New Take on a Common Theme

New Take on a Common Theme
While most of my photography business in the past has been related to landscape/travel photography, I actually love shooting weddings. I particularly like serving as a second shooter... all the fun with none of the pressure!

For this shot the lead photographer was looking for good places to shoot the rings, around an old barn. A nail in the bleached wood of the barn wall provided one rusting setting. As a landscape photographer I'm used to thinking in terms of compositions... seeing curves and leading lines and working out a camera postion so the viewers' gaze will be led right where you want it. Or having a change in texture or lighting make a subject stand out.

To it was only natural to see the groom's head as the perfect pedestal, use natural back-lighting to accentuate the curve as a leading line, then add a little vignette in post-processing to complete the simplify the image even further.

Surely someone has thought of this before in the millions of weddings which occur each year, but certainly everyone there thought it was a great idea and it was a big hit with the wedding party. By simply being in the habit of constantly assessing the nearby environment and assembling visual components into an effective composition, you can recognize opportunities like this on the fly as they present themselves. And that for me is the fun of shooting weddings... anticipating opportunities to catch people and other aspects of the event in the best possible light, and being able to do that before a moment is missed.