PORTFOLIO: Documentary Style, Intimate & Candid Photos of People at Weddings.
A scene at a wedding in Hamilton Ontario. Unscripted and unplanned on my part.
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Calling yourself a “documentary wedding photographer” means less and less lately because everyone uses the term for SEO and to be found online.
True documentary work would follow a couple long before and after the wedding day, not just the event itself.
What actually sets this work apart isn’t gear or editing style — it’s perspective.
The images aren’t staged or controlled, but they are intentional. It’s about being present inside the moment, observing, anticipating, and reacting.
Sometimes what you expect happens. Sometimes it doesn’t.
That unpredictability is the whole point — and the magic.
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to articulate through keywords alone what we do as photographers. When every photographer uses these terms to describe their work, mostly in an effort to be found online when someone searches “documentary wedding photographer in Toronto”.
The term “documentary style” is a reference to the old school look of candid, journalistic imagery often associated with long form photo essays that documentary photographers would use, often black and white, often gritty and moody.
But if we were to actually be a documentary photographer of a wedding in the truest sense, the visual story would start far, far earlier, with photographs capturing the couple dating, their engagement, dinners or celebrations with family members throughout the months or years leading up to the wedding, and then the wedding day itself, and maybe even some photographs post wedding, as the couple embark on their life as a married couple together….
Now that I think of it, that would be an interesting long form project to undertake…
What sets my work apart isn’t the camera, the preset, the way I edit or retouch an image, it’s me. It’s what I find interesting in the moment I take an image, and what I’m interested in knowing about the person in front of me.
The images are random in that I don’t control the scene, but they are intentional in how they are formed - I am placing myself within a scene or an event and waiting, watching and listening for that moment to take place. And, sometimes what I think will happen doesn’t…and that’s what makes this both challenging, and rewarding at the same time.
You can also visit the portfolio page on my site here.
