I have to admit, I have a love-hate relationship with Instagram. Personally, I love using it as a way to connect with my friends and family visually, seeing what they're up to without long winded statuses or game invites. As a photographer, I hate it. Not because it has inspired everyone and their mother to become fledgling food photographers, but because it has made filters the new "it" fad.
Over the years of meeting with brides and talking about wedding photography, our conversations always seem to touch on one topic: style. I'm not talking clothes or interior design, but editing style. Currently there's a lot of styles out there in the wedding photography industry. And I don't want to talk badly about anyone else's style because I understand that personal preferences are just that- personal, but I do want to take a minute to talk about my editing style and why I haven't started using filters.
I believe that wedding pictures are priceless. 50 years later, they'll be dragged out, and dusted off to bring smiles to the faces of those that were there and those that weren't even born yet. My parents recently celebrated their 31st wedding anniversary and I found myself pouring through their wedding album one night sitting indian style on the floor. Their pictures were simple and what I like to call "classic". They hadn't been overly processed (maybe because that wasn't possible in the early 80s), they were just real.
That's the style that I try to achieve with every wedding I edit. I edit all of my pictures very minimally with 50 years down the road in mind. I correct lighting and colors when necessary, but try not to mess with much else. I don't bump up the vibrance, or decrease the contrast, and I never apply filters. Because, I believe, in 50 years pictures that haven't been edited as much are going to stand the test of time and those with filters will look like a fad that coming generations just won't understand (much like the concept of lacquering a composite photo to a tree stump is a foreign concept to us now).
So I leave the filters to my Instagram feed, because my pictures of my cats and my Panera lunches don't need to stand the test of time. They're just for fun, for now.
Keep smiling!
Kaylina
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