves to be remembered.
All in all, I aim to have a documentary-style approach that focuses on you as humans and your love as the story that you’ll spend the rest of your lives telling. I take that term– documentary-style– extremely seriously because that’s what results in photographs of what your love actually feels like.
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