'I have always wanted to walk through that painting'

I thought today I would share something a little different. Pretty much the vast majority of my work is about capturing those special moments of the day in the most beautiful way possible but sometimes an opportunity presents itself to create something extra too.

At the getting ready of Francesca's recent wedding I noticed a really striking and quite beautiful painting hanging on the wall. It was rich in colour and brush strokes and unusually held my attention for longer than normal and that was what set me thinking. So I took a clean picture of it and started to think how I might use this within the set of wedding pictures I'd give to Francesca. Later in the day, again surrounded by rich colours I shot a picture of the couple walking away focusing on the trees, just like the painting itself and this gave the couple a lovely slight blur of movement to them. So back at base I started to work on the two images to combine the best aspects to try and create something unique. Whilst working I found the colours to be too distracting to the moment so I colourised the composition and the whole thing came alive.

This is not something that would or can happen at every wedding I shoot but I'm always looking for those extra opportunities that might create that unusual couple portrait that hopefully they will love as much as I do. I've put the three images in this post for you so you can see how it all came together. When the bride saw this picture she wrote to me "The moments that we had alone on our wedding day were, to me, some of the most meaningful and precious. This photo captures something perfectly, us starting our own family. The two of us. We think it is fantastic that you have put something together which is so very unique to us and personal. I love the oil painting, I have always wanted to walk through it! Thank you!