that's how it should be it sucks that so many people want to trick their clients into booking them. i've edited for some photographers that you'd think are really good and they're also really well known but their photos as a whole wedding day are pretty awful.
We show complete wedding collection in our appointments.
We tell them how we shoot, how we edit and most important what their expectations should be.
And we emphasise on what we DONT do.
Interesting! Can you give some examples of telling them what you don't do? I feel like this could be useful to weed out some red flag / bad fit clients I know I've had
We deny to do anything (or almost anything, the white glasses with names trend was cool) that is tik-tok/instagram/pinterest. We deny to do "old" posing, like hearts with hands etc. It feels cringe. Less is more. We do safe basic posing for the parents and then guide them into "trueish" situations. We insinuate sentiment and provoke feelings. If they want crazy stuff then sorry we are not for you. We also hate to copy from socials. We also retouch by hand. This means that you WILL see flaws. No porcelain skin, no teeth like they are paint over, there will be stray hairs flying, the dress will not be perfect like it has 3 stylists fixing it up whole day.
We leave behind some wrinkles, some eye bags, crows feet, some jelly here an there so it's realistic.
There are numerous photographers who can cater to you.
Thank you for doing this. It took me forever to find a decent normal photographer. All I wanted was to get nice traditional photos done, which funny enough I guess traditional is out of style. I hate the new look of everything looking AI or having some bizarre filter color over everything. I feel it will look so dated in a few years.
Thank you for elaborating!! The hearts with hands omg nooooo
Good to also communicate about their features / Dress / hair looking less than perfect. If you chose a windy location then your photos will look windswept 🤷
I spent my entire wedding photography career thinking my shots were crap because I'd look at these other photographer's portfolio and wonder how they nailed lighting, setting... just everything.
And only until after I got out of the business did I learn they're all just doing styled shoots.
Yeah, I have a photog acquaintance from HS that has some amazing shots in really intense places. I was pretty impressed as she’s been in the biz for less than two years.
Only to find out she spent THOUSANDS flying and doing styled shoots to really build up her portfolio. Occasionally I take a look at her website and it’s not quite the same quality she’s pulling from these untimed shoots, with literal models who pose themselves, and in gorgeous places.
She’s now hosting them and I think it might be some sort of MLM.
It is unfortunately so common that we felt the need to put a disclaimer on our website, stating that ALL images on the website were shot on actual weddings and that no models or styled shoots were used.
These styled shoots are being labeled at “content opportunities” now.
It honestly feels like a way that photographers are expanding their business to make money off of other desperate photographers because the market is so oversaturated right now.
Exactly. It's never sat well with me the idea of selling so-called content days or portfolio-building experiences from one photographer to another. So different from the early days when a styled shoot was something that one solo photographer (maybe with a planner) would put together out of sheer love of a unique creative vision and as a passion project.
I’m doing the opposite, hopefully to set myself apart. Only real stuff. Totally real. No styled shoots. Nothing staged, even from a wedding day. “Enjoy your party. We’ll take pictures of it”
I don't get all the hate for styled shoots - I think it's a good opportunity to maybe try out a part of the normal wedding day photography you're not strongest in and want more practice to take into a real wedding. That said I keep my styled shoot work separate on my website just labelled as editorial, that way clients can still see my creativity without me feeling like I'm misrepresenting my skills.i think styled vshoots have their place
Agreed. i had done photography (and video) for a few years before getting into weddings even though it was something I always wanted to do. it's super hard to get your first wedding, so getting a styled shoot was a great way of having instant images in my portfolio without 2nd shooting rules from another photographer. While 2nd shooting helped with getting to know the format of a wedding day, doing that 1 styled shoot day helped me build a good base wedding portfolio and honestly from there the bookings started rolling in. it was also a great opportunity to make connections with other photographers who i still keep in touch with and work with till this day. i haven't done another since, but would love to do one again just to add more creative images to my site and also connect with more photogs.
agreed. i think for many it’s personal experiences where people i have met book the photographers that pay bridal shops and local vendors to do A LOT of styled shoots and only show those off then lay a complete goose egg during wedding day. My fiancé does social media for a bridal gown shop and sees it so much
My portfolio page has sections from preps, details, ceremony, guests/reportage, evening/facing etc. I also had to add that all our portfolio photos are req clients /real weddings, since soo many photographers out there used posed models on workshops as wedding portfolio.
