Purpose: To become accustomed to photographing people and to explore crafting a photo essay.
A “Day” With a Bride-to-Be
Reflection:
I shot this story over 5 days but didn’t use material from every day. The subject(s) were aware that they would be the focus of my photography for the weekend and were really great about having a camera following them everywhere. I made a shot list before the weekend to keep me focused. I didn’t end up taking all the shots. Several ideas didn’t pan out. But, I would definitely do that again as I found I didn’t shoot as randomly when I had a plan. I took almost a thousand photos (hoping that I would get 10). I could have taken more. My idea going into this was that I would capture my daughter home for one the last times before her wedding. I wanted to capture images of her in her home doing the things she would normally do—sitting at the table drinking coffee, hanging out with her fiancé and preparing for their wedding with the dress shop photos being the centerpiece of that preparation during the weekend home. In some instances I choose a moment over a “perfect image. For example,I had other images of the two of them in the living room where they were both in focus and without motion blur but this image captured a mood and moment that the others didn’t so chose to include it in the essay. Although this assignment was a bit of a juggle in the middle of Thanksgiving weekend it was great to have an excuse to document this weekend of pre-wedding activities. My biggest challenge was sorting through the large volume of images to pick the best images for the story.
What I learned:
It never hurts to take more photos than you need. Wait for the “moments”—be ready but don’t chase them. Become invisible whenever possible. Have a plan and be ready to go to plan b or take another direction if the plan isn’t working. Some of the shot sequences—i.e. the walk along the river with umbrellas was an afterthought for example. Try different perspectives (not all worked but it was good to have those options in there). In editing this time I broke out of my soft gray mold and made the images more contrasty. In most cases I like how that worked.