Deevo Tindall

The bride and groom were sitting at the head table listening to toasts from their closest friends and family. I was awestruck by some of the words that were said about them a lot of times toasts can ramble on with readings straight from an electronic screen, but these were genuine and real and authentic and you could see that they were so real and so touching that even the bride and groom were caught up in the Emotions. I don't typically sit this close to the bride and groom during the toasts but they had these high tables at an elevated position and I was able to kind of just curl up down in front of them unbeknownst to anybody. I just sat there and watched and snapped and watched and snapped and this was the byproduct of that patience.

This photo was taken during a destination wedding in Philadelphia Pennsylvania USA. The ceremony and reception were held in this revitalized area of Philadelphia that was formerly very industrial. There were abandoned buildings, old relics of time past everywhere. We were photographing under a major road and a bridge and it was very dark Bc it was ab out to start raining. However, the light was squeaking through from above and just hitting this wall. Initially, the groom was just walking by the wall then his bride joined him and as I watched them pass this walk I saw all the horizontal lines and how they intersected her dress and their vertical bodies and thought it looked stunning. I was right.

We had just finished our First Look photos with the bride and groom and were waiting for the ceremony. The bride was sitting in the shadows of the window and the groom was off in the distance and was holding the bride's bouquet. I loved how the shadows of the giant window was playing off both of them creating this silhouette. So I asked the groom to walk towards the bride and just do whatever came naturally – of course he kissed her. I did not expect him to place the flowers behind his back, but it made the image perfect!

Growing up, we had this sun window and the windows were paned. I used to sit in the windows and play with the shadows with my hands, intersecting them and watching them break all over my skin. When we arrived at the Duke Mansion, in Charlotte NC for this bridal portrait, this shot was not part of my original workflow. As I was waiting for the bride to complete her hair and makeup, I entered this room and saw a similar scene with the window, the sun and the shadows pushing through the paned window and set forth to use this window sill in some fashion to take advantage of the natural light and shadows. I played with a couple of scenarios – all of which included the natural light, and finally settled on this one. The bride’s face thatched by the shadows and barely visible, but the rest of her completely in the light. She looks so deep and mysterious in this image. Maybe those waning moments before she walks the aisle to meet her future husband, maybe just thinking about everything that is about to happen.