I’m sitting here editing a wedding I shot up in Sacramento this weekend and something just occurred to me. The personality of my subjects, in this case a bride and groom, to a great extent effects how I edit the images.
I have always known, and believed it to be an asset that the personality of the person or people I’m photographing influence how I photograph them. I am after all really a story teller, I just happen to use images to tell stories. So it would make sense that each story I tell is a little different from the rest by virtue of the difference in the subject. The only commonality being my eyes that the story is filtered through.
But I never realized that when I sit down to edit images that process is also influenced by the subject, or main characters if you will. While editing I am constantly asking myself is this who they really are? Which images really reflect who they are? What I wasn’t aware of was that even the music I listen to while editing seems to match the mood of the couple, the shoot, etc.
For example, a couple of weeks ago I photographed a wedding for a young couple (Mitch and Steph) who are both very hip but not “Hipsters” by any means. They are also genuine Minnesotans, and also have a streak of old school class about them. Of course this came out in the images. When editing I listened to a lot of Bon Iver and Martin Sexton.
This current wedding (Amorina and Ray) are completely different people. From the style of the wedding, the location, to they way they approached the wedding day was all a reflection of who they are. So what am I listening to? A bit of Iron and Wine with a heavy mix of Over the Rhine. Why? I guess because the wedding had a more simple, Americana feel to it. So what kind of images did I create? Right now they remind me a lot of a documentary style shoot you might find in Time or National Geographic. (Please pardon the hubris involved in comparing my work to the stuff you would find in Time and Nat Geo). If I had to title the work it would be “One day in America.”
The point in all of this is that more and more I’m growing into my role as a story teller, a visual poet. Shooting a wedding or shooting a street performer isn’t just about capturing an image, it’s an effort in story telling. From the camera work to the post production the whole process is really a photo essay.
by Mike
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