Tomorrow I’m very much looking forward to Erin and Ryan’s wedding at the Franklin Institute. Here’s a picture from their engagement picture last fall and one from Connie and Carter’s 2010 wedding at the FI.
(more...)
Recently I had the honor and privilege to be one of five curators of a regular competition, showing, curation of wedding pictures through this really cool group I’m a part of called Fearless Photographers. The whole idea of Fearless is to reward and recognize photographers who are Fearless in their work and to help couples find photographers who don’t give a rats…… about traditional wedding photography and really want to commission an artist to make a statement as a part of their wedding photography coverage.
In reviewing and processing all the images and my thoughts, I wanted to share with the group what went into my thinking. My post on our private forum seems to have gone over well enough that it’s now available for the public. This is just my take on what Fearless means and what I thought about when deciding if an photograph was worthy of that label or not.
Here’s a short excerpt and link to the whole text.
What is Fearless….
I took the notion of Fearless to heart, literally. I looked for images that did one of several things, if not more than one to be considered Fearless.
Moments. I really tried to push all these images through a very fine screen. It couldn’t just be a simple peak moment or pretty light, it had to have heart and a spark. Images speak not just from their own power of the scene itself but also from the instincts, heart and commitment of the photographer. When I felt the heart of the photographer in an image it quickly rose above the rest. When an image was clearly the accomplishment of an openness of spirit, possibility and connectedness with the subjects a bell would go off and I’d be stopped in my tracks. These images showed a photographer in sync with the rhythms of the scene and an awareness and sensitivity to craft. A certain Fearlessness of capturing something honest, real and moving in a compelling way.
Beauty. Weddings are funny things in that they’re full of honest, raw emotion – which are not always “pretty” – as well as being about the beauty of being in love and loved. We put a lot of emphasis on beauty and the fantasy of beauty. But that’s obviously up for interpretation. There were lots of pretty pictures here but the ones I gravitated to were ones that did more than just show something as pretty. It had a wow factor, a factor that showed what true seeing was about to me. They went beyond just the surface beauty but hinted at or even boldly smacked you in the face of seeing beauty in unexpected ways. It showed a photographer who just wouldn’t accept what was presented to them. These images were made independent of or in spite of the obvious trends or established norms of pretty pictures. They took risks of all kinds and recognized the possibility of more.
Challenge. Great images evoke questions. They make me question my own ideas of a successful image or put me in a deeper search for the right words. Some images didn’t tell complete stories, which isn’t always as satisfying as it may sound, but were so filled with questions that they kept challenging me to decipher a puzzle or envision what’s going on or put myself into the feeling of the scene either by the power of the aesthetics or a raw human connection. A Fearless image can be loud, bold and dramatic or deceptively quiet and subtle but no less bold in it’s construction, effort and story. There were some really odd choices that I never would have made as a photographer that I had to reward. I was really inspired by so many images that reminded me of the myriad ways of seeing these events that often feel so formulaic. Images that challenged me reminded me of the need to constantly stay on your toes and never stop seeing, never give up on what seems to be undoable or reject something that doesn’t “work” without really trying. Risk is so rewarding when it fulfills on its promise and these images spoke to the need to never be satisfied and always stretch for more and be open to new ways of seeing even within ourselves. For me, the spirit of Fearless is about breaking out well-beyond what’s expected of us and what we expect of ourselves.
(more...)
Read More Posts From Snap | Philadelphia Wedding Photography
Working...