Manolo for the Brides

Up for discussion this week in LOVE/HATE land are wedding photos taken with a fisheye lens, a wide-angle lens that takes a hemispherical image. They were originally used to take pictures of the whole of the sky overhead, but the bendy, distorted pictures one ends up with when using a fisheye lens have become popular with brides and grooms.

It’s not difficult to see why — fisheye lenses are great for taking wedding photographs that include not only the entirety of the wedding party, but also all of your wedding guests. Things tend to look a little more crowded in fisheye wedding photographs, but that’s part of the charm.

I’ll say I love fisheye wedding photographs, though I’d wager a bride and groom would want one or two photos taken with a fisheye lens rather than lots and lots of them. Imagine the photo above as taken straight on using a regular lens. I doubt it would be as compelling.

The only time I don’t love it is when there is a lot of empty space, bright skies, and water. This fisheye wedding photograph is very pretty, but I can’t shake the feeling that the bride and groom are trapped in a gigantic fishbowl.

What say you?

(Images via Jeff Newsom Photography, Hoffmann Photography, and Danny Ngan)

We’ve all seen the trash the dress photoshoots where the bride is rolling around in a marsh somewhere, thoroughly muddying her wedding gown and looking like a waterlogged fairy with naughty deeds on her mind. There’s one set where a stuntwoman bride lit her gown on fire while wearing it, post-wedding of course. Then there are the trash the dress sessions where the now married bride tromps through dust and grime, perhaps even letting a few brambles tear at the hem of her gown. I’m glad those brides were able to afford a second session with a photographer and, one hopes, got the photos they wanted.

But trashing the dress isn’t for everyone, and especially not those brides who feel a strong sentimental attachment to their wedding dresses. That said, these same brides might also feel the inclination to take their gowns out into nature without ripping it apart or staining it beyond recognition or wetting it through or burning it to a crisp. Can they trash the dress without actually, well, trashing the dress? After doing a quick survey of trash the dress photos, I think the answer is yes. Many of not most of the photos that purport to trash the dress really don’t do much in the way of wear and tear. Here are three ways brides who want to take interesting post-wedding photos and come away with an intact wedding dress.

Take a chair into nature. Just because you’re out in the fields doesn’t mean you have to subject your wedding dress to the ravages of mud and animal droppings. A stool is just as out of place in a forest as a wedding dress is, so you’re not taking anything away from the photo other than astronomical drycleaning bills after the fact.

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Wedding accessory photos… brides and grooms usually either love them or hate them. There’s the shot of the bridal bouquet in a vase on a side table waiting for the moment when the buffed and puffed bride will grab it on her way to the foot of the aisle. And there are the many, many incarnations of wedding band photos, for example the loving heart photo or the rings in the hands of the bride and groom. There are photos of the bride’s earrings not yet in the lobes of the bride and photos of neckties hanging off of the backs of chairs in the groom’s dressing chamber. And, naturally, there are photos of shoes!

Shoes, more than any other wedding accessory, can tell a tale in wedding photographs because shoes (unlike earrings or the bridal bouquet) are to some extent utilitarian and they tend to be a very expressive piece of attire. Here are four examples of wedding photographs that show nothing but the shoes, yet convey a lot of information about the wedding itself and the bride and groom.

Rain on her wedding day? Or a bride by the bay? We can’t be sure of the circumstances that led to this photo taken by photographer Steve Holcroft without some digging, but it certainly invites a great deal of speculation. I can’t help but think of this bride as being playful, however. She didn’t have to wear wellies, after all. She could have gotten someone to carry her.

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Oh my, what’s this? An old fashioned bridal kidnapping? A wedding ceremony interrupted by the appearance of guerrilla fighters? Starcrossed lovers escaping from an unwanted wedding? Whatever it is, it sure looks as if the bride is in a perilous position.

But don’t feel too bad for the bride just yet because the photo you see above is actually a wedding portrait taken in Nanjing of Jiangsu Province, China. Rather than (or perhaps in addition to) traditional wedding portraits, the bride and groom opted for a warfare scenario as they are both hardcore military enthusiasts.

Is it a trend? Beats me. I only have one source that states that themed wedding portraits are popular among young brides and grooms in China. And I could only find these two images of anything that might be considered extreme wedding photography. It could be that Chinese newlyweds simply aren’t posting their photos online or are using private galleries. Anyone local to that part of the world want to weigh in?

Brides-to-be battling cancer have enough to do without having to deal with wrangling vendors on top of everything else, right? Blush Photo & Films here in my home state of Massachusetts thinks so and has started a program where they offer free wedding photography to women who are undergoing cancer treatment.

One less expense can go a long way for women in cancer treatment who are planning a wedding. For people experiencing cancer treatments, their money and time should be spent on healing. Women who are in cancer treatment are eligible for up to 6 hours of free photography services. So if you are one of the many thousands battling this disease, please contact Blush to find out how we can create a photo package that’s right for you.

Awesome! It’d be super sweet if other wedding vendors across the country would take a page from Blush Photo’s book because dealing with cancer really sucks.

When it comes to portraits of moi, I’m a huge fan of post-production image processing, and I’m not just talking about zapping a few blemishes or erasing eyelid crinkles. In the past, I’ve tinted myself pink and green, dabbled in bad porno lighting styles, and made it so colors just about scream at you. Did I mention that I have almost zero Photoshop skills? So think of what a pro could do with your wedding photos. A professional wedding photographer with post-production image processing chops could, for example, do this:

Photo by katialo

Photo by Jason Lavengood Photography

Photo by Cristobal Perez of Azul Photography

Photo by Christopher Chan

The question is, do you like those wedding photos that are retouched to within an inch of their lives? My answer is some yes, some no. I’m not a fan of the bridal portraits that look like they were taken through a Vaseline smeared lens or of the wedding portraits that are all in black and white except the bridal bouquet, which has suddenly morphed into some alien color. But I love the dramatic sepia and the extreme hues seen in the photos above, and the washed out black and white photo is also none-to-shabby.

What say you? Would you rather your wedding photos be true to life or a little more artistic than not?

We’re having flooring put down today, which means that the baby and I are effectively trapped in the family room for the morning. Rather than wait to post, I thought I’d give you some eye candy… fun and inspiring eye candy, I hope. I’m a huge fan of fun wedding photos and funny wedding photos, especially the really creative ones. Here’s a sampling of images I’ve only just come across. I love the first one to pieces, as does The Beard.

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Previously, we’ve gabbed about the old wedding photography standards, like the bride applying her makeup in the mirror, the bride and groom touching foreheads, and the ringbearer sneaking a finger full of wedding cake buttercream. But how about the “look at our wedding rings” shot?

The Beard and I both thought of wedding ring photos as kind of silly, but we did it anyway and have a lovely photograph of his hand supporting my hand holding our rings on top of my bridal bouquet. And I’ll admit that I also took a picture of our wedding rings, still in their boxes, on top of our marriage license application.

While the hands of the bride and groom (or bride and bride and groom and groom) usually play a starring role in wedding ring portraiture, sometimes the rings themselves steal the show, like in this photo from Critsey Rowe Photography.

I’m leaning toward love, not just of this unique wedding ring portrait, but of ring photos themselves. Many long years ago, I didn’t really care for them, and I still don’t think that they are the kind of thing one looks back on and sighs. That’s reserved for pictures of the bride kissing her dad on the cheek before they head down the aisle or covert snapshots of quiet unplanned moments between the newlyweds. Still, I’m surprised at how much I’ve grown to like my own ring portraits, and I think they do make a fun addition to a wedding album.

What say you?