Wedding Coverages and Styles - Wedding Photography by John G. Blair-Occidental, California

I am a "Custom Wedding Photographer". I am able to create beautiful wedding images in four different styles because I realize that one style doesn't fit everyone's taste. I combine several styles including traditional formals, traditional candids, photojournalism, and fine art. I use the latest digital tools to create exactly the look you have in mind for your wedding.

Traditional Formal photographs are the standard posed photographs of the bride and groom, wedding party, and family portraits that most people associate with a wedding. Some posed black and white photography is often included in the Traditional Formal coverage. Nearly all of my clients want at least some of the Traditional Formal images in their album. The more of these types of images and the more posed they are, the more time needs to be allowed for the photography. I spend about 30 to 60 minutes photographing Formals in most of the weddings I photograph and is the amount of time I suggest. The actual amount of time is determined by my client during our initial consultations. I try to work as quickly as I can since I realize that most clients would rather spend more time with their family and friends than with me. :-)

Traditional Candids are the photographs of events such as the wedding ceremony, garter toss, bouquet throw, and cake cutting. These photographs are sometimes setup and controlled a bit to make them more photogenic and avoid things like photographs of the backs of people's heads. This is how Candids differ from Photojournalism (below).

The Black and White Photojournalism (or "PJ") approach is more candid and is unposed and spontaneous. These photos attempt to capture more of the flavor of the event. These Photojournalism photographs are usually done in black and white. You have your choice of a grainy style or more traditional crisp black and white.

The Fine Art style provides images which are unique. Images like hand-colored black and white, large scale panoramas, black and white grainy candids, photo impressionism, romantic minatures, and other techniques are used to create wedding images very unlike the other styles. I believe that I am one of the few wedding photographers today that take advantage of the power of digital photography to create very special fine art images from your wedding. My Fine Art style is probably unlike any other wedding images you've seen. If anything they resemble various painting styles.

While you are free to select a single wedding photography style, most bridal couples allow me to use a variety of the above styles (depending on the albums you select). I make my style choice after feeling the energy and ambiance of your wedding and combining that with an intimate knowledge of your likes and dislikes to create my own artistic impressions of your wedding .