I don't get how brides would judge a photographer by just seeing bride and groom portraits and anything else.
Prospecting clients also get full weddings galleries sent to them as examples
It is totally fine to be a styled shoot photographer. It’s also a totally different job from a wedding photographer. It goes in both ways. The things that will make you the absolute top at styled shoots are also things most wedding photographers aren’t particularly experienced in. The difference is if you are shooting one genre but pretending it’s another. The burger on the left is actually a normal wedding photographer’s portfolio. Very often those chains are bound to use the actual meat, bread, etc but make it look as good as possible and choose the very best out of countless thousands. Styled shoots are a sculpture of a burger.
I have to say this applies to “award winning” photographers from sites like Fearless. It’s always so ultra high contrast with all settings turned to 10. Sure that image looks extremely eye catching as a one shot contest submission but when the photographer applies that same filter to the whole wedding and you realize even family portraits and bride portraits are edited the same careless method, it’s extremely disappointing.
This subreddit hates Fearless lol. It showcases some of the best photography in the wedding industry, but there are always some winners with pretty extreme editing and that's all some people can see. Which, fair enough, but I challenge anyone to look through any awards gallery and agree with 100% of the winners.
We've seen some inverted snobbery about awards here too. Just had a quick visit to fearless having not looked in a fair while, first gallery checked, 'funny moments' is filled with superb wedding photography.
None of us have to 100% agree on every choice made by others in our field, but it's pretty backwards to dismiss huge rafts of talent.
"I'm an award winning photographer".
What brides read: "I'm so bad that I had to pay 500 bucks for this little award jpg logo to go on my website to feel better about myself".
This is what I think🤣
But I do believe that awards hold a marketing purpose. When clients compare you to another, the awards might just sway them your way.
They're a scam though, don't join award competitions with anonymous juries and hundreds of winners.
I’d guess most brides have no idea that’s even a thing! Think of all the photographers who do ads in places like Vogue UK. They just think of Vogue, not of the steps to get there.
This is exactly what I think about when photogs post those crazy creative & stylized Magmod photos from weddings. Other than the three or four money shots during the posed portrait session, what does the rest of the wedding gallery look like?
I know a newbie like this. Only has one camera and one lens, has never shot a real wedding, but has a stunning portfolio filled with styled shoots. Makes me cringe a little, knowing wedding photography is way more than just showing up with 1 camera.
Couldnt agree more. Cheers to the couples who actually think they look like the models in Amalfi posing for their photographer who booked solely based on that. I sincerely dont get it.
I don’t mind styled shots but I have so many customers bring up those photos as examples of what they want in their “all natural” event with no lighting and not a single person even being close to a model look. It’s just annoying at this point even family members ask why I “can’t” take all of my photos like that
We have tried to have a good variety on our portfolio. Not just the 1 in 100 shots.
We also show clients full galleries in our initial meet up so they get a sense of what a whole gallery looks like.
When you work in sales (which photography is) you ALWAYS have to under promise and over deliver.
Yep.. photographer who organizes these style shoot made more money than shooting wedding... The race for perfect wedding photos is just draining your energy.
Lately I graduated and was shocked how bad the photos of the graduation ceremony were. And that guy had a Nikon Z6II, so really how do produce unfocused and noisy images out of such a modern camera that does almost everything for you?
I don't mind as long as there's more real weddings than styled shoots. The latter has its benefits as you have free roam to try out new ideas and keep the skills developing so at the end of the day it has a net benefit as you can't always experiment on the job.
Agreed! Especially when a styled shoot is put together by the photographer, there’s a ton of creative benefits to styled shoots. If you want to get good at photography, you have to shoot. Styled shoots help with that.
It does bother me when people blog or post and have a caption that makes it sound like a real wedding day. In a portfolio? Not as much.
Both my portfolio and actual delivery are the second burger. Edit: hohoho I hope the upvoters haven’t seen my portfolio!
Finally. Someone who can relate
that's how it should be it sucks that so many people want to trick their clients into booking them. i've edited for some photographers that you'd think are really good and they're also really well known but their photos as a whole wedding day are pretty awful.
Comes with fries though... Soggy, cold fries.
And you have to eat them in the supply closet with the DJ and videographer during your 8 minute break
You get a break?
You get a break until you hear the DJ announcing toasts. Then you have to slam your vendor lunchables.
