|
April 4, 2012
bridal portrait – working with the available light
This striking portrait is of Rachel, a bride whose wedding I photographed yesterday. Yes, a Tuesday wedding! The prep was at a hotel on the Jersey shore, and when Rachel was ready, I wanted to shoot a few straight-forward portraits there in the hotel. There was a lot of light in the hotel room itself, but the decor was white – which helps for high-key portraits. But I wanted some variety.
So I scouted around, and decided to do some photographs in the passage outside her hotel room. Since it was a wedding on the Jersey shore, and we did other portraits later on, on the beach, I thought this bright wallpaper wouldn’t be too inappropriate as a backdