This Is How: ‘The Groom’s Flipside’ by Pete Farrell
We’re honoured to have the fantastic Pete Farrell of Pixies in the Cellar with us today for the twenty-seventh of our ‘This is How…’ posts, telling us how he got this recent Reportage Award. Really great tips on story-telling, capturing reactions, anticipation, composition and more…
A totally packed wedding breakfast leading on to a very lively set of speeches, set in Lancashire’s Browsholme Hall’s huge rustic barn.
The bestman’s speech utilised the venue’s built-in projector screen, which effectively cut off part of the room… and guests! Yet with the screen being translucent they stayed put, this created quite a strange scene from my perspective.
Nearly everyone was now staring towards the screen and this small group, it became a great little story-telling moment, all that needed to be done was get in position and wait for an interesting image and reaction… boom, couldn’t have been better! The groom lay down in a rather self-incriminating fashion and the reaction was perfect with all five guests transfixed on the reverse image on the projector screen. All guests looking, all showing their own character in their reactions.
Shot with my go-to 35mm f1.4 which framed and split the scene perfectly.
These are the moments you hope for shooting documentary, the sheer thrill of anticipation, preparation and execution are together exciting and rewarding, capturing moments that people are rarely even aware of yet perfectly illustrate or encapsulate a moment with a fleeting frame.
You can see more of Pete’s work on his website, and here on his TiR profile.
If you enjoyed this post, you may be interested in more ‘This Is How…’ posts by our TiR members over here.
