New year always causes me to reflect on my business and as I enter into Farm’s 6th year, I am looking over this side of what I do as much as my own photography business. I’ve now encountered hundreds of other photographers looking for training and support and I’m in quite a few online groups of photographers.
Something I’ve increasingly noticed in the last year has been wedding photographers calling themselves ‘Artists’. Now if you do and you run your business as an artist would and it is working for you, then I’m happy for you and would love to hear about how you make it work. However I really struggle to see how it is possible to have an artist’s mindset and maintain a career as a wedding photographer. Artists create art for art’s sake the majority of the time, they work to their own brief and create as a reflection of their own unique expression or as a reflection of society. Wedding photographers have clients to please, a brief that needs fulfilling and a huge amount of expectation on what they are going to deliver. Go into that with an ‘artist mentality’ and I believe that you are setting yourself up for trouble.
Would Da Vinci have created something as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa for a fussy bride? “Make sure you get my best angle, I don’t like my arms, can you fix my chin?”. Would Van Gough be able to create Art in front of 100 wedding guests? Yes photographers can be artists, the Photographer’s Gallery in London’s walls are covered in fine examples of their work. None of them are wedding photographers though. The walls your work ends up upon are much more domestic. And that is totally fine. It’s an incredible privilege to photograph wedding days, to be the curator of that family’s memories from such an important day. The average human lifespan is 27,375 days and if you asked a lot of people to name their most memorable days within those then a large number will say their wedding days, so being the person responsible for recording it is an important role.
By all means, you can have an artistic approach to a large part of what you shoot. But I strongly believe that going into it being solely driven by your own passions isn’t good enough. Where an artist is perfectly fine to work selfishly, you should be collaborating with your client to produce imagery that is the result of the relationship between you all. It is an Artist’s Ego that believes they only need to reflect their own vision. You need to emotionally invest in a couple and their wedding day to reflect it back to them well. Your role is to do that with both creativity and integrity. Then there is fulfilling that all important brief. So working with your client before hand to pinpoint exactly what that brief is for that particular pair. That can be the timeline, the group shots, portraits and any additional shots they want. Yes within that there is usually space to have a creative approach and if time allows you can also shoot for yourself but that shouldn’t be your top priority.
I started out working as a music industry photographer. My very first magazine commission was to photograph a teenage witch and her parents …The show Sabrina the Teenage Witch was popular back then. I took the family to a woods near their house and did portraits of the girl but I struggled to shoot the whole family and ended up just doing one shot with them all at staggered distances. I was trying so hard to be creative that I failed to just get the straight up family shot and the magazine were not super impressed with me. I had not totally fulfilled the brief and that was the end of my relationship with that magazine. From then on, I always ensured that I did the straight shots, I precisely covered any exact brief or expectation and if time allowed, I would then take the creative shots. In fact, the creative shots at the end of a shoot are what we were all putting in our portfolios. Shoot for the client and then shoot for yourself if time allowed. Your portfolio shots are you flexing your creative muscles and showing what you can potentially produce. It is also pretty standard to shoot non-commissioned self motivated work for your portfolio or to push your creativity and I see the Wedding Photography Industry as being exactly the same. Shoot for the client and if time allows shoot for you. Fill your portfolio with those shots plus your self produced work.
And do continually shoot for yourself, it’s such an important element to maintaining a passion for it all. And yes maybe that part is Art but I also feel strongly that you will be the very opposite of fulfilled if you think you are an artist all the time, if you go to weddings with that as your priority. I’ve seen so many posts in photographers’ groups this year about clients being unhappy at the end of the process. Of course that might be for all kinds of reasons but could the main one be you? Dare I even say that maybe you are using the ‘But I’m an Artist’ line as an excuse? Did you honestly fulfil the brief to the best of your abilities? It might not even all be written down but there usually is assumption that you will deliver certain shots. If you don’t deliver a straight to camera shot of couples, it won’t take long before you get some complaints. Even if your client believes in your artistic vision enough to give you free reign, there are simply too many other people emotionally invested in most weddings, with their own expectations of what they will see in wedding photos. So I think having an artist’s mentality throughout will eventually mess with your mental health and that is my main motivation for writing this. I want to help you out and I just think you could be making it all tougher than it needs to be. Running a Wedding Photography business is friggin’ hard work, in fact the shooting is merely one element in many to make it all run well. And in the digital age, any one of us is only one poor online review away from a bad reputation, so we have to be slicker than ever. Think of yourself as a Creative instead, shooting to a brief and creating Art as and when you can.
