Thursday, July 21, 2016
I have been trying to look at wedding photography from a different angle ever since I became a wedding photographer. The thing that drew me to wedding photography in the first place was the sea change that was ocurring within the industry through the advent of more portable cameras.
What do I mean by Wedding Photography from a different angle?
No wedding photographer would have photographed the bride and groom from behind with them both unaware of the camera in the good old days of purely traditional wedding photography. I have posted some examples here where I have deliberately done just that. The first out of necessity and the others just for the fun of it really.
As we all know a few years back wedding photography was very formalised and consisted of couples and their guests standing ridgidly in front of the photographer’s camera which was often seated on a tripod. Larger unweildy cameras were the order of the day and the photographer would often spend a great deal of time orgainising these photographs.
Gradually things moved on from there and and a few very brave souls who wanted to be more mobile when photographing a wedding started to use smaller cameras, although they were still using film in them. But at least they could move around and experiment a bit more once freed from the confines of a tripod. Eventually digital cameras arrived and not only could you move around, you could also take more photographs as digital media quickly outstripped film for the number of frames you could take before you had to reload. Plus this media was reuseable and of course you could discard images that didn’t work how you intended. You could experiment and take a few risks!
Wedding photography is still a craft that has to be learn’t and understood but there is now so much more freedom for a creative photographer to look for different angles. I try to do this all of the time and of course I will always still take the more convential photographs too.
But I think it would be a shame not to get some shots from a different angle or perspective as well. It makes the work more interesting and helps to keep it fresh. Plus my clients love to see these images if they have been executed well.
So here are a few images that I have taken at weddings where I have looked at wedding photography from a different angle in a very literal sense. The first image above was taken in the courtyard of Chancery Court Hotel in central London. The Father of the bride had arranged a special surprise by booking The Band of the Coldstream Guards no less! They filled the courtyard and marched up and down with all of the guests and bridal party surrounding the spectacle with their backs against the walls looking on in amazement.
Necessity therefore forced me to adopt a different angle here as I wanted to get a photograph that included the bride and groom, but also put the whole scene into context so that the viewer could see what they were experiencing that day. So the only way to do this was to squeeze in behind the bride and groom who were close to the back wall. Standing out in the courtyard wasn’t an option as I would have been trampled underfoot by marching guardsmen!
The next image was taken at Woburn on a beautiful summers day.
The image below was taken at a wedding at Somerleton Hall and I love the effect of the couple walking into the light as it were.
One final image taken from the height of the venue balcony. The couple had just returned from our portrait session out in the grounds and I immediately spotted an opportunity for some wedding photography from a different angle looking straight down onto the couple. I think it works well and the bride and groom were very happy with it.
Get in touch here via this form if you think that alongside the other wedding photography of your wedding day you would also want some creative wedding photography from a different angle.
