Wedding Photography Clichés

"Lets have some new clichés" Sam Goldwyn

I rarely look at my wedding album. It is consigned to the decent obscurity of the upper shelf of a wardrobe and is only retrieved on those very rare occasions when my children want a good laugh at the fashions and the hairstyles. I have been told that with my then long hair and beard I bear a resemblance to how Osama Bin Laden must have looked like when he was my age. Delightful. I would have posted a photo to illustrate the point but I couldn't pluck up the courage.


The album was photographed by the legendary Youghal professional photographer Bob Rock. Bob is retired now but for 30 years he was the THE photographer for weddings, portraits and social photography in Youghal and the general East Cork area. And an excellent photographer he was too. This was before the digital era of course and, as he said to me recently, wedding photographers back then generally shot three medium format films of 12 shots each and had to make each shot count. There was no question of shooting the hundreds of frames that modern photographers do at weddings.


There was a fashion at that time for at least one photograph to feature a head and shoulders shot of the bride and groom superimposed on a stock image of a glass of wine or (as in our case) a picture frame surrounded by candles and flowers. Utterly kitsch and clichéd but the punters loved them. (I didn't, but my wife did and she insisted on including it in the album. Who was I to argue?)


Then there was a fashion for a combination shot of the outside of the church and the bride and groom at the altar or some such interior scene. Some modern photographers are still producing this shot and I have to ask: why?  It's dated and old hat, it no longer impresses because anyone with elementary image editor skills can do it and so should be consigned to the dustbin of history.


Leafing through some modern wedding albums I cringe when I see these latter-day clichés:

• The photograph of the bride's dress hanging up. Gentlemen and ladies: please stop doing this shot. It is ridiculous. A dress looks best on a woman, not on a hook or a hanger or lying on a bed or whatever.

• Ditto with her shoes. Why do I see so many photos of a pair of shoes sans feet? It's just stupid. If I want to see shoes I'll look in a catalogue. In a wedding album I want to see people and not inanimate objects.  

• Likewise with the rings.  Yes, we've all seen the photo of a ring between the pages of a bible casting a heart shaped shadow. It was interesting for the first few occasions about 10 years ago. Enough already!

•   The humorous jumping shot. You know the one: the photographer lines up members of the bridal party and gets them to, er, jump. Hilarious, no? No.  

•  The black and white photo with a touch of colour. You know the one: a portrait of the bride in monochrome except for the brilliant colour of the bouquet. Aaaaargh! Stop it please! 

I'm sure there are others but those are the prime offenders.

And while I'm on the subject of wedding photography, I was shocked the other day when passing the shop window of a very prestigious firm of Cork photographers. Pride of place was given to a large framed photograph of a bride and groom looking at the camera with a lake in the background. The lake is totally washed out, practically pure white. What in heaven's name possessed them to give it pride of place in the window?

Just above that photo was one with a bride photographed against the background of a
a cornfield.  Just to the right of the bride's head was an ugly electricity pole. Why wasn't it cloned out?


This particular firm advertises a photo retouching service so clearly they are able to use Photoshop. Why it wasn't used in those two photographs? Personally, I would be ashamed to put such photos in public view.

Am I being hyper-critical?
 
Do non-photographers not notice such flaws?