We had Martin Parr teach a workshop at Photography Farm this year. He told us that he would like to shoot a wedding but he wouldn’t want to start coverage until 9pm. He said that this is when the most interesting photos for him would present themselves. Now I would be utterly fascinated to see what he came up with but I don’t think too many of our clients would be content with the idea. We also had Ryan Muirhead and Jan Scholz teach classes for us. Both brilliant photographers that I would consider to be Artists but they create the majority of their work without upfront commission and to explore their own unique passions.
Photography Farm is for Photographers by Photographers so I’m not out to put a downer on anyone else’s business. I find it all utterly fascinating and I’m so thrilled with how creative wedding photography is now. Seeing beautiful artistic images from other wedding photographers inspires me to want to get better and to always push forward. Just look at the standard in Junebug’s Best Wedding Images, every single image is deeply artistic or creative, but I just clicked through to a few of their websites and don’t see anyone calling themselves an Artist. We’ve now had some truly great wedding photographers teach at Photography Farm and I’ve been continually impressed by their humility and lack of ego. Being a Wedding Photographer is something you should be bloody proud of and if you are making a decent living from it then you are already doing way better than most Artists.
Lisa Devlin
Head Farmer
Lisa Devlin has been shooting weddings since 2000. She was awarded Wedding Photographer of the Year by The British Journal of Photography, was named one of the UK’s Top Ten Alternative Wedding Photographers by Stylist Magazine, is listed by Junebug as one of the best Wedding Photographers in London and has spoken about her work at B&H Photo in New York, for Hasselblad in London and at The Photography Show in the NEC. In 2011 she founded Photography Farm which aims to nurture wedding photographers in the UK through workshops and events.
really well said Lisa, as always – I’m an artist (painter) as well as photographer, but I would never consider my wedding or commercial photography as art as that would mean I was doing it for me rather than the couple, who are after all the most important consideration. So if they ask me to photograph guests with a big frame, or use spot colour I will gently try to persuade them otherwise, but if they love it of course I’ll do it – they aren’t paying us to create work for our portfolio after all. If you have a good enough relationship with the couple there are bound to be opportunities to have fun together and get some shots you’re all proud of.
So if I have a bit of left over creativity at the end of the day I’ll go and chuck some paint at a canvas and feel better 🙂
Wedding photography itself is a ‘stand alone’ job and requires much more than the technical skill to take photographs (I have seen fashion photographers shoot weddings for friends and admit to it being a scary concept and totally different to the day job) There is is very little time to be artistic and lots of things to have to remember per remit as well as knowing what to do and have the experience to know how a wedding works. I would say the newly announced ‘artist’ wedding photographers are the ones who charge more and shoot less weddings with the clients having their ‘artist’ status in mind and allowing much more time for the ‘artistic’ portraits. Great article and a good view on changing times in the wedding photography industry. It is great to see people drive to be more artistic in the time allowing or changing what they do to allow more time to be.
This is called projection and this girl seems a little bitter. Her headshot shows she probably isn’t very inspired or creative herself personally and doesn’t feel that she is an artist. That’s ok. Why pull others down because you’re not able to identify with something?
Thanks for taking the time to comment Bethany, I will do my best to make my next profile picture less bitter and uninspired.
Honey get a mirror. And then maybe you would see that you have just projected a whole bunch of rubbish onto someone you don’t agree with by slagging off their profile photo. It comes across as little bitter, uninspired, and lacking in creativity, don’t you think? Oh and totally hypocritical.
