If you seeking an award-winning Northern Virginia wedding photographer for your marital event, we encourage you to do research on the awards that the potential candidates have won. Every professional association that recognizes the best in wedding photography is different. Each has their own priorities and philosophy when it comes to our craft. Some favor pictures that with vibrant colors; others pick images that are lighter and airier. Certain contests recognize the best documentary photographers, whereas others tend to give awards to stunning couples portraits.
No one professional association is better than any other. What is important for you, when it comes to picking your Northern Virginia wedding photographer, is finding one whose style and photographic philosophy work for you. If you like what the organization stands for in those areas, then you are certain to find member photographers that will give you the kind of wedding pictures you want.
We are members of several different professional wedding photography associations and have received awards from most of them. When it comes to those honors, we have no favorites. We are equally proud of all of the awards that we have gotten from our peers in the wedding and engagement photography industry. We consider ourselves lucky to be surrounded by such extraordinarily talented people who inspire us to keep improving our craft. That helps us do a better and better job serving couples like you. So any time they deem our photographs worthy of appreciation, we consider it an enormous honor.
Most of the associations to which we belong naturally value the type of wedding photography that we do. We specialize in capturing moments on film and documenting the emotions on display at your wedding. Largely speaking, the professional organizations of which we are members recognize the best in exactly that kind of wedding photography.
An example of such an association is This is Reportage. That group celebrates photographers and photographs that do a superlative job of narrating the stories (whether big or small) that play out on your wedding day. As such, it rewards the photographers who produce emotionally impactful images of unscripted moments.
The reason This is Reportage recognizes the best documentary wedding photography is because its founder (like us) believes in the power of this style. Yes, unposed photographs tend to be a little rougher around the edges. The lighting will not always be cooperative nor will the background always be the most flattering. But what reportage pictures lack in polish, they more than make up for in emotional impact. Posed pictures might look beautiful, but it is hard to make them spontaneous enough to bring out genuine feelings. In our (and This is Reportage’s) opinion, those emotions are exactly what you will want to remember in 20 years. So capturing them on film is imperative. Your photographers must get all the excitement, joy, fear, slight sadness and relief that you experience on your wedding day.
It is because we share this philosophy with This is Reportage that we are extraordinarily honored and proud to have won several of their awards, including one for the photo featured here. We took it at a lovely indoor/outdoor wedding ceremony in Northern Virginia. The groom had two sons from a previous relationship. The adorable little guys spent most of the morning keeping their dad company as he got into his wedding tuxedo. When the moment of truth came along, though, they had to let him go up to the altar alone. In the meantime, the young men stayed behind with their grandparents. It was obvious to all the wedding guests in attendance that the boys were feeling a lot of different emotions. They were happy for their dad, of course, and for his soon-to-be-wife. But they were also a bit scared about the change in their lives. Moreover, they were also overwhelmed by the crowd, the noise and the mid-summer Washington heat. This is all apparent on the face of the little man in this photograph. What really makes the image special, though, is the way that his grandmother has placed her hands gently on his head and shoulder in an effort to reassure him that no matter what, he will always have people in his life who love him. These are the kinds of moments that any couple would want to remember from their wedding day. And they are the kind that we will always strive to capture on film for them.
Location: Foxchase Manor, 8310 Chatsworth Dr, Manassas, VA 20109.
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