Photography and The Google Search

29/10/2025

I have noticed recently that there seems to be a lot of discussion online amongst what I refer to as domestic photographers (those not commissioned by people whose profession it is to commission photographers. Such as wedding and local portrait photographers). They seem to be obsessed with sticking descriptive labels on the work they make. Editorial, lifestyle, documentary, journalistic etc. etc. Labels taken from areas of photographic practice that have no connection with what they do. Labels they believe describe an aesthetic that they are attempting to imitate.

Labels that are based on process and practice that informs the outcome and usage. Labels that embrace multiple aesthetic approaches. Not just the one interpretation that many seem to have, hope to replicate and promote.

I commented on this on Threads and one photographer based in Canada came back to me and explained that this is needed to aid Google searches and raise visibility. He said he didn’t like it but that it had to be done. He gave an example of the use of the word ‘senior’. This seems to be a popular area of domestic photography in the US. Initially I thought it was portraits of people of a certain age but then I realised that it meant portraits of high school kids. This is not something that exists in any great number in the UK as far as I know but his point made sense. If you are looking for a ‘senior’ photographer locally you would Google that term.

Now a similar search for an editorial, lifestyle, documentary or journalistic photographer is not going to find you a wedding photographer. This is when his argument falls apart. In fact it is going to find you the complete opposite. It’s going to reveal the true meanings of those words and the photography associated with them. I think we can agree that inevitable confusion would follow. That’s one problem, but I think there is a much more obvious issue with this labelleing of work that has nothing to do with the true origins of the words. It is this, how many prospective brides and grooms are even aware of these terms in relation to photography? Exactly. I know wedding photographers will say that they do, to support their actions but please let’s be honest here. How many people do you know that use those terms ever that are not in some way engaged with the medium?

Googling photographers is a very unsatisfactory exercise unless you know the name of the photographer or specific information before you start searching. You need some information to find the information.

The truth seems to be that wedding photographers seem to want to co-opt the terms used by photographers working outside of the domestic arena. Why they should want to do that I will leave you to decide but I have my suspicions. The one thing I have learned is not to question their use or understanding of these terms. They do get very angry!

Dr.Grant Scott
After fifteen years art directing photography books and magazines such as Elle and Tatler, Scott began to work zas a photographer for a number of advertising and editorial clients in 2000. Alongside his photographic career Scott has art directed numerous advertising campaigns, worked as a creative director at Sotheby’s, art directed foto8magazine, founded his own photographic gallery, edited Professional Photographer magazine and launched his own title for photographers and filmmakers Hungry Eye. He founded the United Nations of Photography in 2012, and is now a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, and a BBC Radio contributor. Scott is the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019), and What Does Photography Mean To You? (Bluecoat Press 2020). His photography has been published in At Home With The Makers of Style (Thames & Hudson 2006) and Crash Happy: A Night at The Bangers (Cafe Royal Books 2012). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was premiered in 2018.

Scott’s next book is Inside Vogue House: One building, seven magazines, sixty years of stories, Orphans Publishing, is on sale February 2024.

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One response to “Photography and The Google Search”

David S Senoff

October 29, 2025 at 6:11 pm

Grant,
In addition to being one of your “mature” MA Photography students of a certain “senior” age, who also happens to live in the US, I was also surprised by the search term “Senior Photographer.” To my great horror and surprise, I discovered that when I googled that term the results were indeed for photographers who take portraits of High School Seniors. In my day, the school itself hired a photographer and had that photographer come to the school on a given day and make these portraits on the basketball court in the gymnasium. If you were absent that day, the photographer scheduled a make-up day. Today, it seems as if “Senior Photographers” are wedding photographers, who may also take “corporate portraits,” and are also “event photographers” and this “senior photography” is just another offering provided by the photographer. Nevertheless, the fact that it is now “niche business,” is truly stunning to me.

Separately, in looking at some of these websites it seems the “studio owners” are now also teaching classes to other photographers on how to grow their businesses, including the use of the “IPS” technique. (IPS= In person sales). Back when dinosaurs walked the earth and was a photo assistant and second photographer shooting wedding photos, the “studio owner,” also used the IPS technique. Let’s just say, after witnessing a certain number of in person sales meetings, I vowed never to do that, and then went on to law school. Oddly, nothing I have ever done or been asked to do in my 30 odd years as an attorney ever made me feel as “slimy” as my days sitting through those IPS meetings!

Best regards, David

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