This Is How: ‘Sexy Hotdog’ by Jordanna Marston
In the nineteenth of our regular series of documentary wedding photography tips it’s an honour to have the fantastic Jordanna Marston telling us all about this iconic capture of hers, including insights into capturing personality, the fun, humour and energy of the day, non-stereotypical imagery and editing out distractions.
This image is a personal favourite of mine because it ticks a lot of my boxes and represents a lot of what my work is about: It’s colourful; it’s characterful; it’s humorous and it’s very British.
This image was taken at about 8 in the evening just as the evening guests were arriving and the evening BBQ was being given out. Naturally, being a wedding photographer I was hanging around the food…jokes aside my job was coming to a close and it was truly one of those days that I was not at all in a hurry to leave at all. It had been a fantastic day – the weather Gods had been amazing and the guests were all so friendly. It was one of those days where the stars just align – we all have them from time to time – and I had found myself totally in my element through every aspect of the day.
The bride was one of 8 sisters all of whom would be bridesmaids – I’ll be honest the prospect of which was enough to terrify me before I had met them all – but once I had they were such a good laugh, easy to work with not to mention gorgeous.
This photo is of the youngest sister who quickly approached the evening BBQ with 2 of her sister’s boyfriends. One of them made a joke involving her and how much she loves sausage…I’ll leave it to your imagination…and she did her tremendous sexy sausage face – which I just happened to be there to capture – before bursting into raucous laughter. Nice one lads – I’ll get back to them in a mo.
My approach to a wedding day is very much one of a documentary photographer. I, of course, shoot some family groups and a handful of portraits of the couple but I believe the majority of people connect with my work for my personality packed candids. My ideal clients are creative, fun loving, stylish and laid back. They say knickers to tradition for traditions sake and they definitely do not take themselves too seriously and they often say that, “although the photography is very important to us – we just want to have the most fun day ever.” Suits me!
This image has definitely become one of my portfolio definers – yes I can do emotional too…but it is humour and energy that really gets me going and it is the fun of day that I seek out. I totally get that this image might not get the thumbs up from everyone and it is certainly not a stereotypical wedding image but I am 100% cool with that.
So back to the lads – well, originally they were in the background of the frame but they had to go. Ordinarily I try to get my frames as right as I can within the camera but I’m afraid I found the lads a distraction and I wanted the relationship between the bridesmaid and the hotdog to be the only focus. So they were removed in Photoshop.
Original image
After
They did, however, make it in the frame that came next – where they were all creasing with laughter:
The colours, bunny ears, the repetition of red and the cult bottle are bonuses that make this image very pleasing to me.
You can see more of Jordanna’s work on her website, or here on her profile on This is Reportage.
If you found this article interesting, we have lots of other ‘This Is How…’ posts by our TiR members over here.
