How much is too much editing with wedding photography

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HebburnMackem

HebburnMackem

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I suppose it partly comes down to your style and outlook, but how much editing and retouching do you think is adequate for wedding photography and how much is OTT?

Personally, I see wedding photography to be very different to a model shoot in this regard. It's much more of a factual record and documentation of the day than making the people look beautiful. Sure you'd fix any problems with the image and dot your i's and cross your t's, but very little after that.

For example, for me, while the retouching in this image is superb, it's totally inappropriate for a wedding shoot.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/147748824@N02/30112877325/in/photostream/

Also, I did a wedding shoot where the bride had a birthmark on her arm. I deliberately didn't airbrush it out. Another photographer said I should have removed it. I said that it would be insulting to the client to change them in that way and possibly even insulting to ask.

This almost gets philosophical.

Thoughts?
 


HebburnMackem said:
I suppose it partly comes down to your style and outlook, but how much editing and retouching do you think is adequate for wedding photography and how much is OTT?

Personally, I see wedding photography to be very different to a model shoot in this regard. It's much more of a factual record and documentation of the day than making the people look beautiful. Sure you'd fix any problems with the image and dot your i's and cross your t's, but very little after that.

For example, for me, while the retouching in this image is superb, it's totally inappropriate for a wedding shoot.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/147748824@N02/30112877325/in/photostream/

Also, I did a wedding shoot where the bride had a birthmark on her arm. I deliberately didn't airbrush it out. Another photographer said I should have removed it. I said that it would be insulting to the client to change them in that way and possibly even insulting to ask.

This almost gets philosophical.

Thoughts?
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One of the problems of retouching / redoing(!) an image to that level is, what do you do with the other 200 images with the bride? Ok, they won't all be that close, but you know what I mean.

I do a wee bit of skin softening on the real close ups but nothing to that level.
 
HebburnMackem said:
I suppose it partly comes down to your style and outlook, but how much editing and retouching do you think is adequate for wedding photography and how much is OTT?

Personally, I see wedding photography to be very different to a model shoot in this regard. It's much more of a factual record and documentation of the day than making the people look beautiful. Sure you'd fix any problems with the image and dot your i's and cross your t's, but very little after that.

For example, for me, while the retouching in this image is superb, it's totally inappropriate for a wedding shoot.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/147748824@N02/30112877325/in/photostream/

Also, I did a wedding shoot where the bride had a birthmark on her arm. I deliberately didn't airbrush it out. Another photographer said I should have removed it. I said that it would be insulting to the client to change them in that way and possibly even insulting to ask.

This almost gets philosophical.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
I would not remove the birthmark!

You have no idea how she feels about it.

If, however, she had asked you to try and remove it, then you would work with her for a happy outcome.
 
oROSSo said:
you shot a wedding with a couple we did our 'wedding workshop' with. Married at Brancepeth.
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Kate and Jason. She's my cousin. I was going to have a day on the drink but their photographer had to pack in due to ill health so I stepped in.

What's a wedding workshop?
 
Steeeeed said:
Kate and Jason. She's my cousin. I was going to have a day on the drink but their photographer had to pack in due to ill health so I stepped in.

What's a wedding workshop?
Click to expand...
we had to go round the vicars house and talk about dealing with married life, conflict resolution, aspirations etc. Don't think the church realise people tend to live together for years before they're married, nowadays.
 
oROSSo said:
we had to go round the vicars house and talk about dealing with married life, conflict resolution, aspirations etc. Don't think the church realise people tend to live together for years before they're married, nowadays.
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Ah right. Bloody do gooders!

That church is lush like.
 
HebburnMackem said:
I suppose it partly comes down to your style and outlook, but how much editing and retouching do you think is adequate for wedding photography and how much is OTT?

Personally, I see wedding photography to be very different to a model shoot in this regard. It's much more of a factual record and documentation of the day than making the people look beautiful. Sure you'd fix any problems with the image and dot your i's and cross your t's, but very little after that.

For example, for me, while the retouching in this image is superb, it's totally inappropriate for a wedding shoot.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/147748824@N02/30112877325/in/photostream/

Also, I did a wedding shoot where the bride had a birthmark on her arm. I deliberately didn't airbrush it out. Another photographer said I should have removed it. I said that it would be insulting to the client to change them in that way and possibly even insulting to ask.

This almost gets philosophical.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
I go by the general rule of thumb that if it's a permanent mark then don't take remove it unless you've been given permission/asked to do so.
 
HebburnMackem said:
I suppose it partly comes down to your style and outlook, but how much editing and retouching do you think is adequate for wedding photography and how much is OTT?

Personally, I see wedding photography to be very different to a model shoot in this regard. It's much more of a factual record and documentation of the day than making the people look beautiful. Sure you'd fix any problems with the image and dot your i's and cross your t's, but very little after that.

For example, for me, while the retouching in this image is superb, it's totally inappropriate for a wedding shoot.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/147748824@N02/30112877325/in/photostream/

Also, I did a wedding shoot where the bride had a birthmark on her arm. I deliberately didn't airbrush it out. Another photographer said I should have removed it. I said that it would be insulting to the client to change them in that way and possibly even insulting to ask.

This almost gets philosophical.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
That retouch is canny. I don't buy the documentation of the day line, the photographer should employ their knowledge as far as is reasonable to ensure the best possible shots get taken
 
lurker said:
That retouch is canny. I don't buy the documentation of the day line, the photographer should employ their knowledge as far as is reasonable to ensure the best possible shots get taken
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"I don't buy the documentation of the day line"....... really?

The overwhelming responsibility of a wedding photographer is to capture those wonderful memories of the couple's special day, the people, the emotions and the nuances of the event, which means it's very much a documentary.
How beautiful you can make them look is very much of secondary importance to the vast majority of couples in the UK and even boarding on insulting if you edit them to the point of actually changing how they look (as in that shot).

However, there are some couples (mostly in the US) that almost completely stage the whole wedding album by having multiple pre and post wedding shoots that are complete staged and heavily edited. As I mentioned, this is quite rare in the UK.

"Best possible shots" does not mean "edit the fuck out of them so they look borderline fake" in the UK. Which is what the shot in the OP does IMHO. Because at that point you are essentially changing so much about a person, that you're saying the fake version is better than the person IRL.

This is not only my style and opinion, but also what the overwhelming majority of UK couples want.
 
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