Ceremony moments are among the most memorable of your wedding day. Images from your wedding ceremony not only tell the story of your day, but they recapture the emotions for you to re-live, over and over again.
Sometimes in the rush of the day and the revels of the reception, the ceremony images are eclipsed. Other wild and wonderful images of the busy wedding day can overshadow them.
Ceremony Images Connect Camera, Photographer and the Human Heart
At first, it seems ceremony images are a dozen photos, lost among the literally hundreds from other moments of the day:
The Ceremony you can only see through Your Pro Photographer’s Eyes.
- Happy grins from the family portraits before or after the ceremony…Formal, but so lively with their bright eyes, perfect fashions and proper grins.
- And Sterling creates and catches these prompted groups and subgroups in portraits made with the heart of a man obsessed with a true love for photographic art.
- The girly time in the bride’s getting ready room…ribbons and roses and stiletto shoes…oh, my!
When he looks through the eyes of the wedding couple, Sterling finds joy in the honest emotion of each planned but imperfect moment throughout the day. Then we see thousands of tiny moments like the list below. But, even as you enjoy these images, the centerpiece of all these moments will be your ceremony shots:
- The groom’s men racing each other and leaping the hedge to the wedding chapel dressing room…
- And hugs with Daddy. Yes, Father of the Bride, but also the awkward embrace of the Groom and His Dad…
- More Silly antics from the mischievous ushers …(They did WHAT to the car?)
- Before the ceremony, we might see…
- Mock battles and manly hugs between the groom and the best man…
- Cake-biting, Jaw-dropping, eye-popping laughter, close-dancing, garter grabbing and champagne sipping at the party.
- And who can forget the tiny ballet of the flower girl blowing bubbles at the couple’s departure?
What The Bride Wants: Ceremony Shots That Capture Timeless Love, Beauty, and Joy
However, as the years go by, we at Sterling Photography International believe it is the ceremony images that will have a transforming power to pull you back to a time when love and commitment are new. Ceremony moments are some of the most challenging shots of a photographer’s joy at your wedding.
How To Capture Great Ceremony Images:
Capturing the Right Moment: The Look of Love
Three Mysteries Solved for Brides
Today, Sterling reveals the three Great Mysteries Behind the creation of great, memorable Wedding Ceremony Images.
First and foremost of these mysteries is capturing the right moment. An untrained, inattentive or lazy photography might miss these precious moments, but not Sterling Photography.
Just because ceremonies reflect a sacred reverence does not mean reality won’t feature a private joke.
Capturing the right moment might mean creating photographs of cute and crazy moments. These are moments when the bride and groom get caught up in laughter or a gaze of passionate tenderness, in spite of the seriousness of the moment.
Capturing the Right Ceremony Moment: Anticipation
When Sterling’s camera photographs a ceremony, you won’t see only the mere generic moments you find on everyone’s album planning list.
You’ll see the unexpected moments, such as a smile, a giggle, an unplanned tear, or an authentic gaze of love.
Laughter overcomes solemnity, but you know the secret reasons, and this ceremony shot will never let you forget it.
Expecting the Unexpected Shot…
- When a bride can hold such a moment in print, in the palm of her hand, she realizes she was right to choose a photographer with the talent and training to stay focused as each excruciatingly unforgettable image unfolds.
- As a storyteller, Sterling stays mentally and spiritually focused and engaged. He’s laser-locked into the moment of emotion as well as the planned plot of the story event.
- He will tell you that the mystery behind great ceremony images is seeing your ceremony in split seconds.
- For Sterling, the simplest wedding becomes a dream wedding. These are moments when emotions are genuine and unplanned. They are moments when joy, tenderness or passion eclipses the formality and the reverence, even during the ceremony.
- Which of these would any bride willingly give up? The Kiss…The Secrets…The Laughter? That Laugh? Yes–The Unplanned Laugh when you mess up a word or two in your vows. Yes, especially, the laughter. For Sterling, these are the images that become the precious icons not only of a beautiful wedding but of an enduring marriage. (Oops! The bride said what?)
