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The Light Fantastic - part 1 of 1 2

by Stuart Wood Published 01/08/2016

Let us travel back in time a little, and away from those lazy, sundrenched days that never end and that we all enjoy at this time of the year... about once every decade if we are lucky it would seem! Well, blue skies or not, at least we get the longer days and the main and obvious challenge when taking on the particular wedding that I am going to tell you about, was that the couple were getting married at 4pm in November, which meant that there would be absolutely no daylight to work with after the ceremony!

Regardless of this, I still had an obligation to do my very best for my couple who had entrusted me with the job of photographing the most special day of their lives.

Shot on a misty, late autumn evening, this image for me captures perfectly the emotion and relaxed mood of a wedding that occurred late in the afternoon at the exclusive Fischer's Baslow Hall in Derbyshire in November.

Arriving while it was still barely light, the thing that leaped out at me as I drove up the beautiful, leafy driveway was the incredible colours of these particular trees.

As I have described in previous articles, with long years of TV work behind me, I have had to 'tune' my eyes to quickly spot any potential areas of a location that can be used as a backdrop, which now automatically trips a 'bell' in my head when any potential location presents itself to me, all I can say is on this occasion - 'boy was that bell ringing!'

Making a mental note to explore this idea once the marriage service was concluded and knowing full well that I would only be able to shoot this image in complete darkness, I made up my mind to concentrate on the wedding for now and would come back and study the possibilities later, when the bridal party were enjoying the wedding breakfast. When I shoot weddings, I always give my couples some of my trade mark 'wow' pictures. These are not, by their very nature, at all easy to do, but hey ... isn't that the fun?

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1st Published 01/08/2016
last update 09/12/2022 14:55:46

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