The first look was one of my favourite episodes of this splendid wedding at Kortright Centre for Conservation.
As a wedding photographer, it is my duty to deliver my couples a variety of photographs ranging from formal to posed and candid, emotional shots capturing the love between the bride and groom.
It is no secret that I love first looks enduring my consultations with the clients I strongly recommend that they have a first look on their big day. There are a few reasons why I believe the first look makes sense both for the bride and grooms and also for the professional photographer.
The first look gives an opportunity to the couple to spend a few minutes together. Unfortunately, on their special day things run so quickly that often couples forget to breathe and enjoy their big day. Trying to please the guests, the friends and the family, the bride and groom rarely spent time with each other and the unveiling creates a perfect opportunity to unwind and relax before the wedding ceremony.
From a wedding photographer's perspective, the first look is the golden opportunity to create magnificent imagery that combines elements of a controlled environment (light, composition and so on) with genuine emotions. It is not uncommon for the couples to cry and laugh, often at the same time. In my career, I have seen tough grooms cry like babies when they saw their brides to be.
In the medieval times, it was common for the couples not to see each other before the ceremony. As back then marriages were arranged, the chances of the bride and groom of liking each other were fairly slim. As such, seeing each other before the ceremony was often followed by the bride or the groom cancelling the wedding. As you can imagine, because the marriage was a business arrangement, in fact, cancelling the wedding had terrible consequences for the families.
For that particular reason, it was considered a bad luck for the bride and groom to see each other before their wedding ceremony.
The first look, according to our research on wedding trends is becoming very popular and more and more couples opt to see each other before their wedding ceremony.
In this particular wedding photo, we can see an emotional bride in the foreground waiting for her husband to be.
The beautiful bride is captured in a moment of maximum intensity when she is biting her lips and clenching her fists expecting the love of her life to appear.
The balconies railing is creating a leading line towards the groom who is advancing slowly in the background. To increase the dynamism of this photograph I employed the Dutch tilt technique combined with using a wide angle lens to create more oblique leading lines in the photograph.
Another element that increases the value of this photograph is the placement of the groom, dressed in a dark suit against a bright background. According to the Gestalt principle when the figure to ground contrast is the strongest, the image becomes more beautiful.
The wooden beams that form the balcony floor create multiple leading lines converging towards the groom. In effect, the viewer is forced to look at the bride then in the groom and the back of the bride in an endless loop. All of the above make this picture stand out.
Location: 9550 Pine Valley Dr, Woodbridge, ON L4L 1A6.
