Challenge: One picture: A Magical and Sensitive Wedding Moment!

Weddings are fun, ways of celebrating with one's family and firends this great new committment for the future of two people. The pictures are to make a parent's proud and bring back that magic time again and again over the years to come.

There are some rare pictures which stand out. These have a special sensitivity and magic that transcends the identities of the celebrants. We don't need handsome or Versace splendid, just pictures that have a human magnetism that we are drawn to.

Where are these?

We do not look for perfection in technic.

Blown out veils don't matter if the magic outshines reality.

Even a button undone or a napkin on the floor, if the human value is so overiding.

Let's see what we have in the "Magical and Sensitive Wedding Picture", just one or several if the're closely related for that feeling to work.

Asher

well I had posted this in another thread......but it needs to be here instead.
This shot was 100% candid. The couple were standing there as I was about to set up a shot. A huge gust of wind came oot of nowhere & the bride spun about. The groom instinctively reached up to save the veil & I caught the moment.

Cheers,

Paul

Nice image, Paul.

Here's something that was on my mind as we are creating a new brochure....

nice work Scott. That romantic connection can be the hardest type of shot to do well.

Cheers,

Paul

Mother of the groom with the bride after the wedding.



Technically, I admit, it is unexceptional. But I love the moment it captured. Ignore the goofy guy in the background please.

This is my contribution. This occurred while the photographer was setting up his next shot. I was following the photographer with my camera to learn as much as I could. I did not have a very good camera at the time so it is a little grainy.

A magic moment...

OK, here's mine.

I recently shot a wedding in the Canadian Rockies in Canmore Alberta (just outside of Banf). The bride and the groom wanted to get married in the mountains, and had a wonderful location all picked out about 20 minutes from the resort.

On their wedding day, it actually snowed (and rained) and snowed, so the whole wedding took place at the resort.

The next day, the weather lifted at around 8PM. The sun was sinking fast, but I told them if we could get there we could shoot some wonderful stuff.

And we did get there. They weren't dressed for a wedding, and it got very dark very quickly, but we got some wonderful shots.

Here's the last one before the moonlight took over from sunlight. It's one of my personal favourites, too.

Hi Jamie,

Yes, this is one of thosde magical moments of tenderness, made for each other. The simplicty is delightful. I like the assymetry and the road behind which adds a question about their future. When that happens, the picture can rise above just being representing this particular happy couple.

I hope you show us more!

So tell us a bit about the camera choices for this.

Asher

Hi Asher, thanks for the kind words!

In this particular case, if I recall correctly, this is a crop from an 80mm leica R lux on a 5d via an adapter, and shot maybe at f 1.8 or 2.0 (the exif doesn't exist of course).

The "road" in the background and the triangular slabs of darkness are actually a lakebed and a mountain behind the couple

This is a 5d shot with the 70-200 IS from about 6 minutes before but you can see it's a lot brighter.

EXIF says ISO 1250, 1/100s @ 2.8, but the actual shot is underexposed and then pushed about a stop in processing.

In the print, you can just see the 5d beginning to struggle with the light I gave it because, well, even with IS handholding the 70-200 is something to hold... without IS this would have been blurry... nothing to brace myself against; no time to set up a tripod or fiddle with mirror lock up).

You can see the shadows are starting to block. I could have switched to 1600 ISO, but IMO the difference in noise is quite a bit...

So I changed to the Leica 80R lux to get the extra speed for the previous shot I posted.

James,

I really like the first picture, but it's a bit dark. I did a simple curves adjustment in Photoshop and got this... what do you think?

Hey Zach,

Yes, you can certainly lighten up the shot with curves, and you did a good job.

(As an aside, you may want to ask first before you take someone else's work and mess with it... welcome to the forums!!)

But I actually chose to make it the way I did for a number of important reasons...in other words, it's dark on purpose.

First, the composition is strengthened with the use of negative space; your eye goes immediately to the couples' faces, instead of bouncing around the mountain in the background. It's true I framed the shot so the dynamics of the background shadows draw you back to the couple, but I still think it was distracting, and ultimately only wanted the suggestion of shape there for structure.

