~Trend Thinking outside the box: a creative couple’s “antiengagement” Shoot. BYMICHAEL BUSSE AS WEDDING PHOTOgraphers,
we’re always collaborating with our clients. They have their own style, level of comfort with the camera and artistic background. It’s up to us as photographers to follow a client’s vision when what they want expands past normal garden varietals. Having taken a non-traditional approach with our photography before, we attracted Mar and Doug, a couple who were searching for more than simple coverage.
PHOTO © REBECCA YALE
It started with a simple inquiry. Mar and Doug wanted a shoot referencing the 1960s cinema they loved, films
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like Dario Argento’s Suspiria and Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le Fou. The couple’s wedding Pinterest board was a kaleidoscope of their love of sexual tension and vintage intimacy. I dipped into some of the films on the board, looking at how characters dressed, the camera angles, the lighting, the film quality, their body language, the plots and subtle intensities. I built bridges connecting these movies and Mar and Doug’s love story, which involved a long-distance relationship and a lot of time spent on trains. With a separate day before the actual wedding, we constructed a shoot with Dario Argento-esque lighting, throwback hair and makeup, a vintage wardrobe, and a mix of film and digital. We shot at a gorgeous house in Ditmas Park and downtown Brooklyn’s Transit Museum, to serve as a
~ nod to their relationship. For the shoot, they became characters in their own play. It started with them expressing distance, longing and need. Eventually I wanted them to come together, without quite trusting the fact that they were in each other’s arms. They got so into character that we blurred the lines of what an engagement shoot is. It was hard to recognize it as such, which was what we were going for.
Why destination photographers are shooting before and after the wedding to get their best shots.
PHOTO © CHELLISE MICHAEL PHOTOGRAPHY
couple means we can capture inbetween moments that make our coverage multi-dimensional. I craft my stories with layers for an in-depth story of a celebration unfolding over multiple days. My BY REBECCA YALE approach begins by establishing As wedding photographers, wide landscape shots then midwe are usually hired for range shots—like portraits and the wedding day, with the documentary moments—and, occasional client adding on finally, moving in tight for details coverage for other events. and still-life images. A destination wedding, For a wedding I shot in however, presents a unique Ravello, a village on the Amalfi opportunity to capture not Coast in southern Italy, I stayed just the day itself but to tell a at the same hotel as the guests long-form documentary story and created a flexible coverage where we capture the essence package. The extra days on site of the wedding weekend. meant I was available to capture By documenting the bride the couple during the often and groom over multiple days, overlooked in-between, comingI am given the opportunity and-going moments. I was able to get to know them better to capture establishing shots of and approach the weekend Amalfi’s staggering cliffs, shoot as a documentary, travel an intimate mini-engagement and portrait photographer session in nearby Positano, forage all rolled into one. Staying for Ravello’s famous lemons, lush either with or nearby the greenery and Limoncello for
