Dark and Moody Wedding Photography is one of the four major styles of wedding photography. The Dark and Moody style can be applied to photography in all types of scenes; however, it’s most often used in scenes commonly categorized as adventure, wanderlust, or elopement photos, and it can be described as having a warm, organic, boho, cinematic, and wanderlust feel.
The Dark and Moody style of wedding photography is achieved with a unique shooting and photo editing style. While there are no set “rules” to wedding photography style, there are general guidelines that photographers follow when photographing these types of images and general characteristics of the photos themselves.
Dark and Moody with Golden Hour
One of the most popular looks in portrait photography (wedding photography included) revolves around golden hour, that first hour after sunrise or the last hour or so before sunset, when shadows grow longer and light shines softer than it does when the sun is high overhead. While golden hour can be used for bright and airy images, it’s especially well suited for a dark and moody photography style. The darker exposure captures more of the warm colors of sunset and embraces the shadows that other editing styles try to lift. Combining a dark and moody editing style with golden hour results in imagery with a warm, cinematic feel.
Dark and Moody with Natural Light
Dark and Moody Wedding Photography is often shot with natural light (and can also be recreated with flash photography when necessary). Compared to the look of our bright and airy style, which also uses natural light and often features pastel colors and blown out brighter and lighter areas of an image to create a soft, romantic look, our dark and moody wedding photography leans into warmer, slightly more desaturated tones, and it pushes contrast between light and shadows to create a more dramatic, editorial vibe.
Displayed in Spreads
The Dark and Moody style usually looks great in spreads, with images displayed side by side in a storytelling format. Consistent lighting, editing, and storytelling, combined with this style of wedding photography, make these images perfect for album and wall art. See examples below.
More Examples of Dark and Moody Wedding and Engagement Images
See the following gallery for more examples of Dark and Moody wedding, engagement, and editorial photos shot by Lin and Jirsa. See our latest weddings and engagements edited with the Dark and Moody style.
If you are looking for this style of photos for your shoot, be sure to let your Lin and Jirsa client manager and photographer know!
For Photographers
As is true with our other styles, our studio has refined and tested this look over thousands of photos. We then created a set of Dark and Moody Lightroom Presets called the Mood Pack.