During a recent consultation with a bride, things took an interesting turn when she made a comment that she did not like black and white images and wants all the images in color. Honestly it kind of made me pause and say to myself that’s interesting, and the fact is I do show a large number of black and white wedding images, out of my nine wall displays currently six are black and white. But I have been thinking about the comment since the consultation.
As creative visual artists we have spent time in developing our style, vision, techniques and even our postproduction “signature look”. Are we able to just flip a switch and change everything we do and believe in just to book the wedding?
This is the question I asked myself and I believe the answer is yes and no. If you are a photography studio or photographer that wishes to book every client that walks in your door the answer is simply yes that switch can be flipped because it’s no longer about the integrity of the work produced but rather, I will agree to anything and do anything to get the booking. How does one maintain passion in the work with this approach?
On the flip side you have photography studios and photographers that truly believe in what they produce, they believe in their art, they believe in their brand, they believe in the visual representation of the images and they will not change this belief.
I fall into the camp of maintaining our passion, our vision of the day unfolding before us. For me the emotional content of a black and white image without the distraction of color is so powerful that I’m not able to compromise on that vision. For me personally I photographically think in black and white and enjoy it, although a small portion of images are actually produced and provided in black and white. Those that are provided in black and white, I feel are so emotionally charged due to the absence of color that the image will not feel right to me presented in color.
Don’t get me wrong I love color and 90% of the wedding images are provided in color, but that small number of black and white images is what drives my passion and challenges me during your wedding to produce the sophistication and elegance that is presented before me.
Christos Hountas
