Wood Norton Weddings demo album 3
Wedding Photography by Lee Webb

Wood Norton Evesham Wedding Photography

Formal bride and bridesmaids portraits

At every wedding meeting and every wedding I go to, the bride, quite rightly, asks if it's possible to have a few formal photos of maybe her parents and her bridesmaids before the wedding itself. I always say yes, but also warn that it's not always possible - If the wedding is at 2pm and you tell everyone that you need them ready for 1pm so you have plenty of time for photos, deep down they know they don't need to be ready until 1:55pm and will usually be late. Luckily this wasn't the case for Alison and Nick's wedding at the Wood Norton. Through careful planning with the makeup artist and hair stylist, we made sure that all the girls were ready with plenty of time to spare - this not only meant we could take these lovely photos, but it meant the bridal party was much less stressed too for the actual wedding.

The setup for these images was very simple. The Wood Norton has large windows in the bridal suits, with dark wood panelling on the walls. I had my back in the window as much as I could, still leaving me with plenty of space in the room to work with. It was bright and overcast outside, which again is perfect as the light is soft and diffused, and very flattering. I turned each bridesmaid slightly away from the light and asked them to turn their head back towards me (a technique in portraiture known as short-lighting the subject)

For the image of the bride, I simply asked Alison to turn her shoulders the opposite way and look back towards me, to make her stand out more when these images are displayed side by side, much as they are here.

One of the most impressive things about the wedding albums I use is that you can print an image directly over the centre of the page. This means that you can place an important image - in this case a portrait of the bride, directly into the middle of the page (you're looking at a double page spread here) without risking a loss in detail.

Location: The Wood Norton.

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