Wood Norton Weddings sample album 13
Wedding Photography by Lee Webb

Wood Norton Wedding Photography

Carly and Henry's Wood Norton Wedding

The five images on this double page spread from the Wood Norton Weddings sample album come from Carly and Henry's wedding in late summer.

I remember these images being taken slightly later in the day, which can be seen in the quality of the light that comes from having the sun lower in the sky. This is especially evident in the two images taken on the main lawn of the Wood Norton - the top left and far right hand images on this page.

My favourite photo of this set of images is the one of the right hand side, with the bride and groom walking hand in hand towards the camera, with the gorgeous late summer sunlight bleeding through the trees behind them. I especially like the shape that the light makes on the floor, with the mottled patches of orange and gold illuminating the grass. The set up for this image was very easy, and it's one that I tend to do at most wedding I go to, not limited solely to the Wood Norton. The trouble is, a lot of people either hate having their photos taken or are used to posing for cameras due to the prevalence of Instagram and other social media platforms. The best way I have found to take natural images of people, is to get them to do something where it's relatively hard to strike a pose, or look nervous - and that's to get them to walk. It's as simple as that. For these images, I pick a nice background and a location where the light is right, ask the couple to hold hands and walk slowly towards me. They can look at each other, they can look off to one side but the main rule is that at no time should either of them look at me. Picture it like a romantic walk in the woods or park when I'm not there - the second anyone looks at me, the moment, and the romanticism has been lost for good. The best time to take this kind of photo at the Wood Norton, during a spring or summer wedding is in the hour before sunset, the so-called 'golden hour' (for reasons you can see in this photo.) At this time of year, the sun sets in the direction behind some large and fairly dense trees - this keeps direct sunlight off the people in the images and casts the light everywhere into the wonderful pattern you can see on the grass.

Location: The Wood Norton.

Keywords: Photographer-directed image (149), Wood Norton Weddings (129).