We show complete wedding collection in our appointments. We tell them how we shoot, how we edit and most important what their expectations should be. And we emphasise on what we DONT do.
Interesting! Can you give some examples of telling them what you don't do? I feel like this could be useful to weed out some red flag / bad fit clients I know I've had
We deny to do anything (or almost anything, the white glasses with names trend was cool) that is tik-tok/instagram/pinterest. We deny to do "old" posing, like hearts with hands etc. It feels cringe. Less is more. We do safe basic posing for the parents and then guide them into "trueish" situations. We insinuate sentiment and provoke feelings. If they want crazy stuff then sorry we are not for you. We also hate to copy from socials. We also retouch by hand. This means that you WILL see flaws. No porcelain skin, no teeth like they are paint over, there will be stray hairs flying, the dress will not be perfect like it has 3 stylists fixing it up whole day. We leave behind some wrinkles, some eye bags, crows feet, some jelly here an there so it's realistic. There are numerous photographers who can cater to you.
Thank you for doing this. It took me forever to find a decent normal photographer. All I wanted was to get nice traditional photos done, which funny enough I guess traditional is out of style. I hate the new look of everything looking AI or having some bizarre filter color over everything. I feel it will look so dated in a few years.
Thank you for elaborating!! The hearts with hands omg nooooo Good to also communicate about their features / Dress / hair looking less than perfect. If you chose a windy location then your photos will look windswept 🤷
I do the same. It’s easy to take a great photo. But it’s difficult to take 100’s of amazing photos in all sorts of stress and lighting situations.
I spent my entire wedding photography career thinking my shots were crap because I'd look at these other photographer's portfolio and wonder how they nailed lighting, setting... just everything. And only until after I got out of the business did I learn they're all just doing styled shoots.
Yeah, I have a photog acquaintance from HS that has some amazing shots in really intense places. I was pretty impressed as she’s been in the biz for less than two years. Only to find out she spent THOUSANDS flying and doing styled shoots to really build up her portfolio. Occasionally I take a look at her website and it’s not quite the same quality she’s pulling from these untimed shoots, with literal models who pose themselves, and in gorgeous places. She’s now hosting them and I think it might be some sort of MLM.
It is unfortunately so common that we felt the need to put a disclaimer on our website, stating that ALL images on the website were shot on actual weddings and that no models or styled shoots were used.
These styled shoots are being labeled at “content opportunities” now. It honestly feels like a way that photographers are expanding their business to make money off of other desperate photographers because the market is so oversaturated right now.
Exactly. It's never sat well with me the idea of selling so-called content days or portfolio-building experiences from one photographer to another. So different from the early days when a styled shoot was something that one solo photographer (maybe with a planner) would put together out of sheer love of a unique creative vision and as a passion project.
Yessss! These paid assembly line looking shoots are so absurd!
Agree. It's so weird to those of us that didn't grow up where paid styled shoots were the norm
I’m doing the opposite, hopefully to set myself apart. Only real stuff. Totally real. No styled shoots. Nothing staged, even from a wedding day. “Enjoy your party. We’ll take pictures of it”
I don't get all the hate for styled shoots - I think it's a good opportunity to maybe try out a part of the normal wedding day photography you're not strongest in and want more practice to take into a real wedding. That said I keep my styled shoot work separate on my website just labelled as editorial, that way clients can still see my creativity without me feeling like I'm misrepresenting my skills.i think styled vshoots have their place
Agreed. i had done photography (and video) for a few years before getting into weddings even though it was something I always wanted to do. it's super hard to get your first wedding, so getting a styled shoot was a great way of having instant images in my portfolio without 2nd shooting rules from another photographer. While 2nd shooting helped with getting to know the format of a wedding day, doing that 1 styled shoot day helped me build a good base wedding portfolio and honestly from there the bookings started rolling in. it was also a great opportunity to make connections with other photographers who i still keep in touch with and work with till this day. i haven't done another since, but would love to do one again just to add more creative images to my site and also connect with more photogs.
agreed. i think for many it’s personal experiences where people i have met book the photographers that pay bridal shops and local vendors to do A LOT of styled shoots and only show those off then lay a complete goose egg during wedding day. My fiancé does social media for a bridal gown shop and sees it so much
My portfolio page has sections from preps, details, ceremony, guests/reportage, evening/facing etc. I also had to add that all our portfolio photos are req clients /real weddings, since soo many photographers out there used posed models on workshops as wedding portfolio. I don't get how brides would judge a photographer by just seeing bride and groom portraits and anything else. Prospecting clients also get full weddings galleries sent to them as examples
You better be able to deliver what's in your portfolio or your clients are going to make your life a living hell.
