Wedding Photographer Or Wedding Photo Story

The history of wedding photography has more than a dozen years and takes its roots from the very moment when photography was born, as a fact. What does it mean? This means that the development of wedding photography began simultaneously with photography as a whole.

But when did this wonderful moment of the birth of a wedding photo take place? This happened, roughly, in the middle of the long past of the nineteenth century. Each (or, perhaps, almost every) young couple of the mid-nineteenth century wanted to leave a commemorative photograph and a professional wedding photographer of the past nineteenth century, operating within the walls of the studio room, enjoyed quite a lot of popularity.

Truthfully, it should be said that in those early days the wedding photographer did not get out of the studio, as the quality of photographic technique was far from perfect. Also, the wedding photographer of the forties, quite often asked the newlyweds to pose in front of the camera for quite a long time. This was due to the same technical imperfection of the camera of that time.

The term "photo card" did not exist at that time. The wedding photographer transferred pictures to his customers on a plate made of tin, copper or glass.

A real technological breakthrough in the photography industry occurred at the very beginning of the twentieth century, when a color photograph was invented. A wonderful and truly magical invention, called the "color image" was a technological miracle miracle and was perceived as a miracle. However, a professional wedding photographer of the first half of the twentieth century did not hurry to use this magic product of technological progress. This deplorable fact was not a groundless whim and a conservative adherence to the old traditions: color photographs taken at that time faded very quickly, lost color, turned into a color pun on photo paper. And, despite all the marvels of marvelous technical progress, the wedding photographer has long enjoyed the miraculous possibilities of black and white photography, which did not suffer from any of the above drawbacks, which was a very strong argument.

In the future, the progress in phototechnics began to gain quite serious turnovers. New types of photographic films began to appear, and with them, which is characteristic, and new ways of processing them. But what is noteworthy, the wedding photographer of the early and middle of the twentieth century possessed a rather large conservatism, which remained in their minds until the end of the Second World War.

When World War II ended, people began to gradually return to peaceful existence. People began to actively marry and create families and the wedding photographer got quite large opportunities for practice and career growth. During the post-war period, the wedding photographer took a portable folding camera, a small flash and a film of film, and walked briskly to the places where the wedding celebrations were celebrated, in the sincere hope of selling the product to their newlyweds.

The truth is that a post-war wedding photographer with portable photographic equipment was often not a real professional in photography, and before he took the camera, he did not have extensive practice and experience. In the most important, this person with a camera had knowledge and practice only at the amateur level. Really serious skills in the field of photography were given only to those people who in war time had the opportunity to serve as a military photo reporter.

But there was quite an interesting paradox: even considering the tendency that an amateur wedding photographer did not receive in advance neither technical, nor any other possibility to rent a wedding party really high quality, his photographic services were in insane demand. In fact, a person without experience, knowledge and practice could earn quite well. This fact caused a lot of anxiety and annoyance to wedding photographers who had the honor to wear a sonorous, proud and very significant title: "professional photographer". Obeying the laws of time and development of all things, they were simply compelled to get out together with their own, albeit highly qualitative, but very cumbersome equipment, beyond the narrow walls of the photo studio, in order to protect their place under the sun and in the niche of photography.

However, for the sake of truth it should be noted that, despite the presence or absence of professional skills and experience, the wedding photographer could not photograph the entire wedding party from beginning to end. This was due to the high cost of film and the complexity of processing frames. And therefore, a professional photographer of the mid-twentieth century wielded a certain number of worked postures.

Subsequently, with the development of photographic equipment, a new genre was born in the photography of wedding celebrations - a photo reportage. The wedding photographer got into his own hands a good opportunity to display the wedding by means of a reportage photo shoot and professional photographers began to appear in the genre of documentary photography.

However, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, photography again felt a serious revolution: digital cameras appeared. And again, amateur photographers came out to the market, armed with very affordable cameras. And as in the middle of the 20th century, the current professional photographer again has to defend his honest name.

Thank you for attention. With sincere respect, the wedding photographer Leonid Starikov.