Stone Barn Wedding by Philippe Cheng [RF Wedding of the Week]
August 12, 2015
I first had the privilege of interviewing Philippe Cheng in 2007 for a book I was writing on wedding photography—I can vividly recall visiting the studio space he shared in downtown Manhattan with equally talented fellow shooters John Dolan and Holger Thoss. I chose Cheng to be featured in my book, Wedding Photographers Unveiled (Amphoto, 2009), because I fell in love with his lush colors, fine art feel and documentary approach. Imagine my joy, then, when he recently stopped by to show me an advance galley of his new book, Still: The East End Photographs (which, by the way, is exquisite). I instantly asked if he had any weddings to share and he was gracious enough to send me this one, of couple Amanda and Steven, at Stone Barns, Pocantico Hills, New York.
“The couple was my center of gravity and the images are about this,” explains Cheng, who approached this warm fall day “in the moment and with feeling.”
For Cheng, who shot both digital and film here, capturing a wedding is likened to a film unfolding frame by frame. He says that each shot is near and dear to him. “Each frame is, in a way, important and is based on the emotional content of the image and sequence that it represents.”
Using just a Canon 5D and RolleiFlex, his only gripe was that he wished “the light had faded slower.”
Check out more Weddings of the Week, and email Jacqueline Tobin with submissions.