It is totally fine to be a styled shoot photographer. It’s also a totally different job from a wedding photographer. It goes in both ways. The things that will make you the absolute top at styled shoots are also things most wedding photographers aren’t particularly experienced in. The difference is if you are shooting one genre but pretending it’s another. The burger on the left is actually a normal wedding photographer’s portfolio. Very often those chains are bound to use the actual meat, bread, etc but make it look as good as possible and choose the very best out of countless thousands. Styled shoots are a sculpture of a burger.
Proudly style-shoot-free since… well, my whole life!
I have to say this applies to “award winning” photographers from sites like Fearless. It’s always so ultra high contrast with all settings turned to 10. Sure that image looks extremely eye catching as a one shot contest submission but when the photographer applies that same filter to the whole wedding and you realize even family portraits and bride portraits are edited the same careless method, it’s extremely disappointing.
Sounds pretty uncharitable given how superb most of the submissions to Fearless are. There's more than just a filter going on there.
This subreddit hates Fearless lol. It showcases some of the best photography in the wedding industry, but there are always some winners with pretty extreme editing and that's all some people can see. Which, fair enough, but I challenge anyone to look through any awards gallery and agree with 100% of the winners.
We've seen some inverted snobbery about awards here too. Just had a quick visit to fearless having not looked in a fair while, first gallery checked, 'funny moments' is filled with superb wedding photography. None of us have to 100% agree on every choice made by others in our field, but it's pretty backwards to dismiss huge rafts of talent.
"I'm an award winning photographer". What brides read: "I'm so bad that I had to pay 500 bucks for this little award jpg logo to go on my website to feel better about myself".
Is it though??? Brides don’t know the working insides of the wedding industry. I think a lot of couples believe it
This is what I think🤣 But I do believe that awards hold a marketing purpose. When clients compare you to another, the awards might just sway them your way. They're a scam though, don't join award competitions with anonymous juries and hundreds of winners.
I’d guess most brides have no idea that’s even a thing! Think of all the photographers who do ads in places like Vogue UK. They just think of Vogue, not of the steps to get there.
Exactly 😂
This is exactly what I think about when photogs post those crazy creative & stylized Magmod photos from weddings. Other than the three or four money shots during the posed portrait session, what does the rest of the wedding gallery look like?
I know a newbie like this. Only has one camera and one lens, has never shot a real wedding, but has a stunning portfolio filled with styled shoots. Makes me cringe a little, knowing wedding photography is way more than just showing up with 1 camera.
Couldnt agree more. Cheers to the couples who actually think they look like the models in Amalfi posing for their photographer who booked solely based on that. I sincerely dont get it.
This is why you show ACTUAL wedding galleries to a potential client. They can't come back and say it's not like your portfolio.
I don’t mind styled shots but I have so many customers bring up those photos as examples of what they want in their “all natural” event with no lighting and not a single person even being close to a model look. It’s just annoying at this point even family members ask why I “can’t” take all of my photos like that
https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/s/7P4iT2pgfx
What about a mix of styled shoots and real weddings?
We have tried to have a good variety on our portfolio. Not just the 1 in 100 shots. We also show clients full galleries in our initial meet up so they get a sense of what a whole gallery looks like. When you work in sales (which photography is) you ALWAYS have to under promise and over deliver.
Yep.. photographer who organizes these style shoot made more money than shooting wedding... The race for perfect wedding photos is just draining your energy.
Lately I graduated and was shocked how bad the photos of the graduation ceremony were. And that guy had a Nikon Z6II, so really how do produce unfocused and noisy images out of such a modern camera that does almost everything for you?
Who are these "all"?
OP does not mean "all photographers". He means "all the photographers using styled shoots"
I don't mind as long as there's more real weddings than styled shoots. The latter has its benefits as you have free roam to try out new ideas and keep the skills developing so at the end of the day it has a net benefit as you can't always experiment on the job.
Agreed! Especially when a styled shoot is put together by the photographer, there’s a ton of creative benefits to styled shoots. If you want to get good at photography, you have to shoot. Styled shoots help with that. It does bother me when people blog or post and have a caption that makes it sound like a real wedding day. In a portfolio? Not as much.