Weekly Photo Challenge: Illumination

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This week I found the opportunity to post on the blog in response to WordPress’s weekly photo challenge. The theme was illumination. I’m always looking for a theme where wedding photography can brought to bear, and this week I just about had time to prepare and post an entry. It also allowed me to tinker about with the hue and saturation controls in Photoshop to experiment with presenting a black and white image.

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This was taken last April at an evening reception at Sprowston Manor Hotel near Norwich. I love taking pictures of children at weddings, and many of my favourite images from last year have children as the subject. Here I liked the expression on the girl’s face as she was obviously enjoying herself – with the boy sitting next to her totally unaware. The disco lighting from the right illuminates them quite softly. I prefer to use black and white in this particular case as the colours behind her head were a little distracting. Compositionally, there’s a left to right diagonal leading the eye out of the frame towards the focus of their attention.

Canon EOS 400D, 1/80 at f2.8, ISO 400.

Two favourites from 2012

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I’ve been debating whether or not to choose a favourite image from the weddings I photographed in 2012. There were many to consider, ranging from images of the brides and grooms to all sorts of images of wedding guests in a variety of settings. Some that appealed to me greatly at the time have lessened their impact a little since then, and it’s been far from easy to pick just one image. So in the end I have fudged the issue somewhat and picked a closely related of images – as I rather liked the similarities and differences.

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IMG_8840e_600Here are two photographs of three bridesmaids from a wedding in June at the Old Rectory in Great Melton near Norwich. We had been wandering around the music room with a couple of other members of the family while the bride’s preparations were underway, and I was in the process of taking pictures of them wandering around the room exploring the musical instruments and generally relaxing and enjoying themselves. Some of the pictures I took in this room are among my favourites from the wedding (I find children often make the best subjects and they were no exception).

In both pictures the girls are posing for someone else off camera to my right. In the first one, they aren’t fully settled in to their poses and still show fairly natural expressions – admittedly each one is different. In the second picture, taken a couple of minutes later, they are posing and their expressions are quite different. I prefer the first one – but taken together, they tell something of a story and I think they have much more meaning than if they had been looked at separately. Just a small point, maybe, but for me it’s an interesting one nonetheless and that why I have made these my favourites from 2012.

Image of the month 10

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When thinking about what I was going to use for this month’s featured image, I made the decision to go back and look through images from a wedding photoshoot in Norwich in April, and look through some images for something I hadn’t really noticed first time through.

This is a shot of the bridesmaids together in the church before the beginning of the wedding service. I did crop it somewhat to bring out the focus on the small group as the key element of the picture, and decided to keep it in colour after looking at black and white conversions as I felt the purple dresses stood out really well.

I decided that what I liked about this picture was the relaxed and happy attitude of the bridesmaids and the range of their expressions – the two on the left looking towards the camera, the other two looking at each other; along with the clasped hands and (technically) the placement of the subjects on a slight diagonal. It’s a simple and straightforward image, of course, but one that I felt deserved a second look.

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Image of the month 8

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This month’s image is from a wedding I photographed (in my usual documentary style) earlier this year. This one left me in something of a quandry when it came to editing – as to whether  to convert to black and white, after carrying out a quick fix of contrast and levels, or leave it in colour. The red object she is carrying is rather distracting, as is the rim lighting around it. I could have adjusted this, but decided to leave it as it was. The reason the image appealed to me was  the way the light strikes her forehead, her concentration on what’s happening out of frame, and the narrow depth of field. The picture has its flaws, but I rather like it the way it is.

Weekly photo challenge: ‘mine’

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Each week there’s a WordPress photo challenge – an invitation to post an image related to a particular theme, this week’s being ‘mine’. I decided to use this to post an image taken at one of this year’s weddings. The picture I chose was of a small girl at a woodland wedding I photographed in June. She was sitting in a tent, eating sausages in a bun. This is just one of the shots I took of the children – they usually make the best subjects as they tend to be uninhibited and rarely seem to notice the camera. Of course, this isn’t obviously a photograph taken at a wedding, but this was hardly a run of the mill type of wedding anyway. For me, I’m sure she is thinking the bun is most definitely “mine”.

