Friday Project Series: Wedding Photography

By Veronique Habermann

Since we are thinking lately of newlywed couple design dilemmas, I talked to my friend Lesley Cecchi, who is an award winning photographer and cinematographer in the New York area. She has been taking wedding pictures for a number of years now which you can see on her Web site: www.cecchiphotography.com. Below is a blog post she wrote on her own blog, Floating Image. I think that her take on sorting though hundreds of digital pictures in this new era of photography could be very helpful and also provide a great Friday Project! No sweat required!

Millions of Cats: Tips for Editing Your Wedding Photos
By Lesley Cecchi
Posted September 2, 2009

Today’s Brides are lucky.  Family members, friends and even people you don’t know, not to mention your professional photographer, can take hundreds of images, download them almost instantly to sites like Flickr, share them on Facebook and email endlessly.  But like so many things in our digital age, this is both a blessing and a burden.  After all, what does one do with all those millions of pics?!  It’s a little bit like the classic children’s story by Wanda Gag: Millions of Cats. In his search to find a cat for his wife, an old man is followed by

Hundreds of cats,

Thousands of cats,

Millions and billions and trillions of cats!

                     

Well here’s my advice….Wait!

If you are editing your own photos for an album, to post online, display  or give as gifts, the first thing to do is wait. Just sit back relax and look at your photos over and over without making any choices.  There’s no replacing that first glimpse of your photos – like a sip of great wine –  and how fun it is to relive that momentous occasion, but, interestingly enough, the photos you like a lot at first, won’t necessarily be the keepers. I don’t know why that is. Just a lesson learned from editing millions of pics. Some of them grow on you – again, like a great bottle of wine which opens up and breathes – you will notice new things, something more subtle and interesting can emerge. After many viewings, and some time, you don’t even have to think so much about it.  A sort of intuitive process will take hold and the really good photos will emerge. Simple as it seems, that’s my first and, maybe, best advice…. wait and take your time. Don’t be in a hurry.

Secondly, if I have a second wisdom to pass along it’s just to restate the old Bauhaus mantra Less Is More. Everybody likes a posed shot.. a flattering portrait.  That’s what one expects and should expect, because why go through all the trouble of a pretty dress and luscious flowers without showing them off? But, two or more similar shots might be boring…

                          

How about combining that classic shot, from the template, with one that’s more “off the cuff?”

         

Which brings me to my final point, that good design is always about subtracting… subtracting the obvious and replacing it with the unexpected.

Here’s another couple of examples.

         
                      

***If you are a newlywed yourself, don't forget to check out the Valspar "Love, Our Style" site and enter to win a home color makeover by the Beehive Studios!