Doug Boutwell the occasional odd thought or image
Anti-Documentary
Last November, I was looking for a few couples getting married in 2011 that would let me come photograph some personal work at their weddings. Nick and Kate are the first of those couples that I’ve had the pleasure of photographing.
This project was inspired by thinking about doing things differently. There’s nothing inevitable about the way most wedding photographers approach shooting a wedding. The “bag of tricks” that they use to shoot weddings works, but it’s not the only way. So my mind has been spinning for years with “what-ifs”. What if we didn’t shoot 3000+ frames? What if it was all black and white? What if we didn’t pose anything or interfere in any way? What if we posed EVERYTHING? What if we lit everything? No flash? All flash? What if it was all on Polaroid? A Leica? What if we shot it all on 8×10? The interesting part of asking those questions, of course, isn’t just to ramble about what gear we could find an excuse to buy, or how we could make the job easier. The point is to think more deeply about WHY we do things the way we do, and whether habits honed over years can be challenged to improve the craft of wedding photography. It’s a journey to refine the definition of what wedding photography is about, and an attempt to explore the question of what’s useful and important. That line of questioning can take you many different places, and last weekend, it took me to Anaheim Hills with a vintage Deardorff and an excitement for doing something new.
I’ve always liked the idea of shooting a wedding on 8×10 film – mostly because I just like 8×10. Sometimes I wonder whether I like the idea of it more than the actual result and process, but nevertheless the view camera is always the devil whispering on my shoulder. It’s challenging and impractical, but exceptionally rewarding when you can put the medium to use doing what it’s best at. What view cameras are good at is taking beautiful photos of things that aren’t moving around. At a wedding, that pretty much means scene-setting shots, and portraits. So why not just shoot that? Throw out the documentary aspect altogether. Anti-documentary.
It seemed like a sensible thing to do. After all, for the people that were there, years down the road, photos of the people and the places are enough to jog your memory. The most valuable thing seems to me to create a record of the family at that moment in time. The candids are nice, but sometimes they seem like superfluous snapshots in their casual haste. It’s almost crass, in a way, to have 10,000 photos of every last moment of the day, in the same way that unedited video is boring to watch, and wedding video often is much less magical than the photography. Less is more. Sometimes just having a few amazing images as mental anchors lets your mind reconstruct the rest. It allows the viewer to fill in the blanks with the fantasy.
So the idea, then, was see what a wedding would look like if I didn’t shoot anything that actually happened, but rather just shot some formal portraits and took some photos of the surroundings. Instead of trying to construct some Universal Representation of The Truth™, just shoot a limited set of images and let the viewer’s mind fill in the rest. As an artist, I liked that idea, because great art always meets the viewer in the middle.
8×10 seemed like a natural medium to use for this project then, because it played to the strengths of large format photography, instead of trying to fight them. 8×10 in particular can be unapologetically romantic in its dreamlike rendition of space (see the work of some of my heroes – Paolo Roversi and Sally Mann). Focus, detail, and tones can swirl and dance around in mysterious and beautiful ways that no other format does quite as well. 8×10 images can be at once firmly specific and alluringly incomplete in the information they give us, and I’ve always thought it would be a great medium to shoot a wedding…
… except for the fact that it’s not. Despite hustling around on an unseasonably warm day, I still managed to only shoot a total of 29 frames of B&W and 5 frames of color film. I own 11 film holders, each of which holds 2 sheets of film. I loaded 8 with B&W (for the portraits), and 3 with color (for everything else). That means 16 portraits before having to go reload, which took about 40 minutes using a jumbo changing bag in the back of my car. I had hoped to shoot many, many more photos of the guests and family, but 8×10 is too damned slow to shoot all that many photos in one day, especially when you’re trying to fit your shooting around an actual wedding, and not take time away from the hired wedding photographer (thanks Hugh! You’re awesome!) I was hoping for lots and lots of portraits, but after shooting each of the bridesmaids individually, I realized that was just folly. And that’s even though I only shot one frame of each of them.
So even though I was only trying to shoot portraits and places, I still managed to do a fraction of the shooting I had hoped. That’s the fault of the medium. 8×10 is horrifyingly slow when you’re used to 500 raw images on a CF card and 5fps capture rates.
And then there’s the post-production. Developing large format film is either expensive or time consuming… sometimes both. I did the developing myself, and in an attempt to get it all done in hours instead of days, ended up scratching the negs a bit. Good thing we have scanners and Photoshop! Speaking of – scanning 8×10 is slow, and it’s a pain in the ass as well (dust, newton rings, scratches… bah!) I’ll take digital any day in terms of post-production.
