Editing Style is a Crucial Detail When Choosing a Wedding Photographer

In this article we will discuss the 3 most common wedding photography styles out there today. And, we will talk about what our style is and what that means for you.

Before we get started, I wanted to preface this by saying that as we talk about the different styles of photography we are in no way shaming or putting down the other styles that are different from ours. All the different styles can be pretty in their own right and if you like a particular style that is different from our own, great! I hope this article helps you clarify what style appeals to you best.

Wedding Photography Our Style

Before we talk about the other trending styles of wedding photography, I wanted to quickly reference our editing style so that as we talk about the other styles you can clearly see the differences.

Our editing style has the following characteristics:

• Correct exposure
• A true to life color palette
• Clean, crisp, vibrant colors

Our style can characterized as “timeless”.  We will talk more about these characteristics as we compare them with the other styles.

Wedding Photography Style – “Bright and Airy”

The bright and airy style of photo editing has become a very popular trend in the last few years and it is signified by having a very bright exposure, low contrast, and often times muted colors. These editing characteristics give the photo a bright, happy, or airy feel to them.

While we would consider our photos to be bright but natural looking, the “bright and airy” style is typically much brighter in exposure.  Often, because of the “bright and airy” style of editing, you will lose detail in the bride’s white dress.  In other words, as the bridal gown, which is already bright white (typically), becomes even brighter, the details of the dress become blown out.

Another contrast between our style and the “bright and airy” style is most (not all) of the bright and airy photographers will mute or desaturate their colors, especially the greens.  Notice, as you are scrolling through other photographer’s galleries, the color of the grass and trees.  A bright and airy photographer will typically have a very desaturated look to the greens like the grass and the tees.  It is an unnatural look to the outdoors.  And, again, I’m not throwing off on this style of photography.  We think this style can be very pretty in its own right.  I’m just saying if you change the natural color of something to something else, it is by definition unnatural looking.

By contrast, we use a true to life color palette.  The colors you see naturally occurring in real life is what you will see in your photographs.

Wedding Photography Style – “Dark and Moody”

Another hot trending wedding photography style is the “dark and moody” style. This style is characterized as having a very dark exposure, low contrast, and often times with an orange tint to the color palette. As the name of the style suggests, this style gives you a very moody feeling to the photographs.

Like the bright and airy style, the contrast for the dark and moody style is usually low but the low contrast is on the dark side of the spectrum instead of the bright side. And similar to how the bright and airy style can often times blow out the bright highlights (like the bride’s dress), the dark and gloomy style can clip the shadows or make the darks, like the groom’s suite, lose detail in the shadows.

For our style, we like to make sure that you can see detail from one end of the spectrum to the other. You can see the details all the way from the bright whites of the bride’s dress to the shadows of the groom’s dark suit.

And one other thing that you will often find from the dark and moody photographer is an orange tint to the photographs. In contrast, we like our photographs to stay true to the natural colors.

Our Sunset / Nighttime Portraits

With all that being said, we also like to have a little fun at night or during sunset by creating wonderful, dramatic works of art with our expertise in artificial lighting.  Let us know if you want to have a little fun with this on your wedding day!

Conclusion

When choosing a wedding photographer the editing style is a huge aspect to consider and will affect the look of your wedding photographs for the rest of your life.
I hope this article helps clarify what makes these different styles of photography so different.

We believe that timeless trumps trendy, and natural color is better than artificial. If you believe that too, then let’s chat!

If you would like to see more of our work click here.

P.S. Even though the vast majority of our work we consider to be bright, timeless, and natural, we do like to have a little fun when the sun sets and create some epic photographs in the dark with artificial lighting.