Matt Rock Photography - One Special Shot - 1st August 2015
We all have moments in our lives and careers that change the way we do or see things so today I take a look at just one image that has always stood out to me and others over the last 10 years.
The photograph was made almost 10 years ago; on 1st August 2015 at St Margarets Church, West Sussex, just after their ceremony and during some directed group photos we were making.
I’ve been asked before about why I wanted to be a photographer and the true and very simple answer is that I wanted my photographs to be hanging on peoples walls - at the time I didn’t think about wedding photographs particularly, just any photograph i’d made that someone liked enough to frame it and hang it on their wall for others to see (and selfishly to be amazed by)
Looking through the hundreds of thousands of images I have made over the last 19 years it’s really hard to choose just one image that takes me back to the exact moment I made it. But every now and again one photograph stands out to me and I wanted to share this special one - as it’s probably my favourite image i’ve ever made. That’s a BOLD statement I know and doesn’t take away from any other wedding or image I worked hard to get but it just keeps coming back as the most impactful one for me.
Side note: Actually, whilst writing the sentence above it’s made me think of another image that changed the way I understand and appreciate the direction and quality of light a lot better but that will be for another blog.
Back on track - Sometimes it’s the moment, sometimes it’s the light (which good photographers are obsessed with by the way) and sometimes it’s both and if you can get a decent composition in there too it’s even better.
This is the only photograph i’ve ever made (since 2006 when I started to shoot weddings) that has had a handful of complete strangers in tears when they see it - literally in front of me - the reaction has always been from the mothers of the bride or groom when i’ve showcased it at wedding shows.
It’s a lovely big print - shown below - with a beautiful black frame and a plain white mount and I set it up just behind my albums that are on show too.
The tears are often followed by a story explaining that they wish their parent / grand parent could attend the upcoming wedding but unfortunately have passed away and how proud they would have been (of the bride and groom to be) if they were there.
The thing is, this image could be seen by some as imperfect; the bride can’t be seen apart from her dress and flowers, she is out of focus and the top of the grooms head is missing...
However what I believe this photograph has that only comes around every so often is a kind of beauty that is difficult or probably impossible to replicate as a staged / posed image. It shows a snippet of time where the grooms nan is completely in the moment looking at her grandson - with so much love & pride in her eyes, the groom is holding her two hands tightly with one of his, yet he is still connected to his new wife with the other hand.
The image connects all three of them and it was captured in less than a second and they say a photograph can tell a thousand words and I think ‘they’ were right.
The whole sequence of photographs probably took only one or two minutes before we moved on to the next group set up but it was a powerful 60 seconds which I believe has been the most memorable, single photograph I have ever made.
Below you can see a few frames that led up to the image above and you will notice it started out to be just a normal group photo of the bride and groom and his nan. I got them to sit down as the nan was relatively frail and couldn’t stand for too long and the church bench seemed like a good idea. I made the initial ‘normal’ group photos, one wide and one cropped in. Then nan and her grandson started to look at each other and started laughing as you can see below - they weren’t thinking about being photographed any more or what I was doing, so I just left them to it but carried on shooting what was happening (I think this was the moment that ultimately led me to want to shoot more documentary / candid style photographs rather than too many directed portraits).
So there you have it, one image that was just a fleeting moment in time but has had a big impact on me, my career and I hope the bride and groom and his nan too.
I don’t know the answer to this but I do hope this photograph has been hanging on a wall somewhere and one that gets looked at a lot by the family and their friends who walk past it.
“I wanted my photographs to be hanging on peoples walls - at the time I didn’t think about wedding photographs particularly, just any photograph I had made and that someone liked enough to hang on their wall for others to see (and selfishly to be amazed by)”
