The unusual reflections !!

Capturing reflections in wedding photography is not something new. In fact every other photographer will certainly capture the reflection of the bride when she gets ready in front of the mirror. But this is an unusual picture of the couple whose reflections are captured in the mirrored ceiling of a posh hotel. Well this is a concluding picture of the couple when I was shooting their portraiture using the wall pictures of the interiors.

In the process of adjusting the lights, I raised the level of a light and I could see the couple’s reflections in the huge mirror fixed on the ceiling of interior. It was very different point of view as I see them upside down. I decided to do few shots of the reflections of the couple (You can probably see the side column of the wall showing the top of the interior). I had specifically instructed the couple not to look in to my camera in the reflection but to see away from it just to generate candidness in the shot. The couple was responding to the smile of my assistant through the mirror and that is how I got the spontaneity and candid expression in their faces.

It is a good idea to look around your subject from various points of view to get some thing different and unique. Undoubtedly the young couple was amazed to see them upside down.

- KL.Raja

Look beyond your working limits..!

I was handling a wedding assignment in a historical church in our city, Chennai recently. As the Mercedes carrying the bride groom halted in front of the church, I did shoot a few regular pictures and had been looking to get something really different. It was then, I spotted an out door display (hoarding) right opposite to the church on the main road with a tag line saying “100% Simple, 100% Happiness”. It was looking as though the child model was pointing his hands towards the car and saying 100% Simple and 100% Happiness.

I sat behind the Mercedes with the floral decoration to get the hoarding in my picture. Though the picture was spontaneously shot, I had all appreciation for my presence of mind and photo journalistic approach by the clients when I digitally projected some of the wedding images (for the benefit of the guests who were not able to attend the wedding in the church) on a large screen in front of the guests attending the wedding reception.

It is true for some time you may have to look beyond your working limits and territory for some interesting pictures.

- KL.Raja

Portray the ‘character of the couple’ in Portraits…!

I generally prefer to shoot the couples informally in my studio after the wedding. In this process I instruct them to be of their own and try to capture them as they interact with each other. The very purpose of this post wedding portrait sessions is to get few good shots carrying the character and expression of the couples. But this is generally very difficult with Indian couples as they are usually very stiff and timid in front of a camera. Some of them even give a very stale and standard expression in all the shots

It happened recently, when my assistants were re arranging the main lights after I just finished few formal portrait shots of a couple in their wedding dress. As I was looking at the completed shots in my laptop, and waiting to go in for the next set of posses, I find the couple was casually talking to each other. In fact the bride was facing away from the camera as I just took a couple of shots where my front lights were not firing as they are plugged out by my assistants.

But still I liked the shots with an effect of a semi silhouette with just only a background light. Though the faces of the couples were not clearly visible, I found a different mood in this shot which of course the couple too had liked a lot.

Most of my post wedding portrait session will contain shots like this and they can be very effectively included in the wedding photography album or photo book. This picture is a very good example of getting the location mood in the studio portraits.

- KL.Raja