The Beauty of Black and White Wedding Photography

There’s something to be said for the old monochromatic black and white wedding photography of days gone by.  Whilst we predominantly photograph weddings in a mixture of colour alongside black and white I wanted to share my thoughts on this classic style, which is particularly favoured by documentary wedding photographers.

With black and white photography being at the forefront of editing styles, there’s clearly no sign of it becoming out of date and losing value. Photos dating back over 150 years are just as powerful as they were the day they were developed.

Iconic & Artistic

When most people are asked to think of an iconic photograph, they are likely to be thinking of artistic black and white images. Black & white photography is generally seen as being a beautiful, artistic and emotive way of capturing an image. It is a legacy left to society by some of the greatest photographers in history such as Don Mccullin who predominantly worked in monochrome and this style still inspires and encourages many documentary photographers to work in black & white to this day.

Some couples think that wedding photographs in black and white could potentially miss out on certain characteristics from their wedding day. After all, our world is one of colour so why wouldn’t you want to capture it this way. But the pure simplicity of monochrome photography can make captured images look so creative and powerful.

Sometimes colour can be distracting, drawing your eye away from the important, emotive elements of a photograph. With wedding photography in black and white, gone are bold and colourful clothing or patterns of your guests’. Banished is the neon bright pink of your aunt’s lipstick. All of these distractions are replaced with a balance of monochromatic tones, allowing your eye to be drawn to the expressions, emotions, shapes, shadows, textures, perspective and light. The elements of a photograph that tell the story.

Monochrome wedding photographs have an elegance, sense of magic and emotion that are difficult to achieve from a colour photograph. Every photo immediately feels more romantic and intimate and you get a strong sense of mood. The images often appear more natural, photojournalistic and dramatic.

Black and white documentary wedding photography encourages the viewer to look for the story in each image. To delve deeper into the narrative behind each photograph and muting all those distractions that colour can introduce.