As a documentary wedding photographer I’m there to tell the story of the wedding day through pictures. As such, context is very important in my work. I look for angles, viewpoints and anything interesting within a scene that I can use to make a picture more relevant, and I will often see the shot I want to capture before anything has actually happened, then wait for a moment to unfold before I take my picture.

Take this shot of the Bride having her hair prepared at a local hair salon. I actually saw this shot before the Bride even arrived. I was there a good 15 minutes before the Bride, so I had time to look around the salon for anything that would help me tell the story of this part of the day. I spotted this seat nearest to the window and knew that the bottles stood to the right would add context and make an interesting picture. It was also the best lit seat in the Salon, with wonderful diffused side lighting from the large salon window.

And so with the shot already in my mind, it was simply a case of returning to that spot when the right moment presented itself, placing the Bride on a third for a neat and balanced composition.

Shot on a Canon 5D with 85mm f/1.8, Manual Exposure Mode, 1/160 sec, f/2, 400 ISO.