We wrap up the year with some of our favorite wedding photos and portraits by Nadine Van Biljon, MP Singh, Daniel G. Weiss and George Novac.

This image of couple Jo and Tom might be one of London photographer Nadine Van Biljon‘s favorite photos she’s ever taken. “The big wedding they had planned became a casualty of Covid-19 so they switched things up to have an intimate ceremony on a beach on the West Coast of Scotland with their immediate family,” she explains. “We’d had the most glorious weather there all week but come the exact time of their wedding it all changed. The wind picked up and the cold set in but they braved it through their vows. As the ceremony was concluding the apocalyptic clouds rolled in and the heavens opened… 

“They all started dashing for the cars parked up by the dunes,” the photographer continues. “The sun-worshipping human in me was inclined to also make a dash for it, and keep the cameras and myself dry, but the photographer in me followed the instinct to keep shooting. I was running backwards, over the pebbles, seaweed and a few rocks but kept shooting the whole time, and in amongst a load of decidedly average frames was this gem. I love that their body language conveys the wildness of the moment, yet bride Jo is still smiling through it all. She was an absolute trooper whose spirits would not be dampened!”

[Read: How to Create Compelling Silhouettes in Your Photography]

When it comes to taking wedding photos, this next one, also by Van Biljon, is quite unique. Couple Alex and Alex, from Charlotte, North Carolina, flew all their friends and family over to southwest France where Alex (bride) au-paired for a while and fell in love with the region,” Van Biljon explains. “For their rehearsal dinner they picked something a little different to treat their guests and opted for a contemporary restaurant, La Terrasse Rouge, overlooking the vineyards of Saint-Émilion, France.”

Van Biljon says the views were pretty but she wanted to capture something atmospheric that celebrated the unique beauty of that place, set amongst the more traditional chateaus typical of the area, but nothing that special was presenting itself.

“They’d only booked me for a couple of hours coverage that night, and courtesy of a very delayed inbound flight I had yet to reach my hotel another hour away before check in closed,” says Van Biljon. “As I was loading my kit into the back of the car, I turned around and spotted the sunset turning a deeper shade of red, matching the uplighting on the red walls of the aptly named restaurant. I ran back up there and pitched my vision to my couple. It did require some steady footing (don’t worry, it wasn’t reckless) and an element of bravery but they were great sports and happy to indulge me.  It would have been so easy to just leave then—I just made check in by the skin of my teeth as the hotel owner was about to lock up for the night and leave—but I’m so glad I headed back there to get ’the shot’ that I had been hoping for all night.”

This image below was taken in San Jose, CA-based photographer MP Singh‘s garage—it’s a long exposure single shot, done in camera with flash firing three times. 

“I asked the model to look down first, then straight and finally up,” he recalls. “Then I fired the flash manually with remote trigger in all the positions. The important part is to keep the room totally dark to avoid any unwanted light spills during long exposure. I also wanted to do the short lighting for the face, so the position of the flash was critical. The flash was at full power considering we were at f/13 and using a softbox. (Edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.)

[Read: 10 Tips for Making the Most of Your Beach Photoshoots]

Daniel G. Weiss says he began his photo project titled In The Deep during Covid-19. “Like so many others, I had so much extra time on my creative hands,” he explains. “Having worked in the water already and owning a water housing, I decided to use that extra time productively. I started to swim out to where the waves where breaking at my local New York beach and taking pictures of the waves during either sunrise or sunset—I was creating portraits of the waves so to speak. This was often done during the cold winter months and I was still swimming out in the dead of winter thanks to a thick wetsuit and pair of fins. As Covid started to recede, I found that I had a body of Fine Art work that was very personal to me (I am a lifelong swimmer and a beach lover). Eventually, I was also able to start to selling this work to clients  for home and office decor.”

The full set of images can be seen at dannywprints.com. 

Italy-based wedding photographer George Novac says that what he loves about this bridal portrait below is the movement and the dynamics. “We were almost at the end of the portrait session and we were on our way back when I saw this incredible light coming from behind the trees and I asked the bride to swing from left to right, which caused her gown to rise,” says Novac. “I think I took 30 images of that scene to make sure I had the perfect one.”

We asked Novac to explain his approach to wedding photos in general: “When I shoot a wedding I like to tell the story as it unfolds. I like to be like a shadow and capture all the love and magic in the air. My couples loves to have a stress-free experience with me and I want to give them this kind of experience. They really love the modern, elegant and timeless aesthetic of my style and I’m really great full for this.”

Dig into our Photo of the Day archives for even more eye-catching wedding photos and portraits. Submit your wedding, editorial, documentary and other interesting and eye-catching portraits to: [email protected].