After their outdoor ceremony in the Cathedral of Trees at Kortright Centre, myself, the second wedding photographer and the couple took a few family photos in the Glass House and afterwards we headed to the forest for the bride and groom creative portraits.
This is one of the best parts of the wedding day for me. As Toronto wedding photographer I like having some control over the events or at least some input when the timeline is drafted. That gives me an opportunity to give the bride and groom feedback in order for them to allocate enough time for various parts of the day so we can maximize our a probability of getting good results from a photography standpoint.
As such, during the consultations I strongly recommend that the couple allocate two hours for them for the photo shoot or even more if we need to drive from one spot to several locations. On this particular wedding day, we didn't have to drive because at Kortright Centre everywhere you turn you find a beautiful backdrop for wedding photography.
Of course, the wedding photographer faces a few challenges when photographing in a forest. Our main concern is to keep our clients safe and to protect the wedding dress. Having something happen to the dress could ruin the bride's mood immediately. That would be disastrous for the couple's wedding photography. If there is something I learned in my career is that the client's mood is very apparent in their images no matter how good an actor the client is.
In fact, I even photographed a couple were both the bride and groom were actors and a few times I had to remind the couple to relax so we can get good photos.
In this particular frame I chose an asymmetrical composition whereby the couple is placed on the right-hand side of the picture to increase tension. That, combined with the fact that the groom is touching the bride's cheek in preparation for a kiss is making the viewer of this photograph to be curious and anticipate the next wedding album spread.
To give this image a photo journalistic feel, I chose a black and white processing. The dreamy look of the photograph was achieved by using the 56 mm 1.2 lens mounted on the Fuji XT2 camera. At the time of capturing this moment of love, I overexposed the image by two thirds of a stop.
To emphasize the importance of the couple as the main subject in this image, I made the bride and groom are the biggest, the brightest and the only part in focus. I also created a subtle selected vignettes to drive attention towards the subject.
Kortright Centre for Conservation is one of the most popular wedding venues in the greater Toronto area. It is a very attractive location for brides to tie the knot because of the beautiful forest, the institution's love for environment and its convenient location on Pine Valley Dr., Rutherford Rd. in Woodbridge, Ontario. It's sister location, Black Creek Pioneer Village is also a very popular spot to tie the knot.
Location: 9550 Pine Valley Dr, Woodbridge, ON L4L 1A6.