I disagree with this on many levels. I think it is very well written and I understand where you’re coming from, but I do think there is space for us to please our clients and please ourselves and this is the eternal struggle of art and commerce which is nothing new and nothing specific to wedding photography. The Mona Lisa, which is cited above in this article was indeed a portrait commission paid for by the Giocondo Family for their new home in Florence. Most portraiture during the Renaissance, and beyond really, were commissioned pieces and paid the artists bills and those painters were still called artists. Art and Commerce have always tiptoed together intersecting and diverging at many different points throughout history and some artists have even created art about the topic (i.e. see Andy Warhol’s entire career and the movement of Pop Art). I do not think every wedding photographer is an artist. Not by any means. But many of us are and the fact that we have clients to deal with does not remotely change it one bit. If anything I feel like I have more creative freedom as a wedding photographer than in any other field of photography I have worked in and trust me I’ve worked in a lot of them. Irving Penn and Richard Avedon are considered two of the greatest photographic artists of the 20th Century, their work hangs at contemporary art museums all over the world and both of them created commissioned work for commercial clients and editorial partners like Vogue and Bazaar with very demanding and exacting clients and creative directors, yet their work is still considered art. I’ve been a student of photography since I was 12 years old, studying it throughout middle school and high school at one of the best high school photography programs in the US and on to NYU where my studies concentrated on photography, art history and aesthetic philosophy. When I began working in fashion photography I was surprised how many cooks went into the proverbial pot and part of what turned me off from it was not having a ton of creative freedom to be as much of an artist as I wanted to be. As a wedding photographer I feel I have way more creative freedom and am so proud of the images I have created both on wedding days and from editorial shoots that I spearheaded and planned. I am very selective in who I work with as a wedding photographer and always want to be sure I am the right fit for my client and vice versa so I can be an artist and do my best work serving them AND serving myself creatively. Some days when weddings run way behind and are chaotic I don’t feel I get to be as much of an artist, which I find incredibly disappointing and am very vocal about with my couples to explain the importance of leaving time in their day to let me be an artist and leave time to let creativity happen. I do understand where the author is coming from and agree that we can’t be completely self indulgent narcissists who don’t think about our clients and only focus on our artistic vision, but who ever said serving a client and being an artist are mutually exclusive? As I said above, this has literally been done for 600+ years and is well established and EXTENSIVELY written about so I won’t go into the art and commerce point for any longer. I think the key is to find the right client who respects your work and your process and appreciates your artistry and wants their day captured artfully through your unique eye and that’s when you can create your best art. When I mentor new photographers I always say as a wedding photographer we have many clients on a wedding day- the bride and groom and their families of course, but also the other vendors who are also artists within their fields, the editorial partners who will publish the wedding and of course ourselves. Show in your portfolio only that work which you shoot for yourself, that makes your heart sing and fulfills you and you will attract more clients who love that work and want their weddings captured by your artistry. Editorial shoots should never be done to “pad” your portfolio or make it appear you’ve worked more extensively than you have, rather they should serve as creative reboots for us as artists letting us stretch our wings creatively and create for ourselves, which boosts our creative energy and lets us bring that back to our clients on wedding days. It also helps us attract our ideal client who respects that vision and wants their day photographed in that fashion. So yes to sum up this very long response, wedding photographers can and absolutely should be artists.
Thanks so much Rebecca for taking time to write such an eloquent response, I really do appreciate you putting forward another side to the discussion and that you have actually read my post. I’ve stewed over your response as well as some of the others that were intelligent on this and although I think you have very valid points, I still think there is a big difference on a commission and a brief. To me a commission is simply employing an artist with an expectation that they will create, whereas a brief has more constraints. If someone did commission Martin Parr to shoot their wedding for instance and he chose to arrive at 9pm then that is acceptable. Francesco del Giocondo commissioned the portrait of his wife but I doubt very much that he set the elements that he wished to be included. And although our work can be very artistic, not very many people beyond the couple’s immediate circle would covet it. The Mona Lisa on the other hand is not the world’s most renowned painting because nobody beyond her descendants would wish to possess it. So yes this is not a debate on what is Art and I’m super inspired by so many wedding photographers. I really like your point that all the other vendors bring their artistry too so can we agree that what we do is bring that.. Artistry? Have a great season, Lisa.
