The afternoon glow behind the trees makes for a beautiful glowing light in this portrait of a bride and her bridesmaids. The varied pastel dresses in shades of rose, lavender, lemon, and gray pair beautifully with the sweet bouquets. The laid-back, country style of this wedding made for a relaxed day, and the horse fences behind them remind us that we're not in the city anymore, despite being just a few minutes away from the seaside Floridian town of Jupiter. Documenting the loveliness of our clients and their attendants is always a priority, but rather than subjecting the group to a series of stiff poses we prefer to inject some laughter and fun into the typical formal portraits. Capturing genuine expressions lets the individual personalities of your bridesmaids shine through, creating an engaging and smile-inducing portrait that bring back the day’s memories every time you see it.
Photographically this is a simple image; we prefer to use longer lenses for group shots even if it seems counterintuitive to be standing so far away from the subjects. This technique is called “compression”, which paints the background into a pleasingly blurred swirl of color and shapes, allowing the viewer’s attention to remain on the faces of the subjects in the image. Even when we’re photographing a large group we prefer to work like this; often this means we’ll be standing many yards away from the group to shoot, but we work around this by having Em take the shots while Steve gives direction and keeps an eye on small details. The added bonus of shooting with compression is that it’s still a camera technique impossible to achieve with an iPhone, so your images will immediately be distinguishable from the snapshots your friends take.
Location: Jupiter Farms, Florida.
1/1000; f/2.0; ISO 400; 85.0 mm.