WEDDING 365 PROJECT – 365 (366 this year of course!) wedding photographs, one per day, this one captured at the majestic Forbury Hotel in Reading.

SHOOTING DATA: 5DMk2, 24mm, F1.4, 1/200, ISO 4000

VENUE: The Forbury

ETHOS: It’s a long piece on available light this one, so bear with me. I thoughtfully describe The Forbury Hotel in Reading as majestic, because few luxury hotels feel that way; many these days seem rather, well, corporate. The majesty is in the detail rather than size. How many hotels can boast their own small cinema for example? I’m returning to The Forbury to present my wedding stills documentaries at a wedding showcase on the 26th February and look forward to using this facility for that purpose. In photographic terms, for an available light shooter, it’s a venue that offers opportunities and challenges. Sometimes the best action, the most interesting photographs are to be captured in the most awkwardly lit conditions. Cosy corridor looks and feels good in theory, it’s trickier to capture in practice. Here’s a classic example. I’m working wide open in aperture terms, 24mm at F1.4. I’m cranked in ISO terms too, at ISO4000. (Unthinkable that 400 used to be the absolute highest I would dare go in the introductory pro digital days.) I’m minus flash, using the pin spots and wall lighting only for everything including focus! Believe me, it’s somewhat cosier than the capture displays. I’m trying to convey the spirit of the wedding; friends laughing, passing time together. And this comes back to a conversation I was having with a chap named Roy, the father of a bride I met with last night. An amateur photographer himself, he was intrigued how or why flash is not deployed in practically all the photographs I showcase where it could provide a supportive fill role. My response; it alerts guests too much to your presence, often removes three dimension from a subject and far too often performs adversely just at the moment you least expect or want. BANG, the charge from your speedlight napalms the subject in a shape and style my settings had never delineated. Next frame perfect, but oh, the first one was the ‘decisive moment.’ Kit of course is just one part of the equation. Investing in equipment suitable for the task is imperative. But equally one can have all the gear and no idea. Roy’s interest in available light shooting is born of his own enthusiasm for the medium, and was completely in contrast to a phone call earlier in the day where a mother called up to say; I have eight hundred quid, just want some photos, what’s the cheapest you can do? Google trawling to find a snapper. See, some people will never understand the difference between shooting wide open in a dark corridor, poised over a shoulder, sucking every last photon out of a lamp to capture four friends laughing hysterically about life. This is the beauty of what we do as photographers. To some, a photograph is simply a snap, and that’s fine. To others, an opportunity. Roy passed me a great compliment as he left last night; “Your pictures seem to have mood, can’t put my finger on it, but they’re different.” Vive la difference, as I said to a colleague last week on my Facebook page.