Black and White Wedding Photography

Some people might think that shooting your wedding photographs in black and white means you would end up losing a lot from the images themselves as our world is mostly in colour and therefore, why would you want to take natural elements away from your most treasured day?

In actual fact, a world without colour forces you to view photographs very differently, in many cases it will make the images appear more dramatic or compositionally stronger and encourage the viewer to look deeper into the purpose and narrative of each photograph. You will see that clothing, colour differences in varying light sources, cars and colourful backgrounds have stopped taking the focus away.

You see, colour can often be distracting. This is one of the key reasons I prefer black and white photographs. Without the distraction of colour, black and white can not only be compositionally stronger but this simpler, more digestible language also allows us to assess relationships between subjects and how this emotion is conveyed.

By processing an image in black and white you can draw the viewer into the shot and almost be able to show them the reason it was initially taken, that raw, natural, uninhibited moment captured between a couple on one of the most important and probably emotional days of their lives. Emotive black and white documentary wedding photography is centred around human interaction, so being able to show this emotion quickly and clearly, is crucial. Whereas colour can have evoked the complete opposite by drawing the viewer’s eye away from the narrative.

One of the most common reasons people want to have their wedding photos taken in black and white these days is because it lends a certain timeless quality to the photographs, a classic elegance almost that time cannot touch.

Black and white photography provides a wonderful range between the blackest of blacks and the whitest of whites. Bold and colourful makeup is no longer distracting and elements such as skin discolouration dissolve into the darkness, the subjects become more natural-looking and the simplest of images become a work of art. It’s not hard to see why many of the top fashion photographers have built their entire career on shooting almost completely in black and white. There are many very good reasons black and white photography has not been made redundant and still exists very prominently today.

Even from the earliest days of photography over 170 years ago, black & white photography has endured the test of time, even into the present day with the coming of colour photography. It has, over the years, proven itself as a stable part of photography. A part that isn’t going anywhere and only seems to be increasing in popularity with both photographers and the general public. The black & white photography legacy that was left by some of the greatest photographers such as Yousuf Karsh and Ansel Adams, still inspires and encourages all types of reportage wedding photographers, both amateur and professional to work in black & white. In other words, black & white photography is seen as a beautiful art form that holds a great deal in the hearts and minds of both photographers, publishers and the artistic world and still survives to this day to help educate, inspire and move people from all walks of life in various different ways as these moments are brought to our eyes in a more artistic and emotive way.

So, why would you not want to have one of the most special days of your life captured in this thought-provoking, raw and atmospheric way.