couple of shots......... I seem to be developing a distinctive style of shooting. Having said that, these shots
demonstrate a particular part of that style which I find very appealing.
Hi Paul,
Some very interesting and clearly thought provoking work. With my thoughts provoked, I thought I'd add my comments.
As many have stated, the first image is the strongest and I find it the most appealing. I would certainly be interested in seeing a version with slightly more accurate skin tones (while not affecting the tonality of the rest of the image), if only for comparison purposes.
If you're feeling adventurous, I think that it would also be interesting to try a similar shot with a remote in-car flash adding some directional light to the faces. My main criticism would be that I finding the lighting on the happy couple to be lacking a little something.
As a photographer, I find the halos around your subjects to be strange. A first glance they appear to result from a flash being used to stop the action. However, they're found on both sides of the subjects, not just one side as would be expected. Did you add this in post processing?
For the second image, I think that you could have definitely improved the result with an off-camera flash. The couple are slightly underexposed and my eyes are giving all my attention to the background. I'd like to the the image with the couple exposed a little more and the background dropped back a stop or two.
The blue skin tones of the third image disturb me. I feel that this image would be very interesting with the couple warmed up, leaving the background blue. Now, whether this style would be considered appropriate for a wedding is another matter - it really depends on the tastes of your clients. It would certainly set you apart from the more classical photographers.
One way to achieve this is to set your white balance to a warm value, which cools the background to a blue, then warm up the subject with a CTO-geled flash. Dave Black is a big user of this technique, you can find more information here:
http://www.daveblackphotography.com/workshop/02-2006.htm
Of course this are just my thoughts, and you may duly ignore them if you feel that you've achieved your aim in the way that you intend. The photos are certainly worthy. However, if you're someone that likes to push their work that little bit further then I think that it'd be worth further developing this style.
All the best,
Tim