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Rangefinder
Magazine
The other very important factor I had not allowed for was: “How do I fit this kind of coverage in the album?” Imagine the bride going through a set of proofs, all of a sudden confronted by a picture of her shoes. Great, but what do I do with it? Obviously, these days with digital composition of wedding albums it’s easy to include single images like this. But that’s not for everyone, so for the moment I’ll talk “analog.” Just for the record, I shoot the same now digitally as I did with film. The only difference is I that experiment more. My first task was to decide what I wanted to give my customers. Minis didn’t need to be shot on Hasselblad, because they would stay small. So 35mm was the obvious answer.
The final part of the puzzle was to always shoot in order to provide multiples of three—that is, three, six, nine or 12. Why? In order to fit alongside existing main images in the album. For example, one 10x10 with three small images; two 7x7s with three small images; entire chapter pages of 12 small images.
It is not unusual for me to shoot five rolls of 35mm film on story-telling detail minis during a wedding. It is also not unusual for me to use most of them in the wedding album. Those same little pictures are final-quality images, and album-worthy. So your costs are the initial processing costs only. During my MasterClass workshop at the upcoming WPPI 2003,
I’ll be showing exactly what I shoot and why and how to group these
images; how I use them in the album and other promotional and marketing
potential of this special type of photography.
David Anthony Williams is an award winning portrait and wedding photographer from Australia. He, along with his friend and colleague, Martin Schembri, will be the opening speaker presentation at WPPI 2003 at Bally’s Las Vegas. David will also be presenting a MasterClass at WPPI 2003 about the topic of this article: “Detail Minis, Rich Tapestry.” |
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Tony
Whincup (Anthropologist, New Zealand Master Photographer and photographic
educator) once said “Weddings are a social ritual, like Christmas
or Easter. Photograph the trappings that belong to the ritual—that
make it a wedding.” To me, that really made sense. At that time,
the “correct pose” was the Holy Grail of good wedding photography.
How
wrong we were. It had to be learned. All skills, especially those involving
your eyes and mind, need training and education. This is precisely what
happened to me when I decided to add details to my wedding coverage. I
thought in terms of studio still life, and not in terms of the wedding.
Optically,
I wanted something that would be a minds-eye view rather than hard reality.
So I used my 50mm f/1.4 lens—wide open, all the time. This gives
me very shallow depth-of-field (which is fundamental to the effect) and
allows me to work in almost any existing light situation with an ISO 400
film. I always shoot these detail miniatures in color— color casting
from candles and tungsten light only add to the effect.
The
actual size and presentation of the Detail Miniatures is vital. My wonderful
lab (The Edge in Melbourne) has, as a standard service, process and 3.5-inch
black-edged proofs, done at the time of processing. These are provided
in a strip, which I then cut up. The final paper size is 3.5 x 2.5 inch
(9x6.5cm) and the image is about 2x3 inches with a little black border.
Yes, it takes skill for the lab to produce this, and we gladly pay more
for it.
The
final part to the operation is that I group them by subject into sets
of four. This creates a small story and relates images, one to the other.
This also makes your intent of the images clearly visible to the customer.
It also allows you to group them with the main images to create a story-telling
structure.
I
try to shoot at least 24–36 images at each of the main points of
the wedding. That is, at the groom’s location before, the bride’s
before, the ceremony, the reception; in fact, anywhere we create a series
of main images, but always in multiples. One shot of a coffee cup will
not tell enough of a story about the wedding party stopping at a café
on their way to the reception.
But
most importantly, to make this work properly you must think of the wedding
differently—as a ritual if you like— not just as a series
of poses to be remembered and replicated. Brides have said to me through
tear-choked voices that I caught the very things that made their wedding
special. Often, the photos in their hand don’t even show faces.
Detail
minatures are a powerful and emotive tool that allows you to participate
in the wedding on a whole different level. Not all passionate photographs
at a wedding involve the staged bend-over-kiss-on-the-neck shot. Producing
a great wedding coverage is what is expected of us. Allowing ourselves
to become involved to the point where we are really touching peoples’
hearts is another.