Silhouette Photography: Image of the Week #8
Back Story:
This image was taken at Matt and Claire’s Devon Wedding last year. It was August, and true to form for England the heavens opened and it was torrential rain for most of the day. The wedding was at the very wonderful Buckland Tout-Saints Hotel. If you have ever been there, you will know that, whilst it’s a beautiful venue for a wedding, it is a very dark place. With oak panelled walls and not particularly great lighting naturally or otherwise.
I had seen the two ladies in this image engage in animated conversation for quite a while and wanted to make a picture out of it but every time I approached, something went wrong – either somebody crossed in front of me or the scene just didn’t seem to fall together. In the end, I waited in place for a moment I wanted and click!
The image tells a story about the two ladies. Hopefully they will look back at the image and be reminded exactly of what they were discussing. Of course, they are in silhouette (which was purposeful) and you can barely make out who they are. The technical traditional wedding photographers out there may look at this picture and think nothing of it – but to me, it takes me right back to that instant in time, which has been captured by the camera for ever.
Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Shutter: 1/2500th Second
Aperture: f/1.4
ISO: 3200
Flash: Did not fire
Lens: Canon EF 35mm L F/1.4
Focal Length: 35mm
Processing:
This image is all about ambient light and capturing the moment. I had shot a frame previously and put up the exposure compensation to get more detail in the ladies but the image just didn’t work. I wanted to make use of the window light and so I knew that dropping the exposure compensation to put the ladies into darkness would work. And it does for me. The image looks great in black and white too but this colour version made the cut for the final selection
The Finished Photograph:
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Posted in: Photography Inspiration
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Everything about it is great, but perhaps that light on the left hand side is a little distracting – from an aesthetic point of view. Do you take the documentary standard as far as not removing elements such as that?
Thanks Tom. I don’t remove anything in post processing with the exception of cropping something out – and you are right, in this instance I think I should have cropped that light out. Thanks for the comment.
Fair play, I’m impressed you take it that far. It must infuriate you from time to time
Great shot Kevin, makes me really look into the photo to see if there are any clues to what they are talking about, looks like an interesting discussion!
Thanks Lesley. I know what they were talking about but I’m sworn to secrecy
It is such a great shot. The two ladies in question are my aunt (on the left) and my mum (on the right)
It was a wonderful day, in a beautiful venue, celebrating the marriage of two lovely people, my cousin Matt and his lovely wife Claire. I have come back to the online album a number of times because the images are just superb. I would really appreciate it if you could drop me a line regarding potentially buying prints, Kevin, please. And as for what they are talking about…. Who knows, but I’m sure it was *top* gossip!