Trash the Dress

I had the chance last evening to shoot a Trash the Dress set with my daughter to add to her and my portfolios. My wife picked up the gown at the thrift store for $3. Since I have a boat, we went to the local lake and were able to move to a couple of different locations before the sun went down. Most are natural light and with my Canon 580EXII through an umbrella Strobist style set on 1/2, 1/4, or 1/8 power. I wanted to have her wakeboard in the gown but she thought if she fell, she might drown in the dress. Come on Brittany, where's your sense of adventure? Anyway, I'd appreciate your comments. The full set is out here on my Flickr.

I have to be honest.. she looks terrified in all of them!!! TTD is supposed to be fun isnt it??? She looks like she is not having much fun. The only one I really like is the last one. Sorry no ofense just bein honest

Ishootpeoplewithmycano​n wrote in post #7967219
I have to be honest.. she looks terrified in all of them!!! TTD is supposed to be fun isnt it??? She looks like she is not having much fun. The only one I really like is the last one. Sorry no ofense just bein honest

No offense taken. I appreciate the comment (sometimes you make a post here and get a hundred reads with no comments). That is pretty much her normal look though. I have one of her laughing while swinging on a rope swing--I'll do some work on that one.

OOOOOO I would love to see that one. Some people when you say serious really do get that "deer in the headlights" look but i definetly think its the photogrpahers job to get a natural look. It is a challenge for sure, but it can be done

She really was having a good time!

She looks scared!?

Well her expression has already been mentioned and I'm glad you posted the last photo of her having fun!

I'm not digging the fake blur in #4, sorry.

I personally dont like any of them. Backgrounds are pretty boring and it is what it is a bride in a pond

Ishootpeoplewithmycano​n wrote in post #7967219
I have to be honest.. she looks terrified in all of them!!! TTD is supposed to be fun isnt it??? She looks like she is not having much fun. The only one I really like is the last one. Sorry no ofense just bein honest

Looks like she is not having fun???

I don't think that was the aim of the shoot. Do the insanely hot models on billboards look like they are having fun?

gibbo182 wrote in post #7976373
Looks like she is not having fun???

I don't think that was the aim of the shoot. Do the insanely hot models on billboards look like they are having fun?

good point...

i think it is more the old fashioned dress that spoils the images, you need to hit the images with a different perspective post processing wise..

turn that last one (swinging one) into a less saturated, higher contasted image and it will work better

benny

Dresser wrote in post #7976247
I personally dont like any of them. Backgrounds are pretty boring and it is what it is a bride in a pond

very constructive criticism

Fuddy-duddy alert here.

I see no merit, photographically or otherwise, in encouraging someone to destroy a dress for which they paid hundreds or thousands of dollars. Please don't tell me that it's an attempt to express contempt for the money-grabbing wedding industry. If so, then one could take equally entertaining pictures of taking a sledge hammer to the limo or the photographer's equipment, or feeding the wedding bouquet to a goat. If this is the kind of photography that is now the cutting edge of wedding work, count me out.

I put it in the same category as those rock stars who destroy their instruments at the end of the concert. You know there's some poor kid somewhere who would sell his soul for one of those guitars. Likewise for a one-time-use wedding gown. Give it to the Salvation Army for somebody who can't afford a designer dress. I'd like to see someone do a photographic essay on that.

joedlh wrote in post #8917672
Fuddy-duddy alert here.

I see no merit, photographically or otherwise, in encouraging someone to destroy a dress for which they paid hundreds or thousands of dollars.

You must have missed my first post where I said we picked up the dress for $3.

Is this the place to ventilate anti-TTD feelings?

Of all TTD threads here, you came to offer your anti-TTD comments on this thread, where they spent $3 dollars on the dress. Let me tell you one thing. I have had many TTD sessions now, and in none of them the dress was ruined. The girls just sent the dress to the laundry and was just as good as when the reception was over. A little dirt, mud and water won't destroy the dress. But you know what the brides do with their dresses after cleaning? they put it away in a plastic bags and save it as a memory of the most important day of their lives (so far).

It makes no sense to me to try to dictate these people what to do with their dresses. They worked hard to pay for the dress, so it's their decision to do whatever they want with it. We're not talking about an extremely important item here, it's not, let's say.. medicine they are throwing away. It's just a dress, a dress that is only meaningful to the woman who used it.

Besides, your opinion, a very respectable one, has been posted before many times (not by you perhaps, but by some others who share the same idea) but I don't think any of us who do these sessions are going to stop doing them after reading these comments.

Let's talk about the photos, shall we?

As someone said before, I don't like the backgrounds in all but no. 4, and even that one, is not really great, it's just not bad either. I think many of them would benefit from a shallower depth of field.

About the dress, I would have gotten rid of the semi-transparent top part and the sleeves, it would look much more modern IMO.

And of course, her facial expressions. She is very pretty, but you need to direct her to have either more relaxed facial expression or tell her a joke to make her laugh, like in the last picture in the swing.. my favorite because of her fun expression.

It's great to have her available to practice, I bet it was a fun excercise!

I like them, if that's the way she looks, then she probably likes them as well. I like five the most. The one where she is haveing fun is the worse one, with the leg sticking out.