The Story of the Wedding Photos

I’ve been hearing comments about where all the pictures are. Hey, I’m a photographer and artist; I’m trying to tell a story! However for all those people who need an explanation, let me explain.

Taking photographs is tricky. The world of digital photography has improved things greatly. Unfortunately the laws of physics and nature still apply. My ability to take good photographs is limited by:

• Lighting (big problem on this shoot)
• Camera setup (some screw ups)
• Seeing the moment
• Speed
• People obstructing me (it’s not your fault – it’s how I shoot – see [1] below)

We do however have tricks to get around this, and one of the beauties of digital photography is we can triage and chuck away bad photos. Here are some statistics for you:

My brief was to take close-up photos from an unobtrusive distance; I didn’t want poses or to disturb the events that unfolded in front of the camera. Everything was to be as natural as possible (ignoring the guy holding a 50cm lens and a penetrating flash).

1. I took approximately 500 photos.
2. 100 were thrown away due to exposure limitations – lack of light, blurred images, film grain. Just embarrassingly awful.
3. 300 were discarded as not being suitable (more on that later).
4. 100 were kept for printing.
5. The average fashion photographer will keep one in 500 photos!!!!

The amount of bad photos is not uncommon in photography. Our environment and speed we can shoot limits our choices. The nice thing about digital photography is that we can take a camera to the limit and not be worried about film costs. We must however ditch a large number of close-but-no-cigar pictures if we want any credibility.

Some photographers prefer to delete bad photos instantly, others prefer to take a series of similar photos and triage them in post production. I take the latter approach as a 2” square LCD isn’t really suitable for accurate triaging; I also gain the ability to digitally enhance bad photos due to how I take them. I use a system called a digital negative; a raw capture from the camera without white balancing or sharpening or camera tricks. This allows me to recover or post-process bad photos into good photos … most of the time.

Taking a large volume of photos also allows me to tell a story. Something I’ve attempted to do on the main page of the wedding photo website.

So what of the remaining photos?
Well as I said 100 were kept for printing. 68 photos appeared in the final wedding album, 20 photos appeared in an exclusive album for Julian and Elisabeth called the Black Book. You will never see the Black Book unless they show it to you; it’s special and just for them.

The remainder of the 100 printable photos were removed at the final stage simply as they didn’t add to the story and would have bored people as being too similar.

So what of the 300 discarded as not being suitable?
Ah, well here’s the thing. The photos were okay in their own right, but didn’t contribute for various reasons:

1. Exposure sucked.
2. Composition sucked.
3. Didn’t fit with what I saw as the wedding.
4. Didn’t identify themselves as being part of a wedding.
5. Weren’t flattering to the people concerned (foods with mouth open etc).
6. Were bias to a family group; I want to show the wedding as neutrally as possible and not give favour to anyone specifically.

I took a lot to capture close-up expression. In low-light, with crowded scenes, it’s quite a feat to get one good photo. I have to say, of the 300 most (about 200) fall into category [1] or [2] and should really have been deleted.

But. Just for you. So you can understand the photographic process I go through, I’ve published the other 300 photos including the 200 awful ones. They’re boring, dull and horrible. I hope however it will show I’m honest and you can understand why I did this.

I suppose in the end I should say thank you. You’ve looked at a photo album of 68 photos and demanded more! It must mean my story telling actually worked and I didn’t bore the audience.

Thank you all. The remaining photos will appear on the wedding website. Don’t be too under-whelmed. I’m unlikely to reveal this part of the process again, nor would you want me to!!!Bumble over to the wedding gallery, there will be a uneditted link to the remaining photos soon.
--- Justin.