Wedding Photography Trend: Abbey Hepner Photography's Instagram Love

Medium format film; All photos courtesy of Abbey Hepner Photography

In an age where Instagram is one of the most popular apps in the smartphone world and places like Rare Medium are cropping up around town in our we-seek-originality-but-crave-nostalgia-hipster-mecca, old-school, real film photography naturally has crept back into the creative-minded wedding world.

Fuji instant pack film

For artistic, perhaps nostalgic, brides, Abbey Hepner is your girl. With a degree in fine art photography from the University of Utah, Abbey’s film-based training provides an added element to your wedding photography experience. Combining digital and analog photography, she hopes to create “meaningful, artistic, timeless” wedding photos that are meant to be shared with loved ones, hung on a wall, or put in an album, instead of a simply handing over a disc full of hundreds of photos to be stuck in a shoebox under the bed. She finds that digital photography is helpful to work quickly and efficiently at a wedding, while film renders color and light in ways that are difficult to mimic digitally, especially in regards to black and white film.

Fuji instant pack film

She always takes Polaroids at every wedding she shoots, often giving a few to the bride and groom to actually hold in their hands to see their first prints as a married couple (and pass around to guests at the reception). Abbey says that many of her couples take out their Polaroids on their honeymoon to look at and realize, “Wow, we really got married!” These single, one-of-a-kind prints powerfully capture the moment and the emotion evoked by those memories, as the change up between digital and film photography keeps Abbey “constantly thinking creatively.”

Black and white instant images just before handing them over to the bride & groom

Abbey Hepner Photography shoots a limited amount of medium format film and instant images at every wedding, but couples looking for that artistic touch may choose to pay for an additional film package.

So shoot Abbey an email or call her on the phone or send her a hand-typed letter (if you’re into that kind of thing), because she can do a lot of things your Maid of Honor and her iPhone surely cannot.

Artistic effects done with a Polaroid image by heating it and transferring it to watercolor paper