April 30, 2018

No discrimination here, shocking what the wedding and family photography industry are becoming

In less than one week from my first Facebook live video, I went live again, though this time in my “work from home uniform”, yoga pants! Just ask me how much yoga I do all day;)  Oh and the feeling of this 2nd video- much different.

In the video, I talk about a topic that has really been upsetting me in the photographing industry.

In my 12 years of being a wedding photographer, I have noticed huge changes from then to now and a lot of it has to with the popularity of the internet. With that popularity came blogs, some devoted to the topic of weddings.  And the one blog that rose to the top was called Style Me Pretty created by Abby Larson. Style Me Pretty was owned by Oath Inc and a subsidiary of Verizon.  Style Me Pretty was the go-to wedding planning blog and averaged 18 MILLION, yes million clicks a month. On Instagram Style Me Pretty has 1 million followers.

Sounds all fine and dandy right?  The thing with Style Me Pretty though is that is was known for showcasing white, affluent and usually very beautiful and thin brides.

Still maybe one could say that was just Abby’s branding. We are all allowed to use branding to attract a certain type of client. To me though, one of the real issues is that Style Me Pretty is what is called an internet influencer. With that influence comes power- like it or not.

Recently Oath decided to end Style Me Pretty and it was the gossip of the wedding town! STYLE ME PRETTY IS ENDING!?! Then 3 weeks later Abby suddenly got her blog back and thousands cheered! Her big mistake was that Abby did her welcome back post with a photo from a photographer, Kay English out of NJ,  that is openly against homosexuality. That created a wave of anger with photographers and wedding creatives that like me are in shock of what our industry has become. That was the day I did this video so my followers and clients would know where I stand on this topic.

When I first moved to California I photographed a stunning wedding in San Diago. The event planner submitted the wedding images to Style Me Pretty and it got published. Yay- published! But really it’s like one little micro blip of internet fame. Getting published on Style Ne Pretty also meant that you got to put one of their badges on your website and to potential clients viewing your work that meant something. It was like street creds in the wedding industry.

Becoming published became so popular that something called “stylized shoots” came into play because real weddings with real budgets and couples were just not getting published as often.  These stylized shoots are little fake wedding setups with models playing bride and groom.  So now photographers are creating these false weddings in hopes of getting them published and then putting those wedding pictures on their website… but not saying they were a stylized shoot. Well, the problem in that is when the real people like Jenny, Liz or Johnny were getting married they didn’t feel like their looks, bodies or wedding budget was good enough.

I started to get emails saying, “I’m really interested in hiring you for our wedding but our wedding probably won’t get you published.” YUCK! To think couples were feeling “less than” over what was to be one of the most important days of their lives!

Photographers on wedding forums would complain that a wedding was “budget”. Clearly forgetting that the real beauty happened between the people getting married.  The wedding blogs were only really interested in showcasing details and a few portraits, mostly of the bride.  The photography world went from photojournalism of the real moments between real people to editorial photography like that you see in magazines- details, details, details. Then the movement started of photographers hand selecting which wedding they would photograph in the hopes of getting published and/or looking like they are of a certain style…often the Style Me Pretty style. It was like high school popularity at it’s worst.

Then weddings for same-sex couples were legalized.

Photographers were saying on forums, “who takes gay weddings because I won’t”.  Or clients were saying that when they revealed they were gay that suddenly that photographer was booked.

This all brings me back to Abby of Style Me Pretty and her influence. She, whether she likes it or not, has a lot of leverage over the many creative minds in the wedding industry. And the clients. Some of my brides after their wedding would ask me to submit to Style Me Pretty. Getting published was starting to become the “it” thing to do for brides and groom as well.

When someone has such influence you hope that they can use it to lift the industry to a higher place. Like Oprah, Lady Diana or Michelle Obama.

Would things be different if Style Me Pretty showcased curvy brides? Gay grooms? DIY weddings? Transgender weddings?

It’s hard to say when all this craziness started and how things came to be this way, the above are only my thoughts and opinions. But maybe things would be different now if Style Me Pretty used their influence in a different way.  Maybe this discrimination occurring in the wedding and family photography industry would not be happening.

Could you imagine if a lesbian woman walked into Target to buy something and they said: “Oh we don’t take lesbian’s money, we don’t want your business.”  Or imagine if a transgender went to an accountant and they said: “Oh your transgenders? We don’t do accounting for transgenders”.  Or imagine is a curvy bride went into a bank and they said: “Oh we are not interested in working with curvy people.”

THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN!  WHY?  BECAUSE IT’S DISCRIMINATION!

The point of my video was to CLEARLY express that here at Susannah Gill Photography I do not discriminate.  It’s time the wedding industry became a place of LOVE because that’s what weddings are truly all about.

comments +

  1. rebecca says:

    I just stumbled across your page from a local Folsom FB page. Thank you SO MUCH for this post! I am happy people like you are out there and willing to speak up for marginalized groups. 

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Susannah Gill Photography 
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