Before the wedding photography season well and truly begins, it feels only right to share once again my predictions for Wedding Photography Trends in the year ahead. Looking back at which ones I suggested for last year, I’m going to say that I was 100% accurate.
My predictions were –
Direct Flash – At Photography Farm, our biggest-selling online class was on Direct Flash so that is a decent indicator that plenty of wedding photographers wanted to nail this trend.
Non-Wedding Photos – The idea of ‘Non-Wedding Photos’ was adopted by many photographers who loosened up around the idea of what even makes a wedding photo – swapping from always taking wedding photos to taking more ‘photos at weddings’. (I refer you to look at the work of John Dolan as a fuller explanation)
TikTok / Reels at Weddings – Spending time in any wedding photographers’ Facebook group last year and you were bound to see someone talking about shooting a wedding that had a person paid to create TikToks and Reels for the couple on the day.
Editorial Style Wedding Images – Finally yes, the Editorial technique of shooting was embraced by many more wedding photographers and the demand for styled shoots in this style was high.
Trends in weddings, don’t come and go too rapidly, simply because they are generally planned quite far in advance. So it’s safe to say that all of the 2022 trends are going nowhere yet. But what else do I predict will enter the arena?
2023 WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY TREND: MEDIUM FORMAT
If the last few years have been all about Mirrorless cameras, I’m going to say that we will see a rise in wedding photographers embracing the Medium Format ones. I’ve been very lucky in my role as a Hasselblad Heroine to have access to their new X2D camera. It’s the first camera to have 1TB of built-in storage which is incredible for weddings. No stress about write speeds or corrupt cards. The new lenses that have been released at the same time, have an aperture ring again. Something that I’m a fan of as it gives your left hand a role. It’s super compact and light as well so now the superior files that are produced by medium format are accessible without having to add a lot of weight to your kit. Fuji’s model in this market is the GFX 100s which is a more affordable option. I can see more and more photographers in the Luxe end of the wedding photography market investing in medium format and also Leica in order to distinguish themselves from the crowd.
2023 WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY TREND: ANALOGUE PHOTOGRAPHY
I went deep into this topic last month as I think we will see an upsurge in images being produced at weddings on film. Of course, analogue has never really gone away. As long as I’ve been in the industry there have been people taking all kinds of film cameras to weddings still but what I’m going to predict as a Trend is using cameras that are low on technology. Point and Shoots from the 90s, Instant Cameras, Disposables, and Lomography. The point isn’t to make images that look like they might have been shot digitally and had a film preset added to them – these shots are all about creating a 90s aesthetic. What better way to do this than to use a camera from the actual 1990s?
2023 WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY TREND: HYBRID SHOOTING
Let’s face it, social media is going nowhere and as most platforms now favour video content, we are finding that as photographers we are still having to present a fair amount of video on our feeds to stand a chance of being visible. So I, like many others have started flipping my cameras into video mode when shooting weddings as I have my social media in mind. Some photographers are taking this further and delivering video content to their couples. Vice Versa, videographers have been adding stills to what they deliver. We all have cameras capable of both so it seems only natural.
2023 WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY TREND: AI-GENERATED IMAGES
This is potentially the most controversial trend that we are going to see. Images that are either solely or partly made by prompting a programme that uses Artificial Intelligence. I’m not saying that I think couples will be demanding that they are turned into hyper-real avatars but I already see that photographers cannot help themselves when it comes to tinkering with this new technology. Suddenly building a portfolio in the real world might seem like too much hard work when you can ‘create’ images in the style of any well-known existing photographer or in destinations that you’ve never been to. We are already seeing it being used prolifically and there are plenty of images on Instagram made with AI, although this is not always made clear by the account holder. I think we will soon see a lot of AI enhancements and images that are initially made in AI and then worked on further in Photoshop so they appear more real. What a world!