Shoot the Couple - Not the Place
Don’t Get Overwhelmed
As photographers, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with new surroundings especially if those surroundings have a kind of heightened aesthetic quality. Can be a ZAP! to the senses. Overload. I think as photographers we’re a little more wired in to stuff visually anyhow; the play of light and the symmetry of that light with color, texture, objects in relation to space, that kind of thing. You put that head start in a stimulant of a place like down town Morocco for the first time it can be a little too much. We’re like fuck … I need to shoot everything. We then short circuit and freeze up.
I for one never really switch off as a photographer. Everything is a moment to be captured. It’s a blessing and a curse.
Focus on the Couple
If you every find yourself buzzed out in this way then focus on the couple or whoever the subject is. Shift the bulk of your attention to the couple doing their thing. Yes the play of light in relation to the couple is important, but at the end of the day the place is still just a backdrop. Make them the focus.
I’ve seen photographs where it is obvious the photographer has been overly intimated by the beauty of their surroundings. Too much choice. It’s as if they are fighting with themselves over what is more important, the person they are shooting or the surroundings, and the images are fragmented and false, contrived. They try to put square pegs in round holes.
A Time and Place
This pre wedding shoot was way back in 2014. Mike & Emma. Two super cool cats totally in love and ready to create some wedding magic for each other and their guests. We did the pre-wedding shoot on the morning of the Wedding. A wander thru town. Marrakech is blistering sun. I felt like I was in a Western. The whole place is a little beaten by the heat but it’s a glorious tapestry of life and character. I hope to head back someday.
Thank you always to Emma & Mike for allowing me to shoot your special day.