the rings

Wedding rings. Physical symbols of a verbal vow. beautiful, eternal, final.

We believe shooting one of the most important symbols of the whole event should not be considered a mere snapshot. Creativity, for us, plays a central role in all we do at GetzCreative. And yes, that involves finding beauty in the mundane, humor in the dull and, epic grandness in the simple things.

Below, are a few examples of what can be done to create moody atmospheric shots of the wedding rings. In this example, each shot is from the same wedding, just shown in different ways, stretching the canvas of creativity to find that perfect shot.

the bride and maid of honor

Behold, the bride! She is the queen, it is her day. She's planned every part of her day to perfection and as photographers, it's our responsibility to show off her beauty, the love she holds for her man, and the grandness in which she's planned her day around.

For the bride, it's not just about the importance of the oath she's to take, but it's enjoying it with those close to her. At GetzCreative, we try and capture the relationship between the bride and groom and their friends, which is why it's important they allow us the emotional access to their day. For us, capturing the emotion of the day, is just as important as capturing the physical characteristics of the day.

One relationship we focus a little more attention on, is the friendship between the bride and her maid of honor. We try and capture some special dramatic imagery that highlights the bride and her maid of honor, as well as some striking images of the maid or honor herself. Below you can see some examples of both.

the guys: getting ready

Getting ready is a great way to incorporate detail shots into your wedding images. The bride (and some grooms) have spent much of their time over the last year planning every detail of their wedding day. Throughout the album you can show these details in various ways. One way we like to incorporate detail shots, is by breaking the items down to time and place.

Many detail shots can be captured while the bride and groom are getting ready before the ceremony. Other detail shots are captured during the ceremony or reception; each place can potentially be an integral shot to the day, depending on the details the couple have created for their day.

As a photographer, it's important to talk to your bride and groom and find out how things are going, and what these "detail treasures" look like. It will help ensure you capture the important elements that not only look good, but that are important to the bride and groom as well.

Regardless of whether you talk to the bride and groom beforehand, it's important to stay vigilant throughout the day and look for opportunities to show off details that they may have forgotten to mention. After all, that's one of the many differences between a professional photographer and just having "uncle joe" shoot the wedding.

the guys: grouping options

Two posts ago I talked about creating dramatic imagery with the groom and his groomsman. Today, I want to show other options for creating dynamic group imagery on the wedding day. Group shots in general can be a challenging task. Working with multiple heads that need to be visible and recognizable, can lead one to take the easy way out of lining them up in a row or two rows and take a straight on shot. But one thing you have going for you on the wedding day, is the hierarchy of importance is set each and every time. In every wedding the groom is the main man, the prince, the honored one.

Putting the groom in front and making him prominent, is not only a good idea, but expected. No one is vying for attention above the groom, unless he wants a good lashing from the bride; and a smart man does not get in the way of the bride and her perfect day.

Even if you get married in a church, I'm constantly searching for a setting where I can shoot some interesting group shots. I love shooting odd numbers in group shots. The images below show five guys in total. This was a wonderful number to work with, and opened up a number of possibilities.

Sometimes we'll be asked to shoot a wedding that has 7 or more on each side and that can be significantly more challenging, but generally, the same rules apply regardless of size. Remember, if the answer was easy, everyone could do it. Finding the angle and poses that best fit the size of the group is one of the many value benefits of using a professional photographer.

the guys: shooting for the album

For us, the album is an essential part of displaying the wedding photos. The album works much like a magazine article, giving each picture purpose and meaning. Of course these images have a purpose, they were, after all, shot on the wedding day. What I'm describing, is not creating a meaning for the pictures themselves, but rather, creating a context that shows off each picture's beauty in the best possible fashion.

A big difference between our style and that of the photojournalist, is that we don't shoot for quantity, but rather the artistic dramatic moments that make up your wedding day events. For us, capturing unique images of your wedding details, and the close friends with whom you've asked to celebrate your wedding, is far more important than documenting every little thing that happened that day.

We are taking a creative snapshot of this most special day. You can look back and see the beauty of the day, and remember the details that took you months to plan. We strive to communicate through pictures, the essence of a day in your life unlike any other you'll likely experience.

How does this pertain to the album design you may ask? When shooting for the album, we are constantly thinking of ideas that will work cohesively on a spread. Instead of simply laying out the images in the order they happened, we want each spread to have a unity, creating a uniform "designy-ness" which looks classier, and more purposeful. We still design the album with "order of events" in mind, however we try not to mix events on the same spread unless they share a uniformity that create a pleasant cohesive design.

The first three images below are an example of three pictures I'd put on the same spread. The last image, is to show a contrast, to help better communicate what I'm saying. The last picture would go better on a spread with yesterday's image or even tomorrow's, however mixing all these images on the same spread would not create the cohesive story that I wish to tell of that particular event.