One great thing about the lull before wedding season kicks off in earnest here in the next few weeks is the opportunity it provides me to go back and review my images from the past year. In this case, I was looking for an image to enter into the quarterly photo competition with the Wedding Photographic Society. The theme in question was Transportation, and I was immediately reminded of this image I took last October at the Greystone Inn in Durham. In it, we can see the bride arriving at the reception in a 1928 Essex Super Six Coach (provided by the good people at Classy Transportation).
It was a pretty difficult shot to pull off technically as I was shooting directly into the sun using a wide angle lens. This can make exposing tricky, especially as I prefer not to use fill flash. I was also keen to make sure I got the best “sun star” possible by closing down the aperture. It was a very fast-moving part of the day, so I got my exposure set and the knelt down on one knee to get the right angle as the bride got out of the car. I set the lens to its widest setting and composed to tell the story of the surroundings and also to avoid casting a reflection in the car’s bodywork or hubcaps. I waited for the bride to emerge and pressed the shutter as she stepped out. I did not direct the bride or do anything to slow down proceedings, so this was all done in about 5 seconds from start to finish.
In post-production, I worked on two different versions in black and white and in colour. You can see the colour version over on the wedding gallery on my main site, but wanted to show the black and white version here on the blog. I like them both for different reasons, but the vintage feel of the car and the surroundings really work well in monochrome.
With wedding season just around the corner, I am looking forward to sharing more images with you soon. We have some fantastic couples and some gorgeous locations lined up!
Canon EOS 5D Mark II with EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L USM @ 16mm, 1/500 sec @ f/6.7, ISO 400
