🔥 'Sepia-gate' got hot

+ AI labels, wedding photography inspo, and John Dolan

July 03, 2024

Just like that Saturday off during wedding season feeling. So good you have no idea what to do with yourself… Here’s what’s we have on LENSEL today:

The “SEPIAGATE” editing drama
WTF Instagram, this was not ‘Made with AI’
Inspo, news, and all you need to know

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NEWS

Happening this Week

The Wedding Photographers Belt. Get in quick for the next round of orders on the UNCOMMON SENSE belt. See all about it here.
Scroll Post Limits. Instagram is still messing with scroll posts limits. Some are still 10, but you may have access to post 20!
Unplugged. This Bride has to stop mid isle to tell her guests to put their phones away. It unfolded further here.
VSCO x Narrative. VSCO is coming back to desktop. Get 3 months free of VSCO Pro here in this collab with Narrative.
More heat from Nikon. Hot after the Nikon Z6iii release, they have also put out a new 35mm 1.4 lens which is only $600.
Get down. Do you dance with your couples on the dancefloor? There’s some wildly different takes and opinions here.
It’s not a dream. Pentax released a new film camera! Yes, in 2024. The Pentax 17 is available now. 17 to represent the half frame size (17/35mm), which was quite the surprise. 72+ shots on a roll sounds great though!

TIK TOK

The “Sepiagate” Controversy

Search ‘sepiabride on Tiktok to go down the rabbit hole

Tiktok blew up this week with a bride vs wedding photographer controversy now coined ‘SEPIAGATE’. The TLDR is this: Bride hires photographer for her wedding, gets her photos back and hates her skin tones and the photographers editing. Bride whips up a TikTok storm detailing the back and forth with the photographer, asking for RAWs, getting re-edits. It goes VIRAL and half the wedding world weighs in on the subject.

Opinions ranged from “The photographer clearly displayed their editing style in their portfolio and you hired them!” to “Photographers should do ANYTHING to make their couples happy and satisfied”

@alexandrajaye5
Replying to @Ash Scibelli🤍 #greenscreen

Let’s not add to the drama, but rather highlight two themes “sepiagate” should get us thinking about…

Accountability: Wedding photography is often a low accountability game. You deliver an edit and the couple just has to accept it. It’s our art right? We know best! This bride really held the photography accountable for her work and didn’t let her get away with photos she didn’t like. Perhaps unfairly, perhaps not. But are we going to see more of this? Do we need to be clearer with couples about our process and spell out exactly what they will get? What they can ask for and can’t ask for? Perhaps. The bigger question is, can you back up what you show on Instagram??! We need to be SO SURE we are representing our work fully and well to avoid drama like this.

Editing: Another nail in the coffin for the warm, sepia, heavy handed edit. Yes, this vibe had a time, but that time has well and truly GONE. The problem is, it takes a lot of work to make photos look normal, balanced and consistent throughout the whole day, but that’s exactly the work we should diving into. And let’s say this loud and clear - A preset is never a fix, it’s a starting point. More on this soon.. For now, if you are a little lost in the sea of editing, find a photographer you LOVE who is getting amazing natural tones and edit with their work as a reference - like directly next to their photo, take regular breaks from your screen to calibrate your eyes (don’t get lost in your edit vibe) and let’s avoid another sepiagate.

Clean tones by nikolaevanastya and antonovakseniya

AN OG

The Perfect Imperfect by John Dolan

John Dolan - the OG Documentary Wedding Photographer

This week Damiani Books released an updated version to The Perfect Imperfect by John Dolan. A stunning (yes, actual real life) book that celebrates almost 30 years of capturing weddings. The book features weddings of Gwyneth Paltrow, Anna Sophia Robb, and one hosted at the White House of Naomi Biden - but more importantly it showcases the revolutionary philosophy of one of the original documentary wedding photographers.

We’d all do well to be calibrated by consuming such timeless and real work. You can check it out on Instagram here and purchase a copy here.

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