A lifestyle _ photographs
Sex, vows and videotape
By Serena Makofsky
A July wedding. Kate Moss stood at the altar with Jamie Hince, the guitarist for The Kills. Various luminaries were in attendance, among them Marc Jacobs, Manolo Blahnik, Stefano Pilati and Karen Elson. Photographer Terry Richardson showed up and dove right in, snapping shots of the couple and the guests, though Moss and Hince had hired Mario Testino as the official wedding photographer. A 248
Rather than get in a huff about Richardson’s impromptu photo shoot, Moss kept the party going and invited Richardson to the honeymoon suite at the Ritz hotel, where he photographed the couple in various stages of dress (groom) and undress (bride) amid the rumpled sheets. A dramatic black-andwhite image of Hince seated against the upholstered headboard, embracing a supine Moss who had one breast exposed, made its way into magazines and gossip columns and across the interwebs. Hence, a trend was born, at least among the rich, famous and photogenic. Known as “morning after” photo shoots, these images capture couples in their honeymoon glory, crossing the threshold of the hotel suite,
romping in their rooms and, for the bravest among them, revealing intimate moments. Forget the stilted smiles and formal postures of wedding day portraits. Smudged makeup, bedhead and that look of elation/exhaustion that only a wedding and honeymoon produces are de rigueur for the genre. As trend reporter Lexi Nisita commented on the fashion blog Refinery29, “We’re all for stepping out of the box when it comes to wedding photography…by the end of summer, we’ve seen way too many…images of a beautiful bride on a beach that look like they belong in a frame in the home décor section of Target.” You can save those sexy morning after photos in a locked box under the bed.
©Mélanie Dagher
Capture yourself forever, the morning after