For the months leading up to our wedding, we had periodic discussions about what we would do for engagement pictures. We talked about locations, photographers, props. I don't think either of us were particularly excited about the concept of being in front of the camera. I especially hate having my photo taken.
I came up with this concept after all others failed (or maybe we just didn't pursue other options with any amount of decisiveness) . I new we only needed one good shot for our announcements/invites and I wanted it to be pretty dang eye-catching.
There were a few issues taking this shot:
1 I took it myself which meant a lot of running in front of and behind the camera.
2 I wanted the sun like this, but it is only in a good spot for about 10 min.
3 The intent was to get my foreground shot and then remove bodies and ladder for the background shot. That way I'd only have to mask out the ladder. I initially did not like this shot so I neglected to take a background shot. The ladder had to be cloned out.
4 The wind was not cooperating with the balloons. We took some shots with just the balloons and I was able to PS those in later.
Lastly, this was actually a result of our second shoot in the same location. In my first attempt, I totally screwed up the focus, but didn't realize it till we got home. That was about the time my wife tried to convince me to do a more conventional engagement shot. All in all, it was a lot of effort, but I'm very happy with the result.
More info: mattjanson.com
The final image
The pre-edited image