Putting details in context

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When it comes to photographing weddings, I’m a big believer in getting those detail shots in such a way that their context is clear. On its own, a picture of flowers, table decorations, place cards, shoes or whatever isn’t going to have anything like the same emotional resonance as a picture that relates the detail to people, or at least something that shows it’s clearly taken at a wedding.

As an illustration, here’s a picture I took at a wedding earlier this year in Norwich. It’s in a church, it looks like a wedding, the people are obviously concentrating on what’s being said, but the focus is clearly on the coloured ribbons in centre shot, and that’s exactly what I had intended. I like other elements of the composition – the strong curve of the wooden railing linking the people together and drawing the eye to the centre of the frame, but for me the main thing here is to establish the context of the decorative details.

A Cambridge photoshoot

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Browsing through some photographs I took in Cambridge a couple of years ago, I came across some great black and white conversions – I’d forgotten how much I liked these at the time. There are shots of people and objects, mainly in and around Magdalen Bridge and King’s College.

The one I’ve chosen to reproduce here is one of my favourites, and could easily pass for a shot of a classic French bridal car at a wedding, especially parked as it was near King’s College. I never did discover who the owners were or what they were doing in Cambridge (and as I recall, they were given a parking ticket by a zealous traffic warden).

Champagne reception at Pure

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Always looking for opportunities to photograph brides and wedding paraphernalia and seek out potential clients, and not being averse to the occasional glass of champagne, I went along today to a reception to celebrate the relocation of the Pure Bridal Boutique to new premises in Lower Goat Lane, Norwich. I only had my camera phone with me, but captured a few images and some of these are included here. I’m really glad I found the time to call in, as I managed to talk to several couples planning to get married, had one or two good leads, and distributed some business cards and flyers. I also had some interesting conversations with others involved in the wedding business, includig a toastmaster and a wedding cake supplier.I’ve heard there is another new opening next week, so I will be sure to look by. if I can.

Great Melton wedding photography – Tracy and Ian

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In June I was invited to photograph Tracy and Ian’s woodland wedding in the grounds of the Old Rectory near Norwich. This was really interesting fo me as I hadn’t experienced this type of wedding before, and realised that the weather would be critical. In the end, though we dodged the showers from time to time, the day was fairly warm and the whole day was a great success. Guests mingled in a woodland garden setting with a marquee, tests, yurts and a woodland walk in the grounds of an old rectory a few miles out of Norwich.

The whole event was quite informal, with few speeches, a really interesting handfasting ceremony, storytellers and acoustic musicians.

My approach is very much that of a documentary wedding photographer or photojournalist. I try to record the events, incidents and emotions of the day as they unfold. I did get free licence to roam around and take candid photographs, and in addition a number of posed portraits and group shots, and a few shots of the bride and groom in some of the more unusual settings around the grounds of the old rectory.

I’ve included a small selection of my favourites here.

Image of the month 5

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There’s a marvellous cafe in Florence called Gilli (www.gilli.it) – to quote from the Lonely Planet Encounter guide, ‘At this Florentine institution you can sip your coffee or cocktail beneath Venetian chandeliers and billowy art nouveau ceiling frescoes, or opt for the terrace, with ringside seats on the upscale bustle of Piazza della Repubblica’. What really captured my attention was the amazing window displays of cakes and confectionery, in most cases complete with wedding cakes, brides and grooms.

While in Florence I took the opportunity to capture some lazrgely candid picures of several brides and grooms on their post wedding shoots, mainly in and around the Ponte Vecchio, Piazza della Signoria and Chiesa de San Miniato Al Monte. More of this to follow.