Sometimes as photographers we find ourselves in situations that are just totally inconvenient. Like this wedding from a couple of weeks ago in Northern California. Great location, awesome bride & groom, the families all got along, lots of love all around, yadda, yadda. But the rain. Oh my word, the rain.Arriving about 2 hours before the rehearsal to scout locations – rain, then the rehearsal itself, more rain and by now, totally soaked shoes. I try to travel light, which means no spare shoes, so by the time the rehearsal was over the only store open was Wal-Mart, so $20 shoes for the wedding the next day.
Day of the wedding and, you’re beginning to see the trend, right? Yea more rain. Did I mention this was an outdoor wedding? There were so many great locations just totally unusable at this point and I’m feeling a little ripped-off, I mean inconvenienced :) . Well, I’ve never had a more laid-back couple and it’s no big deal to them, so they grab an umbrella, hop in his dad’s truck & off we go.Well, I learned an important lesson that day – be happy when you’re thrown a curve. I had some really interesting light to work with, all the rain had really greened up everything & the umbrellas gave us some great compositional elements.
Take this photo for example. Without that umbrella, this photo would just be so-so, IMHO. With it, interest was added and the compositional flow was “capped” so that the viewer’s eyes are kept in the photo & directed back to the main subject – the couple.Sometimes an inconvenient situation can conveniently provide us the push we need to add creativity to our photos.
At the end of day, the couple ended up married (always a good thing), and I had some images I felt pretty good about.
So, am I hoping for rain at my next wedding? Not exactly, but I will be ready for what ever curve is thrown my way & I’ll be excited to see how I’ll spin it around for some fun photos. Here’s to inconvenience!