Secondly, believe it or not, this was how I saw the shot to begin with: I knew it would be this way. The shot was pretty much the last shot at the end of shooting and the sun had been down for an hour, so the tonality of the original is actually a little more in keeping with the moment.

Most importantly, though, the light in my original seems almost to eminate from the couple, instead of being cast on them. Unimportant details (like the jacket zipper and logo) are below the threshold of attention. So the couple is distinct (they know it's them) but it approaches, I think, an archetype as well...

You know, they're "lovers in the dark..." and they're creating their own world against the night...

This, to me, is a much more emotional and powerful expression of the moment, and so makes a better overall shot.

But if it was your shot, feel free to lighten it! LOL!! I'll keep it the way it is, though, thanks.

Hi Jamie,

I'm so glad that you shared your thoughts on this very personal photograph. Your photograph, Zachs version and your explanationl illustrates a concept of the "Arc of Intent" which I work to improve. This is useful to me and perhaps others might value to.

My Revised Concept of an Arc of Intent

The Photographer/Artist

1. has a vision, an experience, maybe not fully formed, but for sure some concept aching to be expressed
   
   
2. Decides to work on that: the "intent"
   
   
3. Embeds the feelings in a physical form: an iterative process in which the work as it progresses may stimulate modifications of the orignal vision.
   
   
4. Works until the art has progressed as intended.
   
   
5. Re-experiences all the feelings, thoughts, ideas and is moved
   
   
6. May be even come to value the work and perhaps treasure it

The work is now art! The "Arc of Intent" has been completed.


The photograph or art shown to an intended audience who either "get it" or not.

If others also have erruptive feelings, thoughts and ideas and are so moved to value the work and seek to re-experience it , great! "The Arc of Intent" is extended.

If the work gets traction people buy it even better!

However, fundamentally, once someone, the artist or anyone else re-experiences the humanity of the work, that is art and the rest of us can go on our way!

As we can see here, the production of art requires evolving thought, imagination, a concept and work. It is dynamic with feedback loops in the process until everything stabilizes to satisfy the artist. The pen, chisel, violin or camera cannot make art!

Jamie's Shot with the lovers set in a dark negative Space

Jamie's work appears to follow the arc above. What the camera recorded was far from the concept. So the PS work was merely the necessary correction to recreate that personal moment, valuable to the lovers themselves, where their own love and private devotion illuminates a small space in an endless universe. Here Jamie did what an artist must: express a personal vision. In this case something wonderful.

So thanks Zach for prodding Jamie or we'd not have gotten all the process that made his photograph!

Yes, we should ask. I often do so by PM. However, I trespass too, often working for an hour or so on an image and then giving up or else sitting on my ideas. Sometimes I just post my version and hope for the best.

Asher

Fun-loving Couple

When this challenge started I was still a few weeks from my first wedding!

This is a portrait of the bride's daughter and her daughter trying to take the bouquet away before the ceremony!

The infant loves grannie and could care less about the new guy!

Certainly a personal and spontanious moment! Here the moment without much PS works, although I can see all sorts of ways to prepare it for the book

Asher

Great capture

Nice capture. I'd PS the bear eating the fish painting out.....

Kathy Rappaport said:

Nice capture. I'd PS the bear eating the fish painting out.....

Click to expand...

Thanks Kathy.

Although there is some room to crop from the top for a different aspect ratio, I like the picture as is and don't feel the need to get too aggressive with photoshop.

The picture is taken at a family cottage and the environment has sentimental value as such.

Magic moment.....

I took this in 2003 at my neices wedding with a Sony DSC-f717, my first digital camera. I only received the camera a couple of days prior, so at that time didn't even know how to operate it. Anyway, I really liked this photo for it's magical moment....



Regards,
Barry

I don't shoot many weddings (two to be exact), but I particularly liked the mood of this "magic moment" from my father-in-law's wedding last spring...



Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

I Now Give You Mr. and Mrs. Snyder

This was the moment the officiant said "I now give you Mr. and Mrs. Snyder". My friend got married for the first time at 51 - this is my first wedding shoot. There was NO room anywhere for me so I sat on the floor at their feet at 12 noon - outdoors without any kind of covering - no flash allowed either. They love the photos (phew) and actually, so do I.