Wedding Photographer Nottingham. Pete Henderson shares a wedding photography technique.

This was an image taken as the bride walked from the wedding car to the church for the wedding ceremony. It started to rain just as she arrived, and quickly the umbrellas came out. I knew I would want to get a shot of her walking into the church, but as soon as the multiple umbrellas came out and surrounded her, I knew there was the opportunity for a really nice shot.

I took a quick shot from the entrance to the church, but knew that I would need to get a lot closer for the shot to work in the way that I wanted.

For the composition my main aim was to create a framing with the arms and umbrellas and a sense that she was being surrounded and protected. After that I was concentrating on holding the composition as I walked backwards, and then kept taking photographs until I got the shot I wanted. I had to wait and be patient. At first her face was facing too low down and the shot only really came together when she lifted her head just a little and showed enough expression in her face to make the shot interesting.

The post processing was fairly simple. There was nothing interesting about the colour in the scene, so black and white was the obvious choice to enhance the symmetry and simplicity. This helped to draw attention to her face as well. After that just a little bit of light dodging and burning.