During the speeches I spend much more time photographing the people who are listening to the speeches than I do photographing the people who are actually giving the speeches. First of all, photographing people who are talking is actually pretty difficult. You have to catch people at the write time, otherwise you risk a photo of a person standing there with their mouth open! It's the same reason that it's hard when photographing someone eating - something I tried to avoid at all costs!
The previous set of speeches photos were all in black and white, so in contrast all of the images in this page are in colour. A lot of people like black and white photos but you can't have a wedding entirely in black and white. I mean, you could, but it wouldn't be to everyone's taste.
The Orangery at the Wood Norton is decorated using pale shades which is great for photography. During summer weddings (or winter wedding receptions in daylight hours) the one glazed all provides plenty of light. During winter weddings (or summer wedding receptions during after-dark hours) the light walls and ceilings are great for bouncing flashlight off - if the walls were a darker colour, when you hit them with flash, the retuning light picks up the colour of the wall or ceiling and can really make a dramatic change to the images.
My preferred method for taking photos during speeches is to use a long lens and a wide aperture, and to stand back and let things happen before me. I don't want to change the nature of the thing I am photographing by being seen or noticed, so hanging back means I get the most sincere representation of the wedding itself. The wide aperture I use means the backgrounds are less in focus, allowing you to really focus in on the subject of the image instead. I do much prefer using wider apertures and higher ISOs than I like using flash - as soon as you add flash to the scene you make it so much more obvious that you're there which can change how people act around you. My job as a wedding photojournalist photographer means remaining out of the way and hidden as much as possible. Whilst flash is sometimes needed in the darkest of settings, it's far from ideal to use when it's not absolutely necessary.
Location: The Wood Norton.
Keywords: Pure documentary wedding photography (24), Wood Norton Weddings (129).