So, having gone through the process, I can say that I’ve truly gotten that out of my system :) I have to say that, in terms of the “experiment” I was doing, 8×10 is a beautiful medium for wedding portraits, but I think medium format would have done almost as good a job for a fraction of the hassle (with the added benefit that you can actually shoot things that are moving around). I can’t say I’d ever do 8×10 at a wedding again, but every time I’ve looked at these images over the last few days, I’m glad I did… just once. There’s just something special about big film, and I hope photographers continue to find excuses to do things the hard way until they stop making the stuff. Different can be SO fun.
Thanks Nick and Kate for letting me come to their wedding to make art. You guys were remarkably cool, your wedding was beautiful, and I hope you have an amazing life together!
Special thanks to Hugh Forte, who was the “real” photographer, for letting me be the worst Uncle Bob ever. You kick ass, but my camera is still totally bigger than yours :)
PS – I still need to unload the color film and send it off for processing, but I’m pretty sure that these are going to be the most interesting of the group. I’ll post the color stuff when I get it back, probably in a few weeks.
Thanks for sharing and for your creative vision. It takes a lot of courage on your part and a lot of trust on the clients part to do something this outside of the norm.
YES!!
DOUG THESE ARE AMAZING!
Thank you for sharing these!! So glad to see you doing this…
Paul
absolutely beautiful. Timeless..elegant…refreshing and brave. Thank you for sharing and inspiring!
I love these Doug, so glad you thought of doing this and getting out of your comfort zone. About 10 years ago I wanted to do the same kind of idea but with Landscape photography. I used a 4×5 field camera and shot 4×5 inferred film. The process was super hard because the challenges that come with shooting inferred film but shooting 4×5 inferred film comes even more challenge. I only did it once, but it was worth the experience of getting out my comfort zone and capturing some really great images that were unique.
These are stunning. I am impressed that you actually did something about that itch. Good for you.
These are amazing.
So completely different than any normal wedding photography.
Hugh is one of my favorites, and I’d imagine he made some killer images, but there is something so distinctly timeless and epic about these.
I’m years (decades?) away from getting married, but I’d seriously hire you to Uncle Bob with an 8×10 at my wedding.
Wow. You are my hero, I have not seen such natural looking “posed” photos. What an inspiring and interesting project. Did anyone take any photos of you taking the pictures with your “big” camera, I would love to see them! Thanks so much for sharing!
impeccably done!
That last portrait of the bride & groom is stunning. Doug, you have really created a series of wonderful images. The depth and feeling of them is outstanding and beautiful. Thanks for sharing them!
Doug, these are amazing! Every image and word is beautiful! This project is so inspiring.
Doug, loved your original post and glad to see you were able to shoot a wedding on 8×10! Not that I know anything about film, but still, great work. Love every shot.
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Beautiful doug! i think i remember conversations about this so long ago.. love them all especially the first two, i find myself staring at them the most…
Holy cram…..Doug, these are beautiful!!! So this is what comes out of that huge rad camera we saw you using. Seriously…amazing.
Love it, great effort mate, it is something i have wanted to do for a long time, thank you for actually doing it!
When i grow up i want to to live in your head.
We are eternally indebted to you.
SRSLY UNBELIEVABLE.
John – I do think we talked about this years back… thanks for helping to inspire people to treat wedding photography as a viable subject for art.
Nick – glad you like! Thanks again for letting me shoot you guys!
Karma – Josh actually did – Here, and Here
Great work Doug….I enjoyed reading your thought processes behind the project as much as I enjoyed looking at the images.
Love&SlushDAVID
Amazing photos!!! Great job!!
I can’t decide which one I like best! Unbelievable!!!!!!
I love these so much. Beautiful tonal range! I consider myself fortunate to have studied photography at college, just as digital was coming along, so that we were able to study and try out historical processes and use the various formats of cameras. Although not financially viable or indeed practical in business, I think this was a very interesting and worthwhile exercise. For in the words of the great Ferris Bueller:
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t slow down, you could miss it.”
Thanks for sharing.
Ahhh these are gorgeous. I miss my view camera days… in the days of shoot-fast-shoot-more-shoot-shoot-shoot there is a sort of therapy to slowing down and controlling the intricacies of each frame (partly out of fear for not messing up a shot since they’re so expensive!) :-) Thanks for posting these!
” Less is more. Sometimes just having a few amazing images as mental anchors lets your mind reconstruct the rest. It allows the viewer to fill in the blanks with the fantasy.”
