Being yourself as a wedding photographer.
There’s a reason sheep crowd together , it’s genetic. They feel safer in numbers, if one sheep decides to go a certain way they all follow, which is great until the lead sheep decides to walk off a cliff and the rest follow, and they would.
It’s a bit like that in wedding photography, someone who appears to be doing well for themselves starts to get couples climbing flagpoles and a bunch of other people follow suit, same for how they edit their pictures or speak online. It’s killing creativity in the industry, everything starts to look exactly the same, very few people have an identity - they’re just a copy of Mr, Mrs or Miss popular, but a weaker version.
What’s then left to identify one wedding photographer from another? Not a lot really, except price - with everyone copying everyone else and everything looking the same and everyone scrabbling for the same bookings price becomes the only deciding factor, a price war ensues or people go out of business, someone will always do it cheaper to put food on the table - fine for clients whoop whoop - if they want the generic ‘off the shelf stuff’, lazy mediocre Photography that the same people shoot week in week out, the same stilted setups, no effort, no imagination, nothing special.
The real issue lies I guess with people not being taught how to express who they are, to be themselves, to be different and creative - it’s much easier to just follow a tutorial on YouTube or pay £300 for a training course with 20 other photographers all lined up taking the same picture. It’s far easier to host a ‘this is how you use your camera’ workshop than a ‘discover who you are’ one - I’m not sure if this is a UK thing or more widespread around the world.
But good news! There’s a rebellion starting, it started in Europe where free thinkers seem more prevalent, ballsy people with ‘fuck it’ attitudes who are pushing back the tide of mehness and it’s starting to spread, hopefully one day people will start to ‘see’ again, become photographers again.
The UK rebellion is picking up pace and long may it continue, I just hope people don’t just start copying the leaders 🤷♂️
So I guess what I’m saying is, find your spark, that thing that makes you call yourself an artist, a photographer, start figuring out what makes you different, who you are. Find your voice and use it.
