Vampire Brides - Concept Shoot
A Burning Desire to Create
I always wanted my Wedding photography to have an edge. It’s not really for me to say if it has an edge or not. All I can do is facilitate it hopefully being that way by doing my thing. One of the things I do to keep more work fresh is to shoot a whole bunch of personal project work.
Often this is simply shooting portraits with musicians, artists, models, friends, and my children. I have a burning intensity to create. I always have from a young age. And creating from the heart, for myself, being brave and uncompromising is a delirious feeling. No other feeling comes close. Occasionally I’ll work on a little concept such as I did for the images in this blog feature.
The Paper Street House
The three girls in this shoot are Michelle, Laura & Sam. All three are actual brides whose weddings I photographed. All three were part of a band called Miesha who I photographed from time to time. I’ll be posting some of that work as I go. The spark of the idea for this shoot came from watching the movie Fight Club It was a tiny little moment in the film during a scene set in the ‘Paper Street House’ the old, crumbling, Victorian mansion rented by Tyler Durden with Marla played by Helena Bonham Carter is in the kitchen area smoking a shit load of cigarettes. It was as simple as ‘the look’.
I also got a hit of Tim Burton and a vision of her as the Bride of Frankenstein which she’d also played. And in that instant, I had my concept. The concept was three brides, in a cool location. I wasn’t sure if the brides were meant to be ghosts or vampire but all I needed was a feeling. I didn’t want the concept to be too rigorous.
Thrift Shops
The feel is all that is needed. I couldn't let the girls wear their own wedding dresses they were too nice so I gave them a small budget and they went off to thrift shops and pretty much chose their own styling. On the day of the shoot, I had no idea of the poses I wanted I just know I wanted them to be awkward as much as possible.
So we pretty much made it up as we went along. Another huge influence on the feel for this was Paolo Roversi who is my favorite fashion photographer. His portraits are so intimate and have this striking oddity of pose and location that is fairly profound. Again … inspiration should be just that … a feel. I’m not interested in copying. I’m interested in feeling inspired and allowing that to inform what I’m doing. There is a making-of video to this that I’m going to re-edit soon and I’ll post it here as soon as it’s done.
Inspired by Other Genres
It is so important for me as an artist to be inspired by other forms of photography. In fact, I rarely look at wedding photography. I want my work to be original. This is difficult anyhow but to give it a fighting chance I take my inspiration from other genres; music photography, photojournalism, fashion, and artistic portrait photography. Street photography also is a huge influence on my work. I hope you like these frames as much as I enjoyed taking them.
Tip for Wedding Photographers
Watch movies with great cinematography. Look at lots of photography that isn’t wedding photography and look at it as often as possible away from the internet. Less is more. Be discerning with what you look at. Everything you consume informs what you are creating.
Big love …
…to my three brides, Laura, Michelle, and Sam. Love you guys xxx
P.S. You can view a FULL GALLERY of this shoot here.
More Portraits
Portraits of Chloe (Tink) Harrington at the Dare Photography Experience in September 2023.