As a Toronto photographer I shoot weddings across the GTA, but one of my favourite wedding venues is Fairmont Royal York.
While the hotel had plenty of locations perfect for photography, this shot is different.
This wedding occurred in February on a very sunny day. During the groom preparation, we were walking down a hotel hallway when I noticed the Venetian blinds were casting harsh shadows on the wall. I positioned the groom by the window and posed him so that the shadows become leading lines. I asked him to lean a bit more on the back foot so that his body line creates a diagonal in the frame. As a rule, and photography diagonals look more appealing than verticals and horizontals.
You can see the groom is wearing a beautiful bowtie and as a side note, I will share a story about his bowtie. Earlier during the preparation, Peter (the groom) had a hard time tying the bowtie. He and his best man spent a lot of time watching video tutorials on how to tie a bowtie. After this wedding, I added one more tip for my brides and grooms: learn how to tie the bow ties and the dress beforehand to avoid wasting unnecessary time on your wedding day.
As Toronto wedding photographers, we often face challenges and have to be creative under pressure. To create high impact imagery, I always try to turn the challenging element to my advantage. In this image, the harsh sunlight matches perfectly the tough aspect of the groom who, at the time of the wedding was wearing a beard. In terms of post processing, I made this a black and white picture. Next, I increased the sharpness of the image and its contrast. Through dodging and burning a created a vignette around the groom to give him more visual importance.
All these efforts resulted in one of my favourite photographs from that wedding.
Technical aspects: I shot this image with my favourite portrayed photography lens, the Canon 85 mm F1.2 lens mounted on a 5D Mark III camera shot at F2.5.
Location: 100 Front St W, Toronto, ON M5J 1E3.
