Back with Vadim

I got to work with Vadim again a few weeks ago at this big wedding at the Basilique Notre-Dame in the Montreal Old Port. It felt like a celebrity wedding or something since you had random people in the streets lining up just to see the bride walk from the car to the church.

And it was even crazier after the ceremony, as I was taking pictures of the bride & groom walking out, I had hundreds of people around me trying REALLY HARD to photograph them. There were cameras all around my face fighting for position. It was kinda like the MSTRKRFT mosh pit at Osheaga. And keep in mind that these are random people in the street trying to photograph a bride they don’t even know.

So I’ve seen rice being thrown at newlywed couples before, like in Juliane & Ghyslain's wedding I photographed a few weeks ago. But this was the first time I saw PENNIES being thrown at them. A good luck thing maybe?

Orange, Outdoor Wedding in Jean-Drapeau Park, Montreal

I recently photographed a wedding where everything was orange, from the boutonnières, corsages and bouquet to the groomsmen’s ties and even decorations on tables (which included goldfish, see below).

The wedding was in the Jean-Drapeau Park in Montreal and the reception in the Pavillon du Canada. Outdoors wedding photography often means that I have to do the best with the light that’s given to me. And on a bright sunny July cloudless day, it meant having to deal with harsh direct overhead sunlight. Uh oh. This is probably the worst case scenario for a photographer. Because it means dappled light through the leaves of trees creating patches of bright light and high contrast, and “raccoon eyes” which is what happens when the sun from above creates dark shadows around the eyes. Long have I feared this creature called harsh sunlight, but I no longer do. Maybe a little.

There’s a way to work with hard light: make sure that #1) your subject is backlit and that #2) your background is darker and is not receiving direct light. If you manage to achieve #1), the lighting on your subject’s face will remain even and soft since they aren’t getting direct sunlight. If you achieve #2), the backlight will create a nice rimlight around them that will make them glow against the dark background. You can see what I’m talking about in this picture:

Now, about the wedding itself. There was a funny game the bride and groom played, to determine who would the boss of the relationship for the next 25 years. As soon as the DJ cued the music, Juliane had to go around the room and kiss all men, and the Ghyslain had to do the same with all women in the room, and the first one back sitting down would win. But as a guest if you were a woman on Juliane’s side, you were able to run away as Ghyslain arrived to kiss you to delay him. After a few minutes of people running around in the room Juliane won. Something new in every wedding! It’s also the first time where the cake was an ice cream cake. I’m hungry now.

Guess what people are doing here:

Enjoy the rest of the pictures!