An Authentic Moment Can Never Be Duplicated.
Sterling documents stories of emotion as well as moments of truth:
The sudden hug. The dip that takes the bride’s breath away.
The surprise tears. That secret kiss. That delicate touch.
The Loving Glances… The Vows…The Rings…
These are the timeless moments of an age-old ritual that binds two souls together.
Such moments are fragile and they happen fast.
A wedding photographer must be engaged in the one moment, and yet ready for capturing the very next moment. And of course, you both want BOTH moments caught in the right settings on his equipment.
The Second Mystery of How to Create a Great Ceremony Image
No one would deny the exquisite value of beautiful light in a photograph. In the studio, the photographer can control the light. He can move tall light stands with giant umbrellas and big shades called light boxes to reflect soft even light. He can even bounce light with mirror-like reflectors that can turn the light to sunny gold or shimmery silver. But in the great outdoors and or the church or hotel or barn, instead of controlling the light, he must find the light and adapt to it.
How to Capture a Great Ceremony Image: Quietly! What’s more, during the ceremony, he must be as subtle and quiet and still as possible. Sterling has always been shocked at wedding photographers who move around and make so much noise that they destroy the very moment they are attempting to preserve.
He has been known to say, in the words of the great scenic photographer Ansell Adams, “Sometimes I arrive just when God’s ready to have someone click the shutter.”
The Third Mystery Behind Your Favorite Ceremony Shot: Composition
Chances are, if you are reading this blog, you are considering choosing a wedding photographer. So, we want you to know that there are those photographers who just shoot. And there are those who command a trained vision for various artistic elements.
Like settings on a camera, photographic artists can “set” their vision for many of the elements you will never consciously see.
To put it briefly, “In the visual arts, composition is the placement or arrangement of visual elements or ‘ingredients’ in a work of art, as distinct from the subject.” Likewise, we say that “Composition is a way of guiding the viewer’s eye towards the most important elements of the image, in specific order.”
You will see background, mid-ground and foreground for example. Your ceremony images have depth.
Ceremony Images Contain 6 Composition Elements Brides Take For Granted—and That’s Okay!
If you ever care to study a little art or design, you will discover the beauty of such elements as these:
“Capturing Her Heart–And he re-captures it every time she glances at this image.
- Proportion and harmony
- Symmetry and asymmetry
- Brightness and darkness
- Structures and textures
- Perspective and composition
- Form and contrast
An artist might spend half a year getting these elements arranged in brushstrokes for just one picture. A good professional photographer will have to arrange them on the fly, in fractions of seconds, while capturing your heartfelt moments.
Both the artistic painter and the artistic photographer expend the same amount of hours in time, talent and training to accomplish that vision. Both of them must ignite memories and emotions within the viewer. Yet you seldom see a grand gallery exhibiting wedding photography.
Only You—and your New Husband– Know the Secrets of the Ceremony Shots
Perhaps that is because the wedding photographer’s work is more intimate. So, it’s a secret art, about your secret stories and your relationship as man and wife. And it’s just for you.
In the words of the great social photographer, Diane Arbus, “A picture is a secret about a secret, the more it tells you the less you know.”
Sterling is the master of these three mysteries—and more, behind the art of taking great ceremony shots.
Generally, most Brides don’t really want to know the technical stuff. They just want the memories and feelings.
We are reminded of the words of Aaron Suskind, “Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.”
Thus, we know what you love: Brides and grooms only care that these are the shots they would grab to take with them in the event of a hurricane evacuation.
And that’s enough for Sterling. Yes, giving a couple a lifetime of memories to share; that’s enough for this photographic artist. It makes him smile as he reflects on a little philosophical saying that fits every couple he photographs:
“Life is short, Break the Rules.
Forgive quickly. Kiss slowly.
Love truly. Laugh uncontrollably
And never regret ANYTHING That makes you smile.”
Mark Twain
Thank you for reading this week’s Sterling Photography Blog. We can hardly wait until next week when we present: Blushing and Laughing–Confessions of Loving Couples.