I am so going to remember that, and use it if I ever lose half my CF cards from someone’s wedding :-D
Seriously though – great words and amazing images. I like the sentiment behind the idea – letting one’s memory and imagination fill in the blanks is a rather lovely concept. My grandad was (also) a wedding photographer – he used medium format but leapt at 35mm cameras when they appeared. I’ve seen one of his albums – 12 formal shots, all hand printed in the cupboard undder the stairs!
You’ve inspired me to dig out the old Nikons – thanks!
My jaw is on the floor. I LOVE it. I used to shoot primarily 4×5 and I’ve considered it for weddings. But haven’t tried it…yet. Wow. So beautifully done, Doug!! p.s. Sally Mann is one of my faves too. And Alec Soth. Both shoot 8×10 like a dream.
I love the idea and you did a great job. I had a similar experience shooting a friend’s wedding with 72 frames and it felt surprisingly sufficient. That portrait of the groom is absolutely beautiful!
These are seriously amazing! thank you so much for sharing!
ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL. Love your thought process and the courage and discipline to go through with making it happen, if not just for this ONE very lucky couple. Thanks for the inspiration. Please do post the color ones.
Doug, these are amazing and inspirational. I have a museum of old cameras in my studio that once belonged to my grandfather. I’ve always intended to take them out for a test drive but I never do. Now this makes me feel guilty for never getting around to it and I want to more than ever! Thank you for sharing your work and your thoughts on this.
Dawn
-Curious on the location of this wedding? The trees and scenery look like what you find where I live. Did you travel for these?
Love it! That reminds me… I haven’t been surfing in like forever.
Dawn – the wedding was actually in Anaheim hills. Southern California is mostly dry, open land, but we do have a few little canyons and such with big, mature trees. Not many though!
Thanks again everyone for the kind words! Glad you enjoyed!
Beautiful work Doug – the detail and the creamyness is gorgeous.
I love that you did this. The photographs are just beautiful and will be surely cherished. Maybe you will start a new trend and get hired for 8×10 wedding photography. That’ll be a job and half.
I am doing a standing ovation over here in Hawaii for this post and taking the opportunity to shoot 8×10 portraits at a wedding. I can hardly wait to see the color results as well and see what you do next. Thank you for sharing and being brave. Aloha.
“If thousand words cannot describe it, every single word is one too much.”
Victor E. Frankl
Doug –
Regardless of the PIA factor, there is nothing like large format black and white.
These images are awesome…any bride would want these in addition to whatever they get from traditional capture, film or digital.
So incredibly beautiful! Really. There isn’t anything more I can say – so completely awed.
I just wanted to share how I love the feel and look of these images. I have always wanted to try one of those kind of cameras someday.
WOW Doug these are AMAZING! So gorgeous, and so inspiring! A goal of mine is to incorporate film more into my weddings, and this is the epitome of how it can be done!
Mark
Awesome…..those are something for all to see! You captured everything… B&W ….Great choice!
I love it – thanks for sharing your thought process and daring to do it differently.
It would have been a bitch to post-process, but your results are so very lovely. Congrats mate, I’m inspired.
Oh my gosh… THANK YOU for this… simply stunning. xoxo.
Amazing images. Definitely different look from the norm.
Inspiring. Wonderful to see the art of photography is not lost. Thanks for the nudge to get back to our roots every now and again. :)
What kind of film did you use for these? I really like how it renders the skin.
Wow!
Wow! This images are amazing! Very well composed. The just have an eternal look to them. I´m stunned and impressed!
This is genius. It’s so easy to get caught up in the run of it all.. you end up missing the importance of it. Great, GREAT photographs. Beautiful work.
Doug,
A good friend pointed me to your post, and I’m so thankful for the tip. The photos are wonderful and I like your thinking. Regardless of the hundreds of images made at a wedding, I think that two or three are treasured, and the rest looked at occasionally.
I did a similar thing, last summer. Only it was Uncle Marc, I shot twelve 4×5 color shots with a graflex slr, fitted with just a miniscus lens. The dreamy quality is very cool.
Then I shot a number of rolls of 35mm color stereo pictures, which were a big hit and a much larger pain.
Old tech is very cool. Congrats for helping to keep it alive!
Your work is exeptional!
Marc
I’m old enough to have worked with large format film cameras and
your beautiful images reminded me of the process of using such a big, unwieldy beast which demands you get it right before you push the button. That look too.
Speaking of which, will your next action set have one thats gives the large format film camera look for the modern photographer who doesn’t have time to use the real thing?
James – you’re never too young to shoot sheet film :)
Eric – Delta 100, but a lot of the contrast curve and overall tonality has to do with the Photoshop (it’s been forever since I’ve made an actual darkroom print, so I’m out of touch with what Delta 100 would have done on “real” paper).
wow, babes in bokehville – no, just … wow