You’ll often hear us talk about loca­tion and how inte­gral it is to sto­ry, but maybe even more impor­tant is the time of day you shoot at that loca­tion. Light can change dras­ti­cal­ly through­out the day and film­ing at just the right time can ren­der a bland loca­tion beau­ti­ful, or make a great loca­tion even greater. Not to say we can take full cred­it for just how stun­ning the cin­e­matog­ra­phy in Madia and Adam’s wed­ding film is. When they told us they want­ed to shoot a seg­ment at their cot­tage, we sim­ply sug­gest­ed that they build a bon­fire at dusk.

Light can change dras­ti­cal­ly through­out the day and film­ing at just the right time can ren­der a bland loca­tion beau­ti­ful, or make a great loca­tion even greater.

What we did­n’t know then is that we would cap­ture the most strik­ing spec­ta­cle as the sun dis­ap­peared behind the hori­zon, colours blend­ing into each oth­er and chang­ing as the sun’s rays shone through and part­ed clouds, flocks of seag­ulls fly­ing across the water in a scene of Nation­al Geographic-esque pro­por­tions. It was utter­ly magical.

But beyond just how visu­al­ly strik­ing these scenes are, the light, along with Madia and Adam’s nar­ra­tion and a per­fect­ly ambi­ent score from Alaskan Tapes, helps estab­lish the atmos­pher­ic and dream­like tone that under­scores the cot­tage scenes and extends to their beau­ti­ful wed­ding day at Bel­lvue Manor.

We’re big believ­ers in nar­ra­tives that come full cir­cle. When a film begins and clos­es with the same motif — whether that be a speech, a scene, or a visu­al cue — it makes the nar­ra­tive feel com­plete. Like­wise, we knew we had to begin this sto­ry with the bon­fire get­ting start­ed, and close it with the cou­ple sit­ting by the fire, incred­i­ble sun­set in the back­ground. The hard­est part with doing some­thing like this is find­ing the right tran­si­tion to seam­less­ly blend the wed­ding day back to the por­trait shoot with­out total­ly jar­ring the view­ing expe­ri­ence for your audi­ence. Madi­a’s dad gave us that per­fect transition.

Not only was his speech a beau­ti­ful send­off to the cou­ple and a touch­ing way to end this intrin­si­cal­ly ethe­re­al film, but as he told them it was time for them to fly away and find their hap­pi­ness in their new future togeth­er, we could­n’t help but think of those seag­ulls fly­ing across the sky on that vibrant sum­mer evening at the cot­tage. Just like that, their sto­ry came full circle.