18 months ago i photographed the wedding of two of my friends, Louise and Danny. They are both heavily modified and had a small but very alternative wedding including a latex wedding dress, a trip to mcdonalds after the ceremony and a fancy dress evening reception at our local rock bar. I very much enjoyed photographing their wedding as i am very close to Louise, but unfortunately they split a short time later and are currently going through a divorce.
Louise and I had discussed the possibility of doing a 'trash the dress' style shoot previously but I decided to do this as a slideshow, first of all featuring their wedding photos and ending up as a fast paced slideshow in the style of stop motion animation. As she works in the body modification industry, we decided that she should cut off the latex outfit using one of the scalpels she uses in her workplace, but the actual full details of the shoot were figured out after i collected my inspiration and planned it out on paper-this should could not be replicated and therefore it was very important that we got it right first time, which was quite a stressful thought.
I was originally inspired to do it in this style after I had the idea to do a stop motion slideshow of a wedding i photographed last year, consisting of all 900-plus photographs i shot on the day, including all the outtakes and unused shots. It was surprisingly effective, and although i have seen stop motion work of parts of weddings, i have never seen one from the beginning of the day to the end. I am especially proud of this work as I didn't shoot it with the intention of making the slideshow and it really showed how i cover every single part of the day.
Although the music to this video seems a bit out-of-context, it was the music the newly married couple walked out of the ceremony to, and i absolutely love the sequence with the sparklers-they were married on November the 5th so provided sparklers for the guests.
Inspiration from other sources
Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg
http://fromme-toyou.tumblr.com/tagged/cinemagraph
amazing cinemagraphs of both still and moving images, i am so inspired by these that i think i've figured out how it was done and i plan on trying to do something similar in the summer.
John Michael Cooper
http://www.altf.com/
Widely credited with being the photographer behind the 'trash the dress' concept, Cooper creates amazing signature images which are instantly recognisable as his and are a constant source of inspiration for me.
Quay Brothers
Stephen and Timothy Quay (born June 17, 1947 in Norristown, Pennsylvania) are American identical twin brothers better known as the Brothers Quay or Quay Brothers. They are influential stop-motion animators. They are the recipients of the 1998 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design for their work on the play The Chairs.
Internet GIFs
Various GIFs i've found on the internet which i found inspiration from, whether for composition or technique.
Test Shoot
I decided that i would better off shooting the sequence in the studio at the university centre, and conducted a test shoot with a model to experiment with light, I (as usual) still shot like it was a 'proper' shoot and my model got good portfolio images out of it, as is evident by the contact sheets below.
I quickly realised that the majority of the set ups wouldn't be suitable for what i was planning as the recycle times for the flash units is way too long-i would be shooting continuous bursts of up to 4 frames per second-so i was left with 2 choices. To either shoot with natural light, or to use the vertical fluorescent striplights which give out continuous light. I decided to not only go with the striplights, but to make a feature of them in the frame of the photograph, to give the shoot an edgy, modern feel.
In the meantime, I shot a St Martins College of Fashion student's final project on the moors above Hebden Bridge, and decided to use the set up and very windy nature of the place to create a small stop motion slideshow as an experiment to see how well it would go together were i to create one with intent, as the wedding one was done on a whim. i was very pleased with the result, considering i had no tripod and is only 9 seconds long, but i think it has a great feel about it.
After some deliberation and discussion with Louise we decided the slideshow would run thusly:
- Starts with Louise taking off her headband and shoes (both worn on her wedding day)
- Then she reaches for a scalpel
- Proceeds to cut off the belt and discard it
- Carefully cuts round the bow on the front of the latex top and discards it
- Cuts into the top of the outfit and removes it
- Cuts into the skirt and kicks it to one side, leaving her naked
- Puts some briefs on and poses with her hands
- Puts on a matching bra and again moves her hands and body sensually
- Turns and slowly walks up to the camera, raising her hands to show the word 'DIVORCE' written across her palms.
I set up the studio with the striplights, and set my camera up on a tripod, with my camera settings as
ISO 4000, 50mm, F4.0, 1/1000
The shutter speed was set very high to make sure Louise was captured perfectly with no blur or movement in the individual shots, which meant that the ISO was high as the striplights don't give off a huge amount of light. But my camera, a Canon 5D mark 2, works very well at high ISOs so i didn't feel it was a problem.
After shooting the sequence, which took no longer than 5 minutes, i put the images together, completely unedited, with the original wedding photographs and the song she walked down the aisle to as the soundtrack and created a test video, as seen below.
The final, fully edited version will be exhibited at the Final year exhibition in June, and as well as a portfolio of the work i have done both professionally and personally this year (most likely again in slideshow form), it will be shown on a monitor for others to view.
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