I shouldn’t complain. Much of the work that I’m doing now is laying the foundations for income in the near future. Once the post-production is complete, there will be products to sell.

In the case of my Lapland wedding images, there is an eager audience of wedding guests waiting to order prints.

Here are a few more samples photographs by way of an advance leak of a big blow-out post I’ll do next week sometime.

This is quite a complicated image. One to dwell on. There is a lot going on, yet it is tranquil at the same time. © Roger Overall 2011

Granddaughter and grandmother © Roger Overall 2011

Can. You. Imagine. What. This. Would. Have. Looked. Like. If. It. Had. Snowed? © Roger Overall 2011

© Roger Overall 2011

If you’d like to learn more about documentary wedding photography, why not book a place on one of my seminars?

That wouldn’t make for a very interesting post, though – even if I were to add that the Hilton Metropole at the NEC in Birmingham charged me £114 for two 15-minute, inter-EU phone calls. They haven’t heard the last of that, I can tell you.

Instead, here’s the story of the photograph that won.

It was taken in Austin, Texas, last year – the day after I heard Elliott Erwitt speak. We were wandering through a street market when Emily, my daughter, asked for some money so that she could buy a dance from a busker. She hasn’t quite grasped how that works. Still, we gave her a dollar and off she went. From the busker’s point of view, she was the best marketing he got all day, as quite a few people came up to drop money into his violin case for the little dancing girl.

This is the photograph as it came out of the camera:

(c) Roger Overall 2009

The first decision I made was to convert it to black and white. I was initially reluctant to do so because of the sign above the bar in the background. The colour of Emily’s dress just works so well together with the sign. If the girl in the centre of the frame hadn’t been wearing a red shirt, I would likely have gone with colour. However, as it is, she is already in the dominant part of the frame. The red shirt just emphasizes that. It’s the first thing your eye goes to when you seen the photograph. You bypass the story in favour of the flash of colour.

The converted version of the image allows you to read the photograph from left to right, which means you get the whole narrative more easily.

Also, in the b/w version, Emily stands out better for two reasons. She is in a compositionally strong spot (where two lines dividing the photograph into horizontal and vertical thirds meet) and she is lighter than her immediate background.

Once converted to b/w, I corrected the lines by straightening everything out. I’m not great on slanted verticals and horizontals, so I try to get everything more or less straight. You have to be a little careful, as straightening can introduce distortions elsewhere in the picture. I also pulled back some detail in the bright wall in the background. Lastly, I would have added a hint of vignetting.

The end result was this:

(c) Roger Overall 2009

For the gearheads out there, it was taken on a Canon 5D Mrk 2 and a Canon 24 f/1.4 lens.

Lastly, we had a camera lady on hand to film the whole thing. She almost missed it, mind you. Apparently, she was looking at something shiny on one of the market stalls.

(c) Roger Overall 2010

Finding something out of the ordinary in an ordinary setting can be tricky. Every now and then, a nice easy opportunity presents itself.

Hit the play button below or follow the link to hear more.

WeddingBoo #10 – Upside Down

In between stints in front of Lightroom, I’ll be recording the September episode of The Circle of Confusion with Peter Cox on Monday. On Tuesday evening there’s another Help Portrait Cork 2010 planning meeting. We’re hoping to have a live video link with Jeremy Cowart, whose idea Help Portrait was. I’m also speaking at a social media seminar during the week. And shooting another wedding.

I’m tired just thinking about it all.

In the meantime, if you’re engaged and happen to be in the Cork area on Sunday, why not stop by the Fota Island Resort wedding showcase and say “hello”? I’ll be there from 11.00 to 17.00, with Anne taking over from 17.00 to 19.00. We’d love to meet you.

Admiration. (c) Roger Overall 2010

I spent a lot of time in February visiting advertising and design agencies in Dublin. With only two exceptions, my portfolio was met with great enthusiasm. That was a very uplifting experience, having previously doubted that my work was good enough to show in the capital.

[Incidentally, having overcome that silly mental block, I'm working on plans to meet agencies outside of Ireland - two countries in particular are very obvious targets for me. More on that in the weeks ahead]

Back to my Dublin experience. At least half of the creatives I met commented on the feel of the images. All of them struggled to put it into words. “Depth”, “Silver”, “Three-dimensional” were all used, along with “Different”, the most commonly used description.

This is important. Digital post-production has given photographers great freedom and control over the final look of their work. Previously, we’d have all sent our work to the same labs and the post would have been pretty much homogenous. Wealthier photographers would have collaborated with individual printers to get the look they wanted, but most of us didn’t have that luxury. Now we do. That gives us another way in which to set ourselves apart from our colleagues.

A friend of mine, a fellow photographer, once gave me some of his files to run through my post-production cycle. When I sent the images back, he initially didn’t recognize them as his own photographs. That’s how powerful developing a personal post-production discipline can be.