Here is what Christiane has to say about the favourite image from her wedding:

“Even though we had to choose from around 500 amazing pictures, the ONE that we both instantly agreed on to be our favorite, the one that we think repre­sents our day the best and our rela­tionship in general (and also the one family and friends are still talking about !!) is the one where Yves and I are up on that tank in front of the Manège Militaire de Hull.

Not only is that where we first met 10 years ago, but the tree colors are amazing, repre­senting the beau­tiful day we had despite the rainy morning !! Fun and original … picture perfect

Thanks again, and the best for that new wedding season coming up !!”

I had a ton of fun with these two, espe­cially at the Manège Militaire…you may recall this photo taken on the barrel of the same tank:

These two were troopers (pardon the pun), so there were a lot of really strong images from their wedding. It was difficult to choose just one. However, my favourite is this one:

The reason is simple. Christiane and Yves love each other, and this photo shows that. True expres­sions can’t be faked, and the honest closeness and intimacy of this photo is why I am a photog­rapher. This was taken during their first dance together, and watching them it seemed as if the world just dropped away for them. It was beautiful.

I am a huge fan of the dramatic image, but at the end of the day it’s about two people in love, and creating an image that illus­trates that love is the most difficult, and most rewarding, part of what I do.

Thanks Christiane and Yves, it was fun going through your images again.

…Mike

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Krista and Steve (who, inci­dently, have just purchased a VW bus and are planning a months-long trip across North America–very cool) sent this as their favourite image:

“Hi Mike,

Choose just ONE?!

Well we did it. And actually we both agreed right away. We chose this picture because it just so perfectly repre­sents the ceremony — the sun shining (after the rain!), everyone smiling, our giddiness, the adorable offi­ciant smiling so sweetly at us. It’s a very happy, heart-warming picture. And the lens flare is cool too

Thanks for this. It was fun going through the pictures again together.”

I had a lot of fun with Krista and Steve, both on their engagement session and their wedding…they are just fun people. However, to pick one image as my favourite there can be no doubt. If you have spent any time at all on my blog, you know which image I am going to select, as it is one of my favourite images ever. Sorry guys, but this one isn’t really of you at all! That’s right, the cat licking his ass:

We chris­tened him “Mangy.” And if it was their wedding, it was defi­nitely his farm. He spent the ceremony wandering through the crowd, sitting on empty seats, and generally taking no notice of what was going on. When he decided to…uhm…“clean” himself while I was shooting, well there was no question that I had to get a photo. The cool thing is that you can tell everyone is laughing, even though they are out of focus

I’ve been back to the farm a few times since then, and he’s still there, the king of the castle.

…Mike

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Next in the Favourite Image project is Helen, who sent me a quick note tell me which of her wedding images is her favourite:

“Do we really have to pick only one?? If you haven’t noticed, it’s not easy for us to narrow down our favorites ? But, this time, we did it:”

“This is our favorite picture, because it was our first real private time throughout the whole day, when we could kick our feet up, relax, smile at each other, let all the craziness and excitement really sink in and realize that wow, we did it!

It also makes us smile, because we know that just after this, we scarfed down the Best Chicken McNuggets Ever, silently giving a million thanks to our thoughtful MOH for leaving it in the limo for us. Who would have thought cham­pagne would pair well with chicken nuggets? ”

The nuggets in question:

My favourite image was just a bit later, as we pulled up in front of the Yangtse restaurant and the rain started. I always have a couple of white umbrellas with me, so I handed one to Helen and Binh as they sat in the car, hoping it would stop. They finally decided to make a run for it, and I got this image as Helen sprinted for the door:

I like this one the best because even though it’s raining, Helen still has a smile She had a great day and a little bit of rain would not change anything for her. As it happens, the rain stopped about an hour later and we were able to play around outside after all

…Mike

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Holly wrote in recently to tell me which image is her favourite:

“Well, we have been trying to decide which one of our gorgeous wedding shots that you took was our favourite, and it was really hard choosing just one. We have about 8 or 9 absolute favourites…and getting it down to one was tough! But here it is: the one you snapped just before the ceremony took place, as? I was peeking out the window with my nieces watching all of the guests find their seats.

I remember this moment really clearly, the excitement, the butterflies…it’s a beau­tiful picture!!

I’m going to cheat a little and give two of my picks, for different reasons.

The first is an unusual pick for me, because it’s a family group shot…but once you see it you’ll know why I like it:

The second is an example of some­thing that I tell all my couples: some­times, you’re not going to know what I’m doing, or what I see. That’s normal…I tend to see things a bit differ­ently than most people do (no surprises there). Anyway, Holly and Jordan were married at the beach, and close by there was? a play structure for little kids, including a big red wavy slide. When I asked Holly to sit on it, I knew she wasn’t really sure what I was doing. But (and this is the most important part) she trusted me, and what resulted was a neat-o shot of her in the late afternoon sun:

The most important thing you can give your photog­rapher is trust; without that, some of the more inter­esting stuff just isn’t possible. Thanks for trusting me Holly!

…Mike

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“I found it very difficult to choose just one single picture as my favorite. I love so many photos for so many reasons. To me it is not so much what the photo is about but what it makes me remember about our day However, since the assignment was to only choose a single photo, I’d have to pick the one in the field where we are looking off into the distance at the clouds:”

“I remember the day starting out with rain, and then sun, more rain, hail, and more sun. The wind was pretty fierce and it was about 7 degrees. Driving to the reception we pulled over to admire some of the neatest looking storm clouds I’d ever seen. And maybe it’s just because I’m not facing the camera so you can’t see my runny nose or red cheeks, or maybe it’s the prox­imity to Shawn, or maybe it’s just that the breath­taking scene behind the trees had momen­tarily stopped my shiv­ering, but I don’t look cold. I love that an impromptu stop at the side of the road yielded such a gorgeous shot.”

When I see some­thing inter­esting, I try to take advantage of it, and that’s just what happened here: I saw some neat clouds that I knew would respond well to an infrared photo, so we pulled over I like this one too, but my fave was taken about 20 minutes earlier, in a forest in Fallowfield.

This was taken as we finished and we were on our way out. I’ve always like this image.

…Mike

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