Welcome to LENSEL. Your inside word. Your secret weapon. The weekly email for wedding photographers, designed to keep you ahead of the game.

Here’s what we have for you today:

• The low down on the blurry photo trend

• The news for photographers

• Including the criminal wedding photographer - hopefully not you.

• Some wild ideas about AI wedding inspo
  
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TECHNIQUE

Blurry Photos: Art or Mistake?

A few weeks ago we posted a reel over on our instagram discussing the trend of blurry wedding photos. We asked ‘Is this art or is it a mistake?’ The response was wild and slightly heated. You can view the reel HERE.

The Problem..
Firstly, let us say, we LOVE a good blurry photo. But we came out hot to claim that there are lot of photographers jumping on this trend right now and blurry everything and anything. Innocent shoes on a chair - blurry. A beautiful building - completely blurred out of existence. We, and many of you, weren’t so sure this is a good idea… Here’s what a few commenters had to say:

But Listen…
While noting the bad use of this trend, there was also a lot of love for the blur. Many noted that motion blur communicate emotion and feeling in a way a sharp image sometime can’t. Others noted that there’s also a real nostalgia to it. Right on! A blurry image might hark back to a time when cameras weren’t so technically amazing and slow shutter speeds were sometimes unavoidable.

So maybe it’s not just trend, maybe it’s a photographic technique used to convey emotion and tell stories. Yes! We would tend to agree.

A Few Rules…
A few other helpful comments gave us a few guidelines for those who want to dive into this and make some blurry images.

1. Blur things that are move. A good general rule is “the subject moves, not your camera”

2. Make sure you can still see your subject. Not much worse than not being able to understand what is even in the image… Or warping a face beyond recognition.

3. Use it to break up a scene or a gallery. To show movement from one scene to another. But don’t make whole scenes or key moments blurry.

4. Generally a shutter speed of ‘1/your focal length’ works well. Shooting 35mm?1/30 or 1/40. 85mm? 1/80. 🙌🏼

The magic when it is done well:

NEWS

Happening this Week

• Everyone is jumping on the X100IV bandwagon - is a ‘retro’ styled camera coming from Canon?

• In a wild story, this wedding photographer is being convicted after some very shady dealings. Watch the news story here.

• A sneak peek into what might come next to bridal fashion. Here’s a wrap from VOGUE of dress trends from the Awards week in Hollywood.

• When a wedding photographer shoots a fashion event: See this incredible set of images from @jackhenryphoto at Cartier’s latest event at the Sydney Opera House.

• For all you Canon 28-70 users, there could be another option coming soon. Sigma’s patented a new 28-70 f2 design.

• Danilo and Sharon released their ‘Flash Masterclass” Get 20% off using the code “LENSEL20” here.

AI

Wedding Inspo from AI?

We’ve all moodboarded from Pinterest. Screenshotted from Instagram. Pulled together images to inspire us to copy things we’ve seen before…
I mean… Create something unique and new.

But what is AI could help us actually imagine something new and never seen before?

This agency is creating unique AI ad campaigns for a jewellery brand that show how you can generate unique wedding content, describing perspective, types of lenses shot, and even posing ideas. Check out their AI generated wedding in St Moritz.

So can AI push real wedding photography and help us think outside of the box? Perhaps you could actually generate you something new, not just regurgitate (wow what a picture) something someone has done before.

On a slight tangent, legendary wedding photographer, Jonas Peterson, is using AI to imagine a whole new world.

Lastly, a few more artists pulling together wedding concepts that could inspire real weddings. And real wedding photos.