Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Come Full Circle

When I started doing wedding photography, I remembered I could make some refreshing wedding pictures because of my "newspaper" background.

After I turned full-time doing weddings, I tried very hard to become a very good wedding photographer by looking at what other wedding photographers were doing. As time passes, I learn a little bit of this from Photographer X, a little bit of that from Y etc.

In the process of refining the "art" of wedding photography, some of the pictures end up looking like those taken by photographers X, Y & Z combined! Now, as I look around me, and at the wedding photography scene, I realise that there are many good wedding photographers out there, but most of them are taking the same types of pictures, and using the same photoshop actions and almost identical textures!

Sometimes, even a professional eye can't tell the difference, much less a layman.

I must take a different route, if I want to create a niche for myself. I ask myself: what made other people take notice of my work five years ago? Answer? Because I wasn't shooting like a wedding photographer!!

Now, five years on, armed with a new camera that better complements my style of shooting, I seem to have found the new path----the one I should never have left in the first place.

And it was after a 3 weeks' break that I went on my next wedding shoot and boy, do I love the results! Maybe I am biased towards myself, but I wish I can shoot like that or better from now onwards.

(Bumper issue.)




























6 comments:

Anonymous said...

like the one with groom's head with the moon. and the following one with the groom's shadow and bride's smiling away....best. the rest are cool too.

Eh, u dont use alot of texture mah. and you got your own distinct style leh. all along very different..

Colin

Unknown said...

KC, this series is fantastic! I wouldn't dare to call myself a critic, but from my personal view, you do seem to have recaptured something intangible of the greymatter essence that made your work so unique in the past.

Pls don't kill me for admitting that more recently while I still enjoy the photos u share on ur blog, I felt less frequently the quiver of excitement that I got when I first saw your work. I thought maybe I was just getting jaded. But I got that sense again today with this series!

Hope you will keep discovering ur photographer's essence! ^^

ShutterBug said...

heye KC,

thanks for the reminder on staying fresh on perspectives. We can be quite influenced by the so many good examples of wedding photography found all over the world that we tend to forget our originality some how.

I feel, as a wedding photographer, that what's most important is to shoot what you feel. The truest of emotions of a photographer that reflect the scenes unfolding before the camera lens. Clients will feel it, you will know it.

Keep at it! Love the last one... the DOF framing is definitely great! :)

Anonymous said...

mr xyz photographer!:D i dun think anything has changed or u have followed anyone else. u r pretty much alone:D 无敌是寂寞的:P

Anonymous said...

i know whats the difference....the nikon D3 is the difference. other then that, u are still good leh. oh yah, that day that pair of melons very sweet. ahhaha

Colin

Unknown said...

btw, was at a big family gathering of Cathy's yesterday and apparently you've gained some pretty serious new fans there based on J&C's photos!