This image from Hev and Alessandro’s wedding in Summer 2018 isn’t just one of my favourite photos I took that year, but is also one of my fave shots I’ve captured as a wedding photographer. As soon as I pressed the shutter I knew I’d caught a perfectly imperfect photograph.
Yes its blurry, but its the movement and energy in the shot that makes me love it so much. My choice of lens (the 35mm f/1.8) combined with the strong, contrasty black and white edit, and the fuzzy motion blur makes this documentary style photo look like it was shot on a film camera rather than from a DSLR.
Despite it not being a technically perfect photo I really like the atmosphere and drama created by the imperfections of the slight blur in the background. If anything, this blur brings the whole frame to life!
So how was this movement and blur created? Well, pretty simple really… slow shutter speed!
I had been shooting the speeches, the room wasn’t very well-lit, and to shoot handheld and get sharp images I wouldn’t normally go lower than a 1/100 second shutter speed, but here I had dropped it just a little bit under that. As much as I like to think I can always tell whats going to happen at a wedding, I didn’t on this occasion.
As Alessandro’s speech came to an end he quickly left the stage with his champagne bucket under his arm and glass of champagne in-hand, and swiftly passed right in front of me. I only just had time to lift the camera to my eye and fire off a couple of frames!
My main storytelling lens at so many weddings in the past has been the 35mm, a fantastic, wide, and quick-focussing lens. I quickly put the camera to my eye, locked-on focus to Alessandro, and panned (swept the camera from right to left) as he walked back to the top table. With such a slow shutter speed this is a technique you would normally use when shooting motorsports to freeze fast moving cars, and blur the road/background. But when a speedy Italian Groom wants to get back to the top table with his delicious bottle of champagne, who am I to stop him!
5 years on from this wedding, and now in 2023, blurry images are very much on-trend at the moment. Shooting film is becoming more and more popular again, so maybe I’ll take inspiration from this, my very own image, and try this slow-shutter atmospheric technique out at a few weddings this year!
