Perspectives #2

In this innovative exercise, some of the top wedding photographers in the world were asked to critique the same wedding photos independently on their own without knowing what the others think. Would they agree? How different or similar would their critiques be?

Eirik Halvorsen | Education

The first thing that caught my eye is the white part that is the collar of the groom's shirt. I thought it was connected to the bride's veil but it didn't make sense. I see now that it's really dark so there's very little separation between the groom's head and the background because everything is so dark. The bride pops phenomenally and it looks really beautiful with the floating veil in the wind. But I had to look two or three times to see that "oh, the groom was standing right there." Maybe you burned down the background too much in the post-production. You could introduce a flash on the groom to make him pop to make it more obvious as he's standing there watching the bride. 



Overall a great image. I'm a huge fan of tilt shift myself. I can see that his ear and back of his head is in focus and the bride is in focus. This is a tricky thing to do so great job on that. If I could do something or one thing better, it would be to make the groom pop more by introducing a light on him or lighting up the background behind his head so that his head popping up more.

Jesse La Plante | Education

This one's really unique. It's different. It's a definitely a non traditional wedding portrait of the bride and the groom. I like her pose back there with the veil flowing. It's almost like Leonardo DiCaprio standing on the front of the Titanic, or was that Kate, standing at the front with the arm? It's a cool pose. I have not seen something quite like this. I applaud you for making it different and trying to do something a little bit outside the box. 

However, the overall exposure is too dark. Obviously you're going for dark and moody and you're achieving that, but I can barely see the groom. If it wasn't for his white shirt collar, you couldn't tell that there was a person standing there. I'd raise up the blacks and the shadow areas one to two stops just to provide a more detail and more context into the overall scene.

I don't really like how the veil is just barely intersecting with the groom's left shoulder. Taking more frames or raising the camera up slightly or moving the camera slightly to the left would create a little bit of separation between the veil and the groom. The result would be more of a clean composition. But cool shot. Nice job.

Rocio Vega | Education

I like the way that the view is going, but I think there's too much foreground that doesn't add to the picture. It's too dark. Cropping a little bit would be much better because we get rid of all this black information that it's not adding to it. I would have loved this veil not to touch his shoulder. 



The groom is here so I assume that it's on purpose but he's so dark, it's not adding to the story. Either you get rid of him completely or you put him in a better position where he adds into the picture because right now the only thing I can see are his ears.

Why is he there? He's not transmitting any emotion or anything. Either get rid of him completely, or if he is in the picture, he has to add to the story.


Steven Rooney | Education

This is a bride and groom portrait. The light is even across the frame so I'm presuming cloudy conditions. The use of the tilt shift as well as the even light gives good texture across the frame. It's a very peaceful image. It gives a sense of, of quietness of nature. It's on the side of artistic and abstract. There's no real connection between the bride and the groom here but you do get a sense of stillness in nature - a moment of quiet between the bride and the groom. Essentially it is a portrait. You have to imply feeling an emotion. Because they're not next to each other, they're not looking at each other, we would presume the groom is looking at the bride, but we have to imply a lot of things here. Compositionally, there's a lot of space on the left side of the frame and at the top to the right that could be, it could be brought in a little bit. Certainly, it's a beautiful image - definitely on the scale of abstract and artistic.

Mauricio Arias

This photo is about concept. Right? So the concept here I imagine is showing how she feels and how she looks and how she wants to be appreciated, her attitude, or freedom, or ecstasy, whatever it is. When you play with these concepts and these ideas, you want to be at work with everything and everything you show. I will try to make it this photo lighter. By lightening the photo, we show more texture. And that is going to bring more layers. The juxtaposition is going to be more obvious - hardness of texture in the background with softness and the movement, the flow in the wind, his absence, that obstruction of his face that gives the sensation of wonder. That makes more sense to me. I will play a little bit more with symmetry and angle and all that. I love it - the choice of the lens, the focus point. I appreciate all of that.

I will crop it into a square too. So cool.