It can get to a point where a sense of Deja Vu sets in. Done that, seen this and been there before! I like to vary things with my brides and grooms, for my own sanity as much as anything. It only takes one wedding where I haven’t pushed myself to look for a creative slant for an image, and I feel I’ve let my client down.
On this occasion, the hotel had a lovely stair case, although it only went up a single floor, and wasn’t particularly wide. On the one hand, a wide shot showing the base of the stairs would be nice to frame the couple and on the other hand, a tighter frame to isolate the couple would also work well, with the floor pattern serving nicely in the background.
Well, unfortunately, the hotel seemed to store all manner of odds and ends under the stairs, such as a spare mattress, a stack of chairs and other items I failed to identify, and really didn’t want to go poking around too much! So the use of the stairs to frame the couple was out, no chance there. When I got to my viewpoint, I realised I couldn’t isolate the couple from the stairs either, there just wasn’t the room, so the stairs were going to intrude anyway. And if they are going to be present in the frame, I’d need to allow enough of the structure to be identifiable, without taking over the image.
All sounds well and good, doesn’t it?
At the end of the day, I ended up with this image because there was just no other way to take it. So while there are many factors we take into account when composing an image, sometimes those factors can mean diddly and you really do have to work with what you’re presented with.
Venue : Scaitcliffe Hall, Todmorden, West Yorskshire
Nikon D3 1/60th ISO800 24-70 f5.6 sb-800 x2 (1 left at 1/4 output, 1 lower right at 1/8 output) fired by Yongnuo RF602.
My wedding work can be found at : www.weddingphotographerinlancashire.com
