Not all are equal in the photography industry. A high-end fashion photographer has higher status than a Butlins staff snapper. But in the photoworld hierarchy, wedding photography comes in for a particularly negative rep.
Rachel Segal Hamilton
A heavily pregnant Demi Moore. John Lennon curled up around Yoko in bed. These are the pictures that spring to mind when you hear the name Annie Leibovitz. Not cakes and confetti. But one of the best known pictures published on the occasion of George and Amal Clooney’s 2014 wedding was taken by her: a shot of the bride’s final dress fitting with designer Oscar de la Renta. Is Leibovitz a wedding photographer? Maybe, maybe not. Vogue, not the bride and groom, commissioned her, and this was not an ordinary wedding.
But the odd sound of this question is a reminder that while there’s often quite a porous border between photographic genres – with practitioners such as Viviane Sassen or Nadav Kander slipping between fashion or advertising and fine art – this isn’t generally the case with wedding photography. “I’ve met many photographers outside of wedding photography and I’m yet to meet one who’s envious of the work that I do or has an aspiration to move into weddings,” says wedding photographer Andy Davison. “There’s a perception amongst photographers that you lose your artistic integrity and almost sell your soul to be a wedding photographer.”
Big Days are big business, with the global wedding industry now worth 300 billion dollars. With an ever replenishing supply of brides and grooms the demand for professional wedding photographers continues to grow – there are currently 50,000 registered as businesses in the UK. “Any Casandra, Deborah and Harriet can call themselves a photographer and ply their wares to the next bride and groom combo,” says photographer and Norwich University of the Arts lecturer, Matt Cooke. All you need to be a wedding photographer is a camera and a booking to shoot someone’s wedding, adds Davison. “That ease of entry, improvements in camera technology and the lack of any formal qualification have led to such a vast number of people now selling themselves as wedding photographers. This has also led to hugely varying standards,” continues Cooke.
To the critics, wedding photography is horribly formulaic: think stilted group portraits and details of newly-ringed fingers clasping bouquets or champagne flutes. And when they’re not sticking rigidly to the conve
