The wedding of Laura & Damon, St Edmonds Church, Derbyshire
As per my previous post about the Midgley Wedding where I was a guest, I used the mighty Fuji Pro 800Z film for this official shoot, rated mostly at its box speed of EI800 due to the low light using my animal-of-a-camera – the Nikon F5 – arguably the best 35mm film camera ever made. I then used Fuji Pro 400H when the 800Z ran out. I also shot a roll of Fuji Acros 100 shot at EI64 for some black and white ‘quiet shots’ after the crowds had made their way to the reception.
The day started out in less than ideal conditions. Despite it being dry and sunny all week, the day of this wedding, it rained! The garden at the brides house is amazing – lovely flowers and decorations. A photographers dream, but all the girls had to stay indoors – hair and makeup, and all of that. So straight from the start, I had to put my dynamic-compromising-photographers hat on, shooting indoors with flash. All in all, it went OK though.
The church had a restriction on the use of flash (as do most Church’s) and the number of shots used, so there’s nothing much to say about that – one has to respect the wishes of the Church. A lovely church though, and an amazing ceremony – it was nice to be able to sit and enjoy it, frankly, without having to have my “photographers hat” on too much (other than for the signing-the-register bits, and one or two others).
As the ceremony ended, so too did the rain! I was in luck, but time was against me as the rain was threatening to start at any moment and I had about 40 formals to get done with a series of private black and whites to do of the couple afterwards! The ushers and one of the bridesmaids was called upon to help get the various pre-decided groups in order, and that worked well.
The black and white’s were shot using Fuji Acros 100, rated at EI64 using a polyester yellow filter and, mostly, a Sekonic incident light meter with an aspect of compensation applied for the filter. I get very nervous shooting B&W because it is difficult to do successfully. In my view, it’s one of the hardest forms of photography and there is a niche of wedding photographers who specialise in just B&W wedding photography. I’m not talking about these boring digital de-saturations that seems to be so nauseatingly fashionable these days, where, for every colour photo there’s a “B&W” equivalent that even an 8-year old can do. I’m talking about B&W photography with proper tonal range where each shade of light is considered, pre-visualised and placed in the finished photo by the photographer, properly exposed, to produce a B&W shot that is truly artistic, ideally hand printed by the photographer. This kind of photography is a dying trend, and I for one intend to bring it into my main workflow more in the future – I already have a darkroom with a superb enlarger.
After that, it was off to the reception. No fancy cars to escort them there though, unfortunately – it broke down on the morning of the wedding! They didn’t mind though – they just hitched a lift with me and my wife in our banger like the good old days!
I had the films developed by my pro lab who always do a fine job. Even the 6×4″ proofs look great. Shooting film can be nerve racking – you don’t know if it’s wrong until it’s too late. Another reason why film photographers are generally so good at…photography. I hope Laura and Damon choose some to be enlarged because the films used here provide simply outstanding results, creamy skin tones, and amazing bright whites (when used by the right photographer, of course!)
All the best for the future Laura and Damon, and thanks for having me photograph your big day!
Group wedding photo, Fuji Pro 800Z
Wedding photo using Fuji Pro 800Z
Wedding photo with confetti shower using Fuji Pro 800Z
Black & White wedding photo, Fuji Acros 100
Black & White wedding photo, Fuji Acros 100
