We have a little saying in the Hello May office. ‘We don’t choose the cover image, the cover image chooses us’. This simply means the image that jumps out at us the most, the one that, whilst flicking through thousands and thousands of images, makes us stop and go ‘wow’ – that’s the image that will end up on our cover.
We only feature real couples on our covers. We do this to further support Australian vendors and we are proud to say, besides colour correcting before going to print, we do not photoshop our images in any way shape or form.
Like any magazine we have a set style guide we like to follow. We always feature both the bride and groom (or groom and groom or bride and bride) full length and side by side. You’d be surprised how many different ways a couple can stand side by side together, and if you take a look back at our previous issues, you’ll see what we mean.
We tend to shy away from images that are too posed or serious looking. Preferring to showcase a sweet moment between the couple instead. They can be looking at each other, or cracking up laughing or looking forward at the photographer. We are not after staged too-cool-for-school photos and more often than not the cover image we choose is the frame AFTER the more serious portrait one, the one where the couple are relaxed and have let their guard down a little.
There are of course a few technical things, composition wise, we suggest you keep in mind should you be shooting a portrait you hope to see on a cover of Hello May one day but we just kindly ask you not discuss this with the couple on the day.
- You can shoot horizontally or vertically but you need to ensure there is enough ground at
the base of the couples feet for cover lines and bleed.
- We also need enough space either side of the couple to be able to size and centre them as
we see fit. For this reason most of our covers are often horizontal frames. Sometimes we have to pass up on the perfect cover image simply because it’s shot too tightly and there is not enough room for us to play around with the positioning on the cover. For this reason horizontal images tend to make the cover more often than vertical ones.
- There needs to be quite a large clear area above the couples heads for the Hello May masthead and issue details. We encourage you to check out past issues to see what we mean. A good rule of thumb is to have the horizon line fall somewhere below the couples shoulders.
- We are open to all kinds of settings and backgrounds here at Hello May. Your couple could be standing against a rocky outcrop with nothing but dark and moody clouds in the background, on a dirt road with golden hour sun glistening through the trees or on the beach with a bright blue sky and majestic ocean behind them. We are open to photo’s taken indoors too but clutter free images with nothing too distracting in the background always seem to win out on the day.