Immodesty Blaize Wedding Shot | Friday Photo
Last weekend I had the huge honour of photographing the marriage of the extraordinary Immodesty Blaize to her impossibly charming husband, Gregory, underneath cloudless Monte Carlo skies. As you can imagine there are some spectacular images — and I will feature those in due course, when I blog the full set — but today I want to focus on this particular image because it feels like one of the most romantic photos I’ve taken. I’m very proud of this shot of Immodesty and Gregory in the back of the car on the way to the registry office in the morning. It has everything that I’d hoped to capture going into this wedding. Despite the fact that this could be a still from an Italian movie 50 years ago, there’s no sense of performance here. It’s a powerfully honest image of a heightened emotion. You can almost feel Immodesty’s pre-wedding nerves vibrating from the photo — that fixed gaze trying to steady the carousel of emotions inside. And then naturally and quietly you have Gregory’s tenderly reassuring kiss on his fiancée’s arm. Sometimes wedding photographers might pose the couple in the back of the car for a photo, but none of this was done for the camera. This took place in a moving car and I had been sitting in the front seat watch the curving hilltop roads of Monaco glide by. But for some reason I just happened to glance back, see what was going on and was able to quickly spin round, shooting with the camera pointing back over my shoulder. This was their moment. I was just lucky enough to catch it.
Technical details for the photography wonks:
Camera: Canon 5D MKIII
Lens: Canon 24-70mm II
Aperture: f2.8
Shutter speed: 1/250
ISO: 640
You truly are a genius. Just when you think your images can’t get more incredible. BOOM!
Aw, thanks Mrs Hall!
Perfection.
It’s absolutely beautiful
Thanks Anna Barker or Hardy or Costello!
Fabulous, timeless, and evocative. Nuances of Sophia Loren. Looking forward to seeing the full blog post.
Thanks Lyndsey. Immodesty was basically channelling Sophia Loren that morning…. :-)
Almost can’t cope with how emotional and immense this photograph is. It’s so alive, so full, so perfect. You are a genius, and they, are beautiful. x
Wow, thanks Hazel…. x
It’s a beautiful photo, truly, but I can’t help but feel the groom clutching his iPhone really ruins it. Surely on your wedding day the phones should be left in the hotel room?! Old fashioned I may be but the modern surgical attachment to phones saddens me
bravo!!!!
i like the phone btw….that kind of jolts you into reality that this is a modern day image, and not staged at all.