Photo Breakdown - “The Staircase”
Issue #40
[Read Time < 5 Minutes]
The moment I walked into the house, I thought only one thing, “I’ve got to shoot this!”
For this wedding, the “prep” or “pregame,” as I call it, took place at the bride’s house.
This is my favorite place for the prep because it’s personal.
As I’ve mentioned, a wedding day is made up of a bunch of small, hand-selected personal touches that, when combined together, create a wedding day perfectly customized to the bride.
Every wedding is unique and special, and when the pregame takes place at the bride’s home, the specialness levels up significantly.
When I walked into the bride’s home, the first thing I saw was a large, very beautiful grand staircase leading up to the second floor.
For photographers, a staircase is like a frame that not only adds architectural interest to the photo but also creates natural leading lines that highlight the subject.
Remember Jack Dawson watching Rose walk down the staircase on the Titanic? Now THAT’s a staircase shot!
So, I arrive, and the bride invites me upstairs, where everyone is getting hair and makeup done.
Everything progresses nicely, but as I pass from one room to another, getting shots of each girl in some stage of preparation, it keeps calling me, “Hey, don’t cha want to get a shot of me!”
Yes, in my story, the staircase talks and it’s inviting me, no, taunting me to get a photo.
The problem is that everything is happening upstairs, and the bride does NOT want a bridal photo on the staircase.
But it’s my problem, so I get back to work.
After the hair and makeup are finished, the bridesmaids head to one room to get their dresses on while the bride and her mom head to the master bedroom to get her wedding dress on.
As I passed by the staircase, I gave a little whisper, “Don’t worry, I got you.”
The bride is now in her dress, and I step out of the bedroom to see the girls walking down the staircase and beginning to assemble at the base of the stairs for the big reveal...and an added surprise.
I popped back into the room and got a couple more shots of the bride as she walked out into the hall toward the staircase.
“I’ll be there in a sec - why don’t you head down?” I told her and turned back toward the bedroom.
Then, as soon as the bride made it a few steps past me, I turned around just as she hit the first step of the staircase. “I told you I’d be back,” I said in my mind and snapped off three or four shots of the bride’s descent down the stairs.
I used the curve of the two rails to lead the eye perfectly to the bride as she gave her elegant dress a slight tug, moving down each step.
This was the shot I had planned.
Now, for you, the polite yet pedantic art critic, you might be looking at this photo and poo-pooing the (over)use of grain and contrast. You might not like the muted colors either, and that’s totally fair. The photo is 20 years old, and my artistic tastes have matured since then.
As I mentioned 53 words ago, this was a shot that I planned. But there is more to the story…something cool.
I’m not an artist, but sometimes I pretend to be one, and this was one of those days.
Wedding photographers are inspired by a LOT of brilliant photographers who often go to tremendous lengths to get an amazing photo. We all want that feeling that we created something incredible.
I wanted this shot. I found the opportunity, and I took it. It’s a REAL photo of a REAL moment, so my journalistic integrity remains intact.
But as a journalistic wedding photographer, this wasn’t the end of the story.
After I snapped off the three or four shots, I rushed around the banister behind the bride to get the shot of the bridesmaids looking up at her.
In front of them, however, was the surprise...Dad...seeing his little girl for the first time in her wedding dress.
I pressed my finger as quickly as possible, getting as many shots as I could of Dad, his expression and the bridesmaids and their expressions, gently out of focus behind him.
And that’s really the part of the story that makes this photo so special for me.
This moment wasn’t about me. It was about the bride.
When I see this photo, I remember all these pieces coming together with a little planning, a little luck and an itchy trigger finger.
For the bride, this is the moment when she put on her wedding dress and headed down the stairs of her childhood home to marry the man of her dreams.
For Dad, this is the moment when his little girl becomes a woman right before his eyes.
Did I romanticize that too much?
As I mentioned in my last Photo Breakdown a few months ago (Issue #20, if you’re keeping score at home), this isn’t the first time I’ve told this story.
A significant part of my selling process is telling the stories behind the moments.
Perhaps I do this because I’m not a very good salesperson, but for me, THE MOMENTS are what the wedding is all about, and they sell my work better than anything I can say.
This particular moment is extremely special to me because I know how special it was for the bride and her dad. It’s a moment you can’t put a price on.
I don’t think a bride is simply renting a photographer for her wedding day – she’s hiring a visual scribe to preserve the essence of her wedding day in photos (now THAT’s romanticizing!)
Unless you’re content with simply selling your services, take this opportunity as an artist or storyteller to SHOW your passion to your prospective bride through your work.
I can tell with great certainty that it makes the selling process a heckuva lot more fun for you, and even if the bride doesn’t hire you, she’ll never be able to say you’re not passionate about what you do.
“Stories constitute the single most powerful weapon in a leader’s arsenal.”
Dr. Howard Gardner
Selling with photos and stories is one of the little parts of the “inner game of wedding photography.” THIS is what I write about each week in this newsletter.
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