Here comes the bride: A collection of wedding images

I have been photographing weddings for a long time now.  I think my first wedding was in 1995.  I remember it well, it was my sister’s wedding.  That’s right, you have to start somewhere.  I was in the photography program at Arizona State University and had a camera, so why not?

Famous last words.

The slideshow I made yesterday was all about landscapes!  Go back and read my story if you didn’t already.  To quote myself: I was using “the kind of camera you see in the late 1800s with the guy under a dark cloth, looking into a camera that looks a bit like an accordion.  It was a beast to carry around, but I thought I was going to be Ansel Adams.  Little did I know that I would stray completely from that format and favor documentary imagery and end up photographing people almost exclusively for the next 25 years.”  I am talking about a twenty-pound 4×5 camera.  That’s the camera I chose to use to photograph my sister’s wedding.  I can assure you, it was not documentary style photography.  And let me be clear, I wasn’t as good at making a perfect exposure as I am now.  My sister still hates her wedding photos and I don’t blame her.  But we all have to start somewhere.  I just did my practicing on people I love.

Will I show them to you?  Not in this slideshow!  Maybe someday…

So, as I said, I have been photographing weddings for a long time and I have been blessed to be a part of the most amazing events, I have been in the most beautiful places, I have experienced the most touching moments and I have been able to capture it all with my camera.  I have to admit that I have no idea what to do when I go to a wedding and I am not the photographer.  I am lost.  So this slideshow is a collection of images from many years of wedding photography that spans well over a decade and a half and around the world.  I remember the moment each of these images was created.   That is the effect of imagery on memory and emotion, images are the keys that open the gates that lead into the gardens of emotion in our minds.

While I was making this collection of images, I was listening to an entire list of songs from Triple Scoop Music, which I will talk about in a future video in this series.  This song stuck out to me as perfect for the images.  But it was the cadence of the song that excited me most about pairing it with these images.  As you watch the slideshow, you will see why.  I got to play with the gaps in the song and toy with the viewer a bit by withdrawing the imagery.  It is the law of opposition: the darkness and emptiness make the next image so much more impactful.  Every slideshow and every set of images is different and each deserves its own musical score… that is why it is so great to have a vast collection of licensed music at my fingertips.

 

This slideshow was made with Adobe Premiere Clip. Clip accesses all of my photos in Lightroom CC and creates beautiful slideshows in seconds right on my iPad or iPhone. The beauty of Clip is that I can either make a super simple and fast slideshow, or I can further edit that slideshow or movie in Adobe Premiere. In this case, I did the entire thing in Adobe Clip and sent it right to the web.  You are seeing fifteen years of photographic work.  The slideshow itself took about 50 seconds to create with another 20 minutes of finessing to get the perfect timing on the gaps.  But every minute of it was fun.  I did it all on my iPad late last night on my living room couch with my headphones blasting away.  It was a nice way to spend the last minutes of my waking day.

Speaking of music, this whole 30 Days project is possible because of Triple Scoop Music’s new subscription-based service which allows users to pay one monthly fee rather than per song.  If you are producing projects and need music, I highly recommend Triple Scoop Music.  The service is full of great original songs from independent artists.  License one song at a time, or sign up for the subscription service and use as many songs as you need, whenever you need them.  Learn more at www.triplescoopmusic.com

Music in this video licensed through www.triplescoopmusic.com

The music for this slideshow is by Krista Youngs and can be found on Triple Scoop Music.

Unlimited music licensing plans are normally $995 per year and up.  However, right now, for a limited time, there is special pricing! Get yours for just $499 per year (annual billing) or $49 per month when you sign up this month.  If you only use one new song each month, you will save $221 this year.  At those prices, I will save $1,301 this month alone!  That’s pretty amazing.  Choose all the music you need all year long. Choose from over 35,000 hand-picked songs and soundtracks.  Click here to learn more: www.triplescoopmusic.com

Use the code “JAREDPLATT18” and save an extra 10% on your music membership!

If you are a Vimeo fan, you can watch this project unfold at my Vimeo Album: https://vimeo.com/album/5227999

For a complete list of my equipment you can go to B&H Photo Video.  https://bhpho.to/2Kx88bl