Not really cheating

And here are a couple of the backgrounds that I took two days ago. We did look at other backgrounds too but you get the idea that technology really has advanced and we now have so much more control.

One thing you won't see are weeds. I tend to think that the grass could have been cut an hour earlier so taking a few weeds out isn't really cheating.

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Wedding Practice

This photo was taken at yesterday's pre-wedding meeting. I like to go through some different poses and this is one of my favourites. You don't naturally face your partner when you are having your photo taken but it is a nice pose.

As for the bag, well this is a stand-in for the flowers. In the close-up you just get a touch of flowers - well they are practising.

At this meeting I am also concerned with the backgrounds. The couple will walk around the venue with me but I mainly look for their view on the background for the group photo and with the advances in technology I can send them the photos with the possibilities for this background.

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A fairly easy technique

And finally for this pre-wedding meeting I wanted to show you one of the characteristics of my wedding photography - the photo on a photo. It is a fairly easy technique, but isn't anything when you know how to do it.

A photo is much lighter on a monitor than it is when printed so I have to make the photo much darker when it is placed onto a picture frame. In this case it was a mirror but as you don't see what's underneath it doesn't really matter whether it is a mirror or a photo.

The think I like about this type of photo is it looks like you have gone to the trouble of printing a huge photo and getting it framed. It would also work as a billboard or in this case maybe we should wait for a passing tram.

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Similar but different

I mentioned that we look at the different poses at the pre-wedding meeting and this is one of those poses. The photo on the left looks fairly similar to the one on the right but one is a piggy-back and the other is one person sat on a chair and the other standing. Can you work out which is which?

I am guessing that you can see which is which but the giveaway for me are the smiles. It doesn't really matter where this photo is taken. It could be outdoors with a distinctive building in the background or it could be anywhere indoors.

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Background Preferences

Yesterday I mentioned that I like to look for where we can take photos at the pre-wedding meeting. By walking for two minutes we get a good background for the group photo. You have to walk for at least two minutes from this hotel because it is so large. If the photo is taken any closer you get a distorted perspective caused by converging verticals. Basically if you are too close the sides of a building look like they are leaning towards each other. A similar thing happens to a path as it goes towards the horizon. The further the path gets, the smaller it gets.

The couple haven't moved anywhere on the right. I just walked around to get a totally different background. I can tidy up grass on the computer but the pre-wedding meeting taught me that we could walk a few more steps and it would save me some work. It is also worth taking the photos to show the bride and groom and then they can say which backgrounds they prefer.

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The case for a vignette

One of the reasons to have a pre-wedding meeting is to be able to go through the different poses. I also like to see where the photos may be taken. In this photo we are practising one of the poses and there will be flowers between them on the actual day.

I converted to sepia and gave the photo an oval vignette on the right. I thought that this vignette worked well here. Sometimes I use this type of vignette because there are distractions in the corners of the photo but in this case there is no object of interest in any of the corners and the vignette works just as well.

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One line is straight

This is Little Moreton Hall near Congleton and if you compare this blog entry with my last then you may have guessed that I have a National Trust membership. I visited this hall on Friday and despite what you might see it was quite busy.

I could have removed people digitally but I decided to wait a moment. There were some people just out of shot. I converted to monochrome and slightly increased the contrast as that is what I thought the Tudor building wanted. You won't find any straight lines on the building and there is no horizon so I couldn't improve on the orientation but I think one of the lines is straight.

Happy snapping