Such a negative and uninformed article designed to cause controversy and troll wedding photographers.
The Mona Lisa was actualky a commissioned piece, as are so many great pieces of art throughout history. You have no idea what you are even talking about.
I really enjoyed this article. I do think that some (not all) photographers can get caught up in their own hype, their own vision and self importance. At the end of the day, you are being paid to provide a service. Not just that, but an excellent customer experience. If your website and what you put out there is bang on the kind of shots you love, then you will attract clients that value the same. From there, the artistic shots that are maybe a bit out there can be taken to satisfy your own need – but don’t ever forget that the customer will also want an accurate reflection of their day (in your style if you’ve been marketing yourself correctly!). Years from now they may not say “Damn, that crazy reflection/prism shot is EVERYTHING” – but they will hopefully always cherish the meaningful moments that you captured of their friends, families and of course each other. Go on yo bad self Lisa, it’s a controversial subject but I’m glad you opened up a discussion about it 🙂
(Psst, the Mona Lisa was a commissioned piece. Artists have always been commissioned.)
I’m sure the heart behind this article is fine, but it comes across as mostly clickbait and workshop-selling.
I think its interesting that photographers often need to consider their work ‘art’ to validate it. Personally I don’t, my work has value to me and to my clients – validation complete. Plus, controversially, I would rather produce work of personal resonance than cultural resonance. This doesn’t mean it can’t be creative & full of self-expression, just as art can be perfunctory & motivated by money.
I get paid. Someone pays me to take the pictures they need. Yes, they trust my creative vision for that, but it is my job and I don’t consider myself an artist, either in my wedding work, or even really when making my tintypes or other more’ crafty’ photography. The work I do for myself is where I can make art, which doesn’t include the ritualised slicing of cake :). However, it doesn’t really bother me when others describe themselves as such – ’tis a very subjective thing, I am more bothered by people being generally wanky, God love ’em. When people try & convince us that we are all Sally Manns, it devalues the incredible, important, and worthwhile work we do.
Love, non-bitter realist 😀
Stop trying to define what art is. You can’t define art, that is why it is art. Just because you create for others doesn’t mean that you are not an artist. That rational doesn’t even make sense. You think painters don’t get hired to create something specific? Sculptors? Jewelry makers? PHOTOGRAPHERS? Creation is creation. It doesn’t matter who it’s for or what it’s for. Everything is art. Your coffee mug. It’s art. The floor tile, it’s art. Someone had to design these things, and just because it wasn’t purely for their own enjoyment does not take away the fact that someone had a vision and they created something out of it. THAT is art. Anything.
This article is ignorant to say the least. Gave me a few chuckles.
-Wedding photographer, fine art photographer, painter, drawer, musician, ARTIST.
I’m so thankful for everyone’s comments on this and that a discussion was opened in a couple of places online. I never thought everyone would agree with me but like I say in it, I think it’s a very tough job and personally I feel more satisfied to approach it like a creative working with and around a brief than as an Artist trying to carry out a commission with a client, a client’s family, a registrar, a wedding planner, uncle bobs and 100 guests all trying to chip in.
I’d like to make one more point and that is I’m in the UK market, I’m aware that other markets are different and as said above if you are making it work for you to be an Artist when you shoot weddings then I’d love to hear about it. Lisa …
Love the article ! love the debate! and love that you ( Lisa ) have created one “hellova” arena for discussion..great work and highly worth the read….
Although I agree that meeting client expectations is very important, you’ve unfortunately generalised that all clients want a prescriptive list of must do shots …. some clients actually want an free flowing artistic approach. What’s wrong with that ? Maybe that’s why they booked a Photographer describing themselves as an Artist ?