Our market of wedding photography in Toronto is very saturated and very competitive, with hundreds of photographers of different caliber. Picking the right photographer might be a daunting task so we made this list with some useful tips and hopefully we can make this job a little easier for you.
There are many qualities that you should look for in a top wedding photographer, but we will focus only on the most important artistic style, experience and professionalism.
Let’s start with the photographer’s style of photography and editing. We can name two different styles of wedding photography documentary and traditional. There are also two different styles of editing wedding photos – bright and airy, and dark and moody.
Documentary style focuses on capturing the wedding day as it unfold with minimal involvement from your wedding photographer.His job is to document your wedding day and capture the genuine moments as they happened. This style leads to photos that are more candid, spontaneous and sometimes imperfect yet full of emotions. We love this style since it focuses on storytelling aspect of wedding photography.
Traditional style of wedding photography focuses more on posed and created moments. It is more formal and reflects more of a photographer’s vision of the wedding day. Often the photographer will work off a shot list provided by the client. This approach usually required more time from the wedding couple away from their guests on the wedding day. If you are looking for perfect composition, great lighting or some dramatic shots this might be your style of wedding photography.
Now let’s touch little on the state of editing of wedding pictures in 2018, especially in Toronto. Every year we see new trends and fads come and go in wedding photography. This year we can see a lot of bright and airy wedding pictures dominating wedding blogs, Pinterest boards and Instargram feeds. Images edited in this way look overexposed with high key elements and not a lots of shadows. The colors look dis-saturated and almost pastel like. If you like the dreamy look this might be your style.
The complete opposite of bright and airy will be dark and moody editing. Pictures processed in this way try to preserve low light conditions, enhance shadows and create more dramatic and cinematographic look of photos. Photographers who like this style usually shoot a lot of black and white pictures and try to create more fine-art look of wedding photos.
Another major trait of a great wedding photographer is experience. Wedding photography is a craft that takes many years to develop and master. It’s a combination of raw talent, training, developing skills and practice. We believe there is no substitute for experience in wedding photography. Only experience can prepare you for the unexpected and make you a great problem solver, which is one of the most important skills a wedding photographer can have.
Wedding photography is very similar to sport photography, because it combines the same elements like raw emotions, having the skills to predicting action and being at the right place at the right time to nail the shot. We often get complements how we are able to perfectly capture that emotional and fleeting moment that happen on any wedding day. There is only one answer to this and it’s the experience of shooting hundreds of weddings and millions of pictures at different situations.
Now let’s talk about what it means to be a professional Toronto wedding photographer. Here we could combine qualities like being full time professional photographer, having approachable personality or being responsive and easy to reach. But for us it simply means providing our clients with unforgettable experience and amazing service that goes beyond their expectations.
And finally here some valuable pointers:
- Ask to see a complete wedding coverage from few recent weddings – wedding albums or blog posts.
- Ask for references from past clients.
- Try to find a photographer that you are comfortable to be around and you have good chemistry together.
- Make sure that the photographer you are meeting with will be actually the shooter on your wedding day.
- Get everything in writing and make sure to read the whole wedding contract before you sign it.
- Ask for back up equipment, back up photographers and insurance.
- What is photographer’s dress code on the wedding day?
- Ask who own the rights to your wedding photos, in other words will you be able to print and share your photos without any restrictions.
- How long after the wedding do you get your photos?
- And finally ask if they want a meal during your receptions