Detroit, Michigan Documentary Wedding Photographer / Photojournalist

Detroit Based Michigan Documentary Wedding Photographer Explains What Documentary Wedding Photography Is All About.

So what exactly is "documentary wedding photography"? Great question! You'll see a lot more black and white images in this gallery. I always think of documentary style as being more nitty gritty, more cinematic. Perhaps a bit more "authentic" (one of my least favorite, yet apt description for documentary). Black and white is timeless or maybe it just focuses the eye away from all the distracting color in a photo so you can zero in on the action, the emotion or the setting. It sort of strips away the wrapping and leaves you with just the gift.

I think this style is pretty much interchangeable with photojournalism. They both concentrate on the fleeting nature of a moment. They both tell stories. They both should make you feel something. Like you were there. Like you got to peek behind the curtain. Like you were in on the joke.

To me, I feel a good wedding documentary photo should reflect that slip second something was going on. You are bearing witness to something. Often, in this category, it's a mishap, or something that feels intimate and private.

But just because we all think of documentary photography as being in black and white, that's far from true. So long as I am truthfully documenting a wedding day, it should reflect all the fun, all the tears, all those little bitty and fleeting things that happened between all the things on your timeline that make your day totally and uniquely YOURS.

These are the types of images that a good wedding photojournalist and documentary photographer should be able to capture during a wedding day.

Thanks for looking through my documentary wedding portfolio and hope you'll check out more galleries while you're here.