Throughout the month of November, our Photo of the Day series will be taken over by each of Rangefinder‘s newly minted 30 Rising Stars of Wedding Photography in 2019. The 30 honorees are featured in our November issue, and each of their full, 30-photo submissions, reviewed by the competition judges, can be found in our online gallery. For more behind-the-scenes insights, follow us on Instagram.

Manos Mathioudakis and Georgia Kontodimou of Me & Georgia look at wedding photography cinematically. They prefer to let the day flow as intended without intervening or worrying about a shot list. And having documented mostly Greek weddings so far (being based in Crete), those days are usually “quite massive events,” they say, “which has trained us to locate and capture emotional moments and moments of calmness among the hustle and bustle of a big crowd.”

They shoot both digital and film but lean on the aesthetic derived from film and try to “remove the digital ‘feel’” from those photos.

Below are their behind-the-scenes insights on three of the photos from their submission this year.

This niece was looking with so much love and admiration, but also curiosity, at her aunt as she was getting ready for her wedding in Monemvasia, Greece. Their interaction left us no choice but to photograph it right away. Our only concern was to not distract them and make them lose that precious and sincere expression. As chaotic as a wedding can be (especially in Greece), trying to find little moments of calm is very important to us. To achieve this, the only way is to let yourself relax, take a step back, slow your pace. Only when you are calm will you be able to see the calmness.

Bettina, the bride, had decided to do her own wedding makeup, and she was trying to find a convenient place to do so. We had spotted the mirror hanging on the wall the moment we entered the hotel room in Rethymno, Crete, so we suggested she put the mirror in the window and do her makeup there. We then gave her and her sister space to go on with the preparation, wandering quietly around the room and trying to find the best angle to depict the whole atmosphere. Sometimes, you have to make just a small intervention to set the scene and then let things roll effortlessly.

This was taken during a few minutes of a couple session after a civil wedding in Pessac, the Bordeaux region of France, in the early afternoon. It is one of our most favorites. Georgia was one of the most elegant brides we’ve had the chance to photograph so far, so we really wanted to showcase this in a simple and austere portrait. We used the soft and romantic light that came through the trees and combined it with a steady pose in order to showcase and emphasize the bride’s elegance. Using black and white also enhanced the result we wanted to achieve.