I’m here in the Church Hill neighborhood of Richmond.
Have meetings with Clients for a Uganda wedding tomorrow.
Keeping my heart eyes open to all the possibilities the world has for me.

So it’s been a while since I’ve discussed a picture, and I thought this would be a good one to talk about. I shot this image at a recent November wedding with it’s bride only counterpart. I enjoyed creating this image in an empty lot next to Christina’s (the bride’s) parent’s home where she prepared for the wedding. The enjoyment came from being able to create mood and style easily in the early evening that comes in November. The frame above was made at 5:03:22PM between the ceremony and reception. The early sunset gave me the chance to control the lighting in the image by using my strobes instead of relying on the mood of the natural light.

Planning for pictures

The early evening gave us ample time between the ceremony and reception and the double bonus of having both daylight and dusk to make pictures in. With a wedding plan that allowed us two hours of shooting between the ceremony and reception I was able to shoot several styles of pictures with the wedding party and the couple. The November temperatures, the foliage valiantly holding on the Red Oaks and a freshly dressed bride inspired this photo’s tonality:

Even though the day was started with a light snow and the grey skies remained through the day – with my equipment and vision I was able to create a unique photo for Christina. She was brave enough to wear her lacy dress into the weeds before the ceremony to win this great photo!

Composition and presentation

I made a new category today in the content management system here called presentation as I will be posting some interesting presentation options soon. Let me talk just a moment about the composition and how it affects presentation of the photo. First, the proportion – or the size of the couple related to the overall image – has several relationships to how you may or may not appreciate presenting the image in your home. My experience in preparing images for display in my clients homes, mailing as postcards and designing into websites has shown me that there are two general groups of clients that hire me; the visuals and the emotionals. One group are generally more bold and visually literate, meaning they have greater experience reading, using, or collecting images. The other group of image buyers are less sure of what they want in visual terms but are drawn to My wife & I’s work on emotional terms and the romance of documenting real moments of family and friend’s connections.

The visually literate bunch, often work in advertising, communications, or practice photography as a hobby and have more graphic tastes in photos and a stronger tolerance for seeing themselves in the photos. The emotionally motivated bunch, have less of a tolerance for displaying themselves and would rather see demonstrations of love but not of themselves. Interesting paradox, I know since it’s their love that is demonstrated.

Print size and proportions

No client represents either of these polarities completely, however I felt Christina and Mike were somewhat of the more romantic type and so I composed several of these images in this proportion to give them the opportunity to make a large print where they don’t feel visually large in the print, but can cherish their togetherness and warmth in the chill night air under the moon. The scale of this image should allow it to be printed as large as some of our largest prints, meaning 4 feet tall by 6 feel long on a fine canvas frame. If you have a big blank wall to cover in your home, we can take care of you!

Browse the ‘Where Art Lives’ category to get more ideas about how to frame, mount, and creatively present your wedding and portrait images.

∞

07-07 wedding090.jpg, originally uploaded by solecist.

Well I spent half the day today at Letchworth with Dee and Bill, reminded me again of this Letchworth wedding. There’s always a struggle to get something unique, vs. doing something our clients have seen us do before…..

We like pleasing you and all, but there’s something that can’t be repeated in every shot. In this one, Erica and Josh just stopped on the steps to do a little kissing before they broke out into plain sight again, and as they picked a perfect spot with the light streaming down through the leaves – I was able to capture it. And then I enhanced the feeling a little with some magical additions in post-production. I like the hidden feeling in this shot — not the clear big subjects that I am usually shooting.

Such is the fun of not repeating yourself, because the double whammy from the photographer’s perspective is that I judge myself on all the previous images I’ve shot at a given location too. When a client asks me to repeat this or that shot – I’m tempted to ask them ‘can you match that romantic gesture’ or that dramatic air that the previous couple created. Is that unfair to ask of you my subjects, if you ask me to do a similar shot you’ve seen before?

I say sumptuous, but maybe I should say scrumptious – I like the three square meal aspect of Indian weddings!

And as a wedding photojournalist, so many allegorical ceremony elements gives me lots of action to capture.

Ok so here’s some of the characters, that’s Upda looking like a bride and giving someone a wink as she’s escorted in by the boys – Amish her brother is picture right in the blue.

That’s Pravin the patriarch and senior photographer, overlooking the guests, as Kenan (groom) holds hands with Upda under the cloth.

I loved all the mini traditions with a playful tone in this wedding.   The Thakrar’s practiced many of their ethnic traditions carried from their close knit Indian society.   Here is the start of something that ended with people wrestling over shoes….

Ok so here’s the real scene at this wedding – how many photographers can you count?

Since Pravin and Amish are photographers many of their friends are too. I was one of 7 or 8 photographers, there were two video guys and probably 10-15 more photographers simply in attendance. It was quite a fray, but if you were to compare our pictures, it’s unlikely two were similar as we each found a perspective and approach that expressed our own interests.

I also appreciate the performances by family members at the wedding, it’s an elegant touch that I’ve not seen in any other tradition.

So if you’re searching for a culturally experienced Indian Wedding Photographer in Toronto Canada or the US – give Pravin or Amish a call at Radisson Photography.

So we were on our way to see if we could get some nice sunset pictures from the top of Cobbs hill and we saw this mountainous pile of leaves near the playgroud. And I mean mountainous, to get to the top to jump Erica and Josh climbed a good 14-16ft up and Josh convinced Erica to jump with him. I only got one exposure per jump, but as you can tell – it was a good exposure! My clients are the bravest people in town – the 10 year old that was there thought we were the coolest adults he’d ever seen!

You can see some group photos we’ve taken on the wedding day at Cobb’s hill overlook of the Skyline of Rochester.