Following on from part 3 in our look at Catherine and Ben's winter wedding, we move onto the bride and groom's formal shots at Manchester Town Hall. I am very lucky to have been involved in lots of filming over the years at Manchester Town Hall and I am no stranger to the glorious architecture that the town hall displays. A bride usually picks her wedding venue as it offers a fairy tale setting. Manchester Town Hall is from the Neo-Gothic era of British architecture and as we all know thanks to Heathcliff and Miss Earnshaw, gothic and romance sit hand in hand. It is no coincidence that Sherlock Holmes (the new film as well as the older Granada series) and The Forsyte Saga have filmed here. I remember showing the director Christopher Nolan (Inception, Momento) around the nooks and crannies as he looked for gothic Gotham locations for Batman Begins. 

The brickwork, the design and the impressive scale of Manchester Town Hall all adds up to a very special backdrop to a bride's wedding photos.

I rarely light a location as time is of the essence and coming from a Film and TV background I favour constant light rather than flash. A wedding at Christmas time however provides the challenge of short days and lack of daylight. Also compounding this is Manchester Town Hall's lack of windows. So on this occasion my lighting kit came out to help lift faces and details when needed. Thanks to careful planning months before the wedding I knew exactly what to shoot and where to shoot it.

Once we had finished inside it was time for a quick moment in the Christmas Market on Albert Square and then onto The Midland Hotel to meet our next deadline.

You will probably notice quite a few of the shots employ a technique which blurs the edges of the pictures and creates an area of focus in the middle of the wedding photos. it is very popular today to do this technique using software after the shoot. I however use a specialist lens for this technique at the time of shooting. The use of a tilt and shift lens is something I brought with me from the world of TV commercials.

I hope you enjoyed this latest installment.

All the best

Andrew

www.photoamor.co.uk