The Look

The idea of shooting a wedding has never really appealed to me, I really dislike posing people and so if I were ever to do it on my own it would have to be done in a very documentary style.  I guess that this picture would best exemplify the style of photography that I like to do at a wedding.  My niece asked me to fill in the gaps where her portrait photographer couldn’t be and this was one of them.  The whole wedding party was waiting downstairs in the church and her groom called to her across the room.  I happened to be ready as she swung her head to look towards him and I got one of my favourite two shots of the 700 or so that I took.  We don’t know who either of these two individuals and yet we understand so much about the moment.  The fact that there really isn’t much identifying information makes the appeal of the image more universal.  The veil and the hairdo tell us this is a wedding, the swinging earring tells us that she has just now turned to look at her lover and even though he is in soft unfocused shadow there is a feeling of nervous anticipation to the image.  I feel as though I was lucky enough to capture what Henri Cartier-Bresson calls “the decisive moment”.  For me if there was one moment that captured the day it was this one.

-Russell Berg

www.seeingberg.com

The Dress

I also really like the way that the laces draped and hung on the dress.

I went to my niece’s wedding this past weekend and although she had hired a photographer she asked me to fill in the gaps and shoot the parts and places where the photographer could not be.  This was perfect for me, I really hate posing people and I am horrible at it so it is great for me to not have to do that.  I talked to the photographer about the whole situation, (it’s really important to clarify all of this when you are working alongside a professional), and she was great about it all.  When the ladies where getting ready, and after I had steamed all of the bridesmaid’s dresses, I saw the bride’s dress hanging in the door way to a walk-in closet with the veil draped over the bodice.  The line and form of the empty dress was an appealing and interesting still life so I started to shoot it.  Shooting from outside the closet left the image with a very busy background so I decided to try from the inside the small closet.  I had enough room for my wide angle zoom to get the whole dress in.  I bounced the flash off of the ceiling and turned it down ⅔ of a stop to prevent the whites in the dress from blowing out.  I the flash was bouncing around the walls of the closet so it was almost as though I was shooting from inside a giant soft box that produced some really appealing areas of light and shadow.  In post I pulled the image into Nik Silver Efex Pro, the image was crying out for black and white, darkened the background areas into blackness, and pulled some more texture from the dress.  I was really happy with the end image except for the window behind the veil.  I tried to get it all black but just couldn’t quite do it without wrecking the veil.

-Russell Berg

www.seeingberg.com