Liz & Mike promised me a set of guests that would be fun to photograph. The promise was certainly delivered on. It was always likely to be the case; birds of a feather flock together after all. Liz & Mike are enigmatic (maybe it’s a function of their time-keeping but I rather think their time-keeping is a function of their being enigmatic), charismatic and downright good fun. They were born of their families and found a mold in their friends.
My renumeration comes in the form of sterling but there’s great emotional profit to be found in immersing oneself for a day amongst happy, fun-loving, gregarious, thoughtful, sharing and caring people. I was rewarded handsomely on this occasion.
Liz & Mike married at Upton House in Poole, Dorset and celebrated at the Haven Hotel on Sandbanks. I paid photographic witness to their special day. I had a great deal of fun doing so.
This week’s answer to the existential crisis of wedding photography…
Hair and make-up was by Caroline Swaffield. Previous clients include Cher, Grace Jones, Sarah Ferguson, Kylie Minogue, King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia of Spain. And now Liz.
Meanwhile… (normally it couldn’t have been a strictly chronologically accurate meanwhile as we’re dealing with two different places but as Mike was getting ready on the other side of the partition doors splitting the larger suite, it was pretty much meanwhile)…
Fastest groom’s preps coverage ever…
Stop!
Rewind…
There’s a good dramatic curve to it all but as well as the choice of timing in taking an individual photograph (in tandem with the choice of framing and other functions and factors) in order to extract those moments that best represent the meaning of a wedding day there’s also an over-arching process at play of selecting and ordering sequences of individual images to convey the essence of what is taking place. Having made my image selection for this feature and laid them out ready for publication I then realised that I’d left out something important. Not something important to the wider world perhaps, not even to a specific readership that hadn’t been involved in the day but it was significant for those privy to it and will be for those that were already indoors at Upton House awaiting Liz’s arrival.
Liz arrived really early :~)
So we just hung around a little while and shot photos…
Back on the curve…
The body language. Fantastic. Such momentous occasions strip a person bare and magnify the humanity that was already apparent but now manifests itself in a pure form…
We weren’t scheduled to fly over water so a demonstration of life jacket usage wasn’t required…
I think Liz & Mike are wondering why their guests aren’t following them (post ceremony the wedding party was to move into the walled garden at Upton House). Being shadowed by a photographer can sometimes have that effect. So I hid in the trees…
I’m still trying to get my head around the geometry. Millinery mathematics has obviously taken on a quantum component in recent times…
Other than the selected spot, completely unposed. It’s not something I need point out really but knowing that the physical dynamic is completely spontaneous adds enormous significance to this for me…
We decided to do a few posed group photographs before departing from Upton House but nobody could find the photographer…
And as if by magic, back to the Haven Hotel…
More animated celebratory antics to come in Part Two >>
Contact Dorset Wedding Photographer Phillip Allen : phill@misterphill.com : 07870 696248
