Wrong way photographer, wrong way

[mugge]

I spotted the wedding photographer facing 'the wrong way.' I waited for something to happen when the wind started to play with the bride's veil. I thought it was amusing. C&C welcome.

Wrong way photographer, wrong way! by Ole Hansen, on Flickr

[Geoff F]

Good real life shot.

[pschlute]

Terrific capture.

[lovelife65]

LOL. Was she really the wedding photographer, or just on the scene and saw something interesting

[mugge]

LOL. Was she really the wedding photographer, or just on the scene and saw something interesting

She really was the wedding photographer. I think she was focused (he he) on the bride's maids.

[lovelife65]

I like it! Enough of a background blur to focus on the photographer, yet I'm able to make out the cute expressions of the wedding couple.

[Manfred M]

Yes, all those belt attachments is what one often sees on wedding photographers.

Does the image work for me? No. The scene is just too busy and the bride & groom are competing with the photographer for attention. A heavy vignette and some burning down of brighter areas to draw more attention to your subject might be worth considering.

[mugge]

Yes, all those belt attachments is what one often sees on wedding photographers.

Does the image work for me? No. The scene is just too busy and the bride & groom are competing with the photographer for attention. A heavy vignette and some burning down of brighter areas to draw more attention to your subject might be worth considering.

What interested me was the contrast between the photographer and the bride and the groom. The photographer is not the subject. The whole image is the subject.

[Dave Humphries]

LOL. Was she really the wedding photographer, or just on the scene and saw something interesting

My interpretation is that she is one of the wedding photographers, the other can be seen shooting the B&G from a tripod.

These days, most contract wedding photographers have a 'second shooter', helping to document the day.

[Dave Humphries]

What interested me was the contrast between the photographer and the bride and the groom. The photographer is not the subject. The whole image is the subject.

Hi Ole,

Yes, I see that, the problem is that the foreground photographer is too prominent in the frame, you have done what you can to mitigate this by going monochrome, since any colour (clothes, skin-tone, hair) would have just made her even more prominent.

It is what it is, a grab shot of an unfolding scene and could only be captured in that moment, from when you were stood at that time - which impacts the shot's perspective.

With the benefit of hindsight, I can unhelpfully suggest that if shot from further away (changing the perspective), using a longer focal length (or cropped down similarly), the relative sizes of the foreground photographer vs the 3 background people would have been more equitable and helped your scene. That was very likely impossible, even if you could back up 3m or ten feet, by the time you had, the scene would have changed. I only mention it for the benefit of analysis, it is not a criticism.

Moving back would have helped reduce differential focus too, further still by focusing on something in the middle depth-range of the scene, not the closest of the scene's elements - and choosing a narrower aperture.

In the moment, this was impossible, I accept that.

Cheers, Dave

[DanK]

I agree with Manfred and Dave. Even if one considers the combination of the photographer and the bride and groom the subject, Manfred's reframing helps because it focuses more attention on the bride and groom, who were sort of obscured by their small size and the visual clutter in the background of the original. You could lighten them and darken the photographer a bit to bring more attention to the bride and groom.

But even with those edits, there are issues that Dave raised. You've framed it so that the photographer is huge relative to the couple, and the couple is so out of focus as to be indistinct. However, one often doesn't have time to think this through, reposition oneself, and figure out the appropriate DOF. That's why most grab shots--at least, most of my grab shots--don't end up producing good images. I take a lot of candids of young kids, and there are a fair number that others enjoy for the memory or whatever but that I think are really not any good as images. this is because the kids move fast, their expressions change even faster, and they are often against horrible backgrounds. Ce le vie.

[Manfred M]

What interested me was the contrast between the photographer and the bride and the groom. The photographer is not the subject. The whole image is the subject.

If things only were that simple Ole. Whether you want this or not, the subject is what the viewer's eye is drawn to and something that is bright and takes up most of the frame is indeed what ends up being the subject. Had the bride and groom been in sharp focus, I might have agreed, but as they are definitely soft and out of focus, they are definitely not working out to be the subject. The way you have presented your image, I would suggest that the photographer has ended up being the subject.

I agree with the comments that both Dave and Dan have made; this is a grab shot and in my experience they rarely work out well because of the limitations around camera settings and framing that we have to live with. This is a little different than experienced street photographers who position themselves for success, even though their subjects are behaving in somewhat unpredictable ways.