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When their beat gets old, photojournalists turn their lenses toward weddings

By Jake Laub
CTW Features

Image courtesy J. Crew

Just because you’re not a celebrity doesn’t mean you can’t have the press show up to photograph your wedding.

That’s why there’s News Wedding Photographers, an organization of approximately 65 wedding photographers who don’t just take photos in a photojournalism style – they’re actual photojournalists. The founder of the organization, Emilie Sommer, worked as a photographer for USA Today and as a photo editor for The Washington Post before beginning to photograph weddings in 2001.

At that time, wedding photojournalism was becoming a buzzword of the industry, but Sommer was irked by what she saw as widespread false advertising. “I was overly frustrated with everyone out there calling themselves wedding photojournalists,” Sommer says. “I firmly believe that you have to be careful about how you coin yourself. You wouldn’t hire a plumber if they weren’t educated in plumbing.”

Taking matters into her own hands, she started News Wedding Photographers last fall. Her motto: If you want a photojournalistic wedding photographer, you should consider hiring an actual photojournalist. Only photojournalists with at least two years’ reporting experience are allowed to join the site, even if that has displeased other wedding photographers. “It’s about credentials,” she says. “A lot of these photographers have worked with presidents and press corps for years, and there’s even someone with a few Pulitzers to his name.”

That experience is what makes for good photography, though, says Arizona-based News Wedding Photographer Stuart Thurlkill. Photojournalists are already primed to photograph weddings. “In news photography you cover the president one day and a homeless man on the street 10 minutes later,” he says. “Photojournalists have the ability to be varied and responsive to any situation. Weddings are no different.”

The personal aspect also is important. Photojournalists have to be as much psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists as photographers, and those skills are vital when covering an event as emotionally charged as a wedding. “Our clients say over and over again that they want someone there to capture the special moments but not feel like they were herded around,” Thurlkill says. “That’s what journalism is – getting to the heart of what people are without interfering.”

But many photojournalistic wedding photographers argue they have similar skills, including the flexibility and discreetness of a photojournalist. So what’s the difference?

“That’s a bit of a touchy issue,” Thurlkill says. “Stylistically it’s the same, if I capture the same moments. It really boils down to a keen awareness coming out of my work experience of telling a story – not just capturing the moments, but being aware of the details that go into making those moments tell a story.”

Whether style can substitute for job title is still up for debate. Traffic to the site has grown steadily during the year since its launch but has not been overwhelming. The response by other photojournalists-turned-wedding photographers, however, has been positive.

Jennifer Domenick worked at The Washington Post before opening Love Life Images Inc., a wedding-photography studio halfway between Washington D.C. and Baltimore. In order to stay in touch with the profession she left, Domenick regularly invites photojournalists to speak at her studio. News Wedding Photographers is one more way she can maintain that connection.

“My heart is still in photojournalism,” she says. “In my core that’s where a lot of my inspiration still comes from.”

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