001 - The Wedding Photo Where I Kind of Failed…
Wedding Photography Behind the Scenes at The Pumping Station in Leicestershire
So let’s kick-off this behind the scenes blog series starting with this shot of Lydia and Ben at The Pumping Station in Leicestershire. At the time of writing, it’s the header image on my website, so it seems as good a place as any to begin!
This wedding was a bit of a milestone for me—not just because Lydia, Ben, and their families were an absolute blast, but also because it was my first wedding after switching camera brands. A couple of weeks before, I made the leap from Fujifilm to Canon’s mirrorless system (perhaps a topic for a future blog post). Armed with a shiny new Canon R6 and a 28-70mm f/2.0 lens, I was ready to see if I’d made a terrible mistake. Spoiler alert: I hadn’t. In fact, I was so blown away that, despite bringing my Fujifilm cameras as backup, I shot my next 14 weddings with that one camera and lens. One camera, one lens—the wedding photographer’s dream, right?
But enough about gear—let’s talk about the image!
As the sun was setting, we went for a wander, and Lydia had already spotted some fairy lights in the background that she thought would make a nice spot for photos (she was absolutely right). After a few lovely portraits, I decided to attempt a Brenizer image. Now, for those unfamiliar, a Brenizer portrait involves taking multiple images and stitching them together to create a wide-angle shot while keeping that dreamy, shallow depth of field usually reserved for longer focal lengths. I wrote a blog post here about how to do it in case you’re really interested but that’s the gist of it. It’s a technique I love, but I wasn’t sure how well it would work with a 70mm lens (ideally, you’d use at least an 85mm). Still, high on the thrill of my new gear, I figured—why not?
Here’s the thing about the Brenizer method: while the concept is simple, pulling it off is… less so. You have to stay perfectly steady without leaning forward or backwards so as not to mess up the plane of focus (imagine using your head as a human monopod), make sure the couple doesn’t move a muscle, and carefully capture every part of the frame so you don’t end up with a weird missing chunk when stitching the images together. It’s a bit like playing a high-stakes game of photographic Tetris…
And in this case? Well, my suspicions were correct—70mm wasn’t quite long enough. While Lydia and Ben’s heads and shoulders looked great, the perspective shift toward their lower bodies stretched everything out in a way that just didn’t work, I was simply too close to get an effective full body portrait but if I’d backed off any more I wouldn’t have had the same out of focus bokeh effect that I was going for.
So, I cropped it. And there we have it!
Honestly, outside of the key moments on a wedding day, I think it’s important to try weird stuff, even if it doesn’t always pan out. You won’t catch me attempting a Brenizer during the first kiss (though now I’m tempted!), but once the safe shots are in the bag? Let’s get weird with it!
Ultimately I ended up getting a second Canon R6 body and a 70-200mm f/2.8 and ditching the Fujifilm cameras completely and now I tend to use this lens instead when going for a Brenizer method portrait. It’s actually much harder to do with this lens and can therefore be a bit hit and miss (as this method can be anyway!) but when it works out I think it looks pretty cool;
Thanks for joining me for the first Focus Pocus post where I unpick a wedding photography image. I’ll be aiming to do these at least once a week, occasionally adding in some other stuff such as gear reviews and general industry thoughts so do pop along!
