I think it is important for every wedding photographer to differentiate themselves from the competition, stand out from the crowd and show something to their customers that nobody else is offering. It's a task not easily accomplished. Towards the end of 2006 season I teamed up with
Monika Broz for the project called MAD LOVE. We decided to try and approach engagement session photography from a new angle. Instead of keeping it "all sweet and pretty" we wanted to shoot a couple in a setting that provides dramatic contrast to warm and cozy feelings of love and affection. We have also come up with a little scenario for our models so that in the end we could create a slideshow of not just accidental images but one that would have a storyline to it.
Our Models, Marta and Tim are a real couple and we are booked to photograph their wedding in September 2007:
They both turned out to be extremely patient and easy to work with:
The location that we have found for our session was an abandoned warehouse and an old school buildings in Passaic, NJ:
Tim was fearless in 'attacking' the rusty staircases and walking accross the rooms, where wooden floor panels remember much better times:
Marta was following his footsteps with the same amount of bravery. The courage and devotion they showed allowed us to produce a fantastic and very distinctive set of images:
An interesting fact: during the entire session we were accompanied by a black cat. We had no idea who it belonged to but it would not stop following our couple, trying to get into literally every photo we were framing:
So we decided to include the nosy animal and get the best out of the opportunity. Monika managed to capture this fantastic composition:
The little black hero, one more time:
For some technical info, all images were captured using 'regular' digital cameras with 2:3 sensor ratio. However, when we were shooting we had the final format of our choice (16:9) in mind. The ultimate purpose of our work was to create a widescreen, cinematic slideshow recorded to a DVD disc. Here's how the finished product looks like:
To keep the look and 'feel' of the entire presentation consistent we have created our own post-processing action in Photoshop that allowed to achieve the bluish tone, contrasty and dramatic appearance and slightly dreamy effect (the latest may not be visible in the small images that were resized for this blog):
During the entire shoot we have of course captured a lot more images and processed them in different ways:
Although the overall mood of the MAD LOVE session was slightly more serious and dramatic than what one would normally expect from a similar shoot, we of course had tons of fun creating those images:
Monika working with Marta and Tim:
to create this:
Personally I am thrilled at the prospect of working with more of our couples in the future and creating similar projects. Not necessarily in the environment of decay and destruction. Let's go to a sunset cafe boulevard in a small town, a beach at wintertime, ride horses in a countryside. Something different and special for everybody. Let's change the way we play this game !
