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Hi,

Shot ( as secondary/assistant ) my first wedding on Friday after many moons of very little camera activity. This was one of the first shots I took, before I warmed up and remembered exactly what I should be doing.. like.. not having the bridesmaid out of focus in front of the bride...

Nonetheless I feel there's something nice in this shot, and was wondering if anyone had any advice on how to bring it out of the shot...

Any advice is welcomed ( short of telling me to sell my camera of course )

It might work as just a portrait of two people - ie crop everything left of the bride's arm (window, tree, etc).

G'dat mate,

How'd it all go? Bet it was fun...

I'd be tempted to either treat this as a portrait shot with both people, and crop out the tree and blown highlights from the window and maybe clone out the picture that's behind the bride's head thingy, or... maybe go for a high-key effect (keeping the full landscape image with tree and highlights from window) with some soft focus?

portrait crop definitely the lovely lady is elegant in her dress but the cheezy christmas tree is not, so take out cheezy elements and you have a lovely picture

I agree get rid of the tree and turn into portrait shot the bridesmaid and the posture she is assuming with the OOF just adds to the portrait and actually focuses attention on the beautiful bride. Also gets rid of the distracting blown window light. There is potential in this shot.
cheers
marco

I agree wholeheartedly with the others Dion. All is definitely not lost. It's a lovely capture of the bride and that will always shine through so see how you go with the crop.

Manta wrote:I agree wholeheartedly with the others Dion. All is definitely not lost. It's a lovely capture of the bride and that will always shine through so see how you go with the crop.

Manta - not my shot

Dean

While I largely agree with what has already been said, be cognisant when cropping that the bride is looking out of frame to the left once the tree is removed. As a result ou need to allow some extra space on the left to deal with that since otherwise the viewer will find the shot unbalanced.

Dean,

I hope you don't mind, but I couldn't resist having a play with this one.. let me know if you want me to take this down.

<img src="http://chris.bur.st/misc/DSC_6017copy.jpg" />

Just a levels adjustment, bit of a colour cast.. might not be your cup of tea but I like the look. The background has artifacts on the wall, mainly due to working with a jpeg