Trashing the Dress
On Sunday I took part in a Trash The Dress
(TTD) session.......
Trash the Dress is getting more and more
coverage in the UK, and I'm increasingly getting requests to shoot these
sessions, which I'm really pleased about. Timing on a couple of them has been
bad with weddings and portrait sessions conflicting and of course the winter is
not a good time to be getting wet and rolling about on the sand, unfortunately I
had one session cancelled by the client for other reasons earlier this year
which would otherwise have been
completed.When the opportunity
came up to get some hands on practice this weekend then I took it, if only to
scope out some locations, and get some understanding of how dresses behave in
water, and the safety
aspects.DISCLAIMER: The
image(s) shown below were taken at a workshop using a professional model. There
were several other photographers present, and similar poses using the same model
may appear on the internet. I have only posted those where I had some artistic
input, and of course the combination of my framing, lens selection and
post-processing are unique.
The concept is simple. Take
one bride (and groom if desired), after the wedding day - dress them back up
with the guy in just a suit normally and then shoot a post-wedding photographic
session with *less* regard for the dress than on the wedding day. This could be
as simple as sitting and lying down in a woodland or beach setting, through
immersion in water either fully or partially - in the sea or some freshwater
stream or lake, to the extreme which is actually to damage the dress beyond
repair. Normally (unless the damage option is selected) the dress can be
dry-cleaned after this as it would have been anyway and can be boxed for
posterity. Many of the couples who have contacted me are looking to create
something artistic for display, and a celebration of their beauty - often around
the time of their first wedding
anniversary.My vision is to shoot
the images with as much of a fashion and beauty influence as possible
incorporating some of the poses from our very popular and highly rated
pre-wedding shoots and some from the time we spend alone with the bride during
the wedding day and then push them just a little further. I'm not into the
wanton destruction of the dress per se with scissors or blades - but I'm not
adverse at all to wet or dirty ! I want to create something a couple would be
proud to hang on their wall, or have in a smaller album to accompany the main
wedding album.I'm currently unsure
as how I plan to present the work from this weekends shoot as the work on my
site is exclusively from commissioned sessions with paying clients - no fake
weddings, or taken as a guest shots here. But I do need to use them to show to
prospective trash the dress clients the looks I can achieve - so to that aim I'm
posting one or more sample images here for now - and might create a locked or
separate gallery later to showcase more of the work. The images posted here are
limited as we only used a wedding dress for one location, which didn't get close
to water or anything that would get it too dirty, when the prom dresses were
used it was only in shallow water and on the sand. I'd expect a TTD session for
one of my clients to go a little further - but still in the confines of a safe
environment.If you are interested
in trashing your dress in the Hampshire or surrounding area then please contact
us to discuss in more details your ideas and timeframe. We'd love to talk to
you.
Posted: Mon - May 5, 2008 at 06:57 PM
