Fads and Trends

There used to be a time in wedding photography when the posed formal portion of the day was just that, posed and formal. Everyone would line up assembly line style and the photographer would just snap the photograph. Then came the stylish poses, such as sitting on a fence or posed over an old tractor in a field with mountains behind the subjects but it was still posed. Then black and white came back into vogue and wedding were mainly photographed in black and white with maybe a bit of hand colouring. Clients starting asking for more, they did not want their wedding photographs to look like their parents wedding photographs and photojournalist wedding photography was born. Now almost every wedding photographer lists their style as photojournalistic, which begs the question what is next as far as style of wedding photography?
A current up and coming offering in addition to the usual wedding coverage is a Trash The Dress session which takes place after the wedding day. Brides are no longer cleaning and packing their wedding dress for their daughter to use so what else do you do with the wedding dress? Trash it! The sky is the limit as far as what can be done during this session. Jump in a lake, jump on quads and head for a mud bog, roar down the street on a motorcycle, you name it! The web is assisting in this style becoming more popular, with a flickr group devoted to it. And there is a dedicated website to Trash The Dress. Is it a fad? I don't think so. It is just another option that couples have when designing their wedding photography coverage.
So what is the trends in wedding photography? If almost everyone is doing a photojournalistic type of coverage then in 15 to 20 years is the trend going to revert back to a more posed formal type of photography because the couples who will be getting married then going to be sick of the casual style used now? I guess time will tell but right now I love doing to current style. But I have always been adaptable with my photography and look forward to trying new things requested by my couples.