Chris Mann’s Island Blog

Time to post a few more of my favourite images from 2006. Some of these have already appeared on the Tropical Imaging blog, but on this site I have space to give you a bit more background info about each shot.

As there are quite a few photos in this post, you’ll need to click the link below to see the images.

Here we go with the second selection of photos:

This is the father of the bride lighting his cigar. The wedding was in Puerto Morelos, Mexico,not Turks & Caicos. I was shooting candids at the reception and just turned around and saw the father of the bride leaning down towards the tiki torch to light his cigar. I was a long way away so had to use the long end of the 70-200. Thank goodness for the image stabilizer in that lens! I just like the light in this picture (totally from the flame of the torch) and the atmosphere of it - the father of the bride relaxing now his responsibilities are over…

This couple were so into each other, it was wonderful to see. Nothing special technically about this shot, I like it just because it captures their emotions.

A different time and location for this wedding - Fort George Cay, an uninhabited island, and 2pm in the afternoon - which in July is hot hot hot!! The circumstances were unique though - Fort George was a special place for the bride’s mother, who passed on a couple of years ago and whose ashes were scattered on the island. So the bride wanted to be married there, and also have some moments alone before the wedding party and groom arrived. So she went on ahead with her bridesmaids (and her photographer!) and I took a series of shots of her standing alone at the wedding location looking out to sea. The groom and wedding guests arrived on a sailing catamaran a little later

Although the weather was fine and sunny there were some rain showers around - creating the dramatic sky in this picture. An infra-red effect B/W conversion was applied in Photoshop.

Often wedding ceremonies on the beach consist of just a random huddle of people and it’s hard to get a nice picture of the whole scene. In this case however the guests were seated well back and the bridesmaids and groomsmen were spread out and formed a nice arc. I got down low with the 17-40 lens at its widest and silhouetted them against the bright sky.

The main thing I remember about this wedding was the rain! We had heavy showers on and off all afternoon, but fortunately it stopped in time for the ceremony, which was on the beach in front of a villa on Sapodilla Bay. The variable weather didn’t faze Rocky & Robin, seen here with Rocky’s daughter and officiating minister Pastor Wade Colbey in the background. This shot is about the happiness of the occasion, that’s all really.

This macro shot of seaglass jewellery from Anna Bourne’s Gallery was made for the Turks & Caicos Hotel Association 2007 guide book. There was a bit of a learning curve for me getting the lighting right for this as I normally work outdoors with available light, not indoors with flash! The final setup had the jewellery on top of a piece of clear perspex with some tissue paper beneath as a diffuser, lit by one White Lightning studio flash from below and another from above and behind. People who do product shots every day will probably see things wrong with it, but I was happy.

A pretty bride, a perfect blue sky, and a breeze to blow the veil… what more could you want? This was a wedding at the Beaches Resort so it took place earlier in the afternoon than most of our weddings. It was hot, but the bonus was the great sky colour.