Island bridal shoot taps local, national business
By Laura Raskin
Independent Arts Writer

Lindsay Mohr models a Wearkstatt wedding dress at Congdon's Pharmacy (above, right) on Friday, one of the photo shoot locations where wedding photographer Claudia Kronenberg (holding drink, above, left) was showcasing her new style.

If you saw a bride in white running from Main Street from Bartlett’s Greenhouse to the Great Harbor Yacht Club on Friday, it was not because she got cold feet.

Two models dressed as brides stopped at about seven locations on the island, trying not to drag their couture dresses on the ground or smudge their impeccable makeup. It was all part of wedding photographer Claudia Kronenberg’s master plan.

The photographs will end up as a spread in N Magazine. Today, Kronenberg will take her team and the same models to Boston for a similar shoot, after which she will pitch the photos to national bridal magazines.

It is all to showcase a cutting edge style of wedding photography that Kronenberg learned at a workshop taught by an Australian photographer and hopes to introduce on the island, where, she said, some of the finest weddings take place.]

“My goal is to keep my end of it at the world class level,” said Kronenberg, who has a studio on Centre Street.

Kronenberg explained that Australia is taking a different approach to wedding photography – a classic, “Grace Kelly,” Hollywood glamour look, shot at unexpected locations.

To that end, it felt like a movie set at Congdon’s Pharmacy on Friday where model Lindsay Mohr, dressed in a low-cut Wearkstatt dress with buttons down the back, sat at the old fashioned soda counter with cameras pointed at her.

Kronenberg has been a wedding photographer on the island for 13 years.

“I’m looking really to trend-set,” she said.

Wedding photography brings to mind a semi-silent observer, blending in with the crowd and capturing a kiss or a glance or tired flower girl; what bride has time on her big day to abandon her crowd for, say, a shot at the local pub?

Kronenberg’s new style does not have to be a disruption and clients will take the time to get beautiful shots.

“It requires people to have some fun. They’re willing to find some extra time because they want to show off scenes of Nantucket,” she said.

She asks people, “What’s the most important thing about a photo? “They usually answer, ‘I want to look good. I want to look killer.’ That takes a commitment of time,” she said.

After Kronenberg came up with the idea for Friday’s shoot, she needed dresses. And models.

The dresses came when Kronenberg’s assistant, Brea McDonald, decided that there was nothing wrong with asking: She got on the phone with some of her favorite designers.

Reem Acra, a New York designer, lent two dresses. The rest flowed in. There was a Vera Wang, and several stores in Boston pitched in a few from Carolina Herrera, Melissa Sweet, Pricilla, Wearkstatt and Justina McCaffrey.

The models — the other is Marie Soverino, 24 — are Nantucket natives. Both are landscapers. The day Mohr, 25, appeared in Kronenberg’s studio, she was dressed in Carharts and muddy from head to toe, but Kronenberg had found who she wanted, she said.

A team of people donated goods and services to the shoot. Kronenberg wanted makeup artist Laura Leigh Wright of Crush Cosmetics to give Mohr an edgy look and Soverino a classic one.

“They totally got the look that we wanted. I can’t say enough about the people who worked for us,” said Kronenberg.

Kronenberg hopes to create the same buzz in Boston today, when she photographs the women there. She has always had a natural and documentary style. This new approach will complement that.

“It influences the way I work with light and people. I make them feel more glamorous,” she said.