Photojournalist Wedding Trend On The Rise

Want someone to shoot your wedding? As scary as that sounds, it describes a growing trend in wedding photography over the last decade - to photograph your wedding in a photojournalistic style.

Photojournalism at its best is all about capturing the "decisive moment", as Henri Cartier Bresson famously described it. When a wedding is the focus, the goal is to immortalize those candid, emotional and real moments, freezing them in time. News photographers are good at that.


Hiring a photojournalist is also an ideal choice for a last-minute wedding. Accustomed to covering breaking news, photojournalists have ample experience at documenting the unexpected as it unfolds, and doing so with creativity and attention to detail. Spontaneous events are what photojournalists do best.

The photojournalistic approach requires a very different skill set from the traditional style of formal wedding photography ... so different, in fact, that most photographers cannot do both well. If really great candid photos are on your wedding registry wish list, you’ll want to hire a photojournalist first, then add a traditional photographer for the posed portraits and ligned up family photos.

International photojournalists, who are at the top of the prestige pyramid of photographers, are part of an elite club. Fewer still do weddings. Photojournalist weddings are in such high demand that most photographers will say they can do that style. To hire the "real McCoy" in this speciality, seek out the attributes that top photojournalists have in common. They typically have many years of experience photographing for major newspapers and magazines in dozens of countries, and they often speak multiple languages. Besides creating iconic images, photojournalists share other traits that often include having a friendly manner with people they meet, and having extensive experience at spontaneously solving problems.

Randy Taylor of New York typifies the "old school" photojournalists who have been top editorial shooters. His images of hundreds of celebrities and historic events have been published in virtually every news magazine and newspaper in the world. Discussing his inspiration and motivation, Randy says, "My job as a photojournalist was to make people look good. It makes me happy to capture the joy of a wedding, which is probably the most important day of their life."

For anyone who is considering hiring a photojournalist to do candid, photojournalistic wedding photography, Randy’s celebrity and wedding porfolio can be seen at www.Photojournalist-Wedding.com.

If capturing the emotion and feeling of your wedding is more important than documenting every combination of family smiling for the camera ... and if having images that are fresh and real is more "you" than stodgy and static, then hiring a photojournalist to immortalize your wedding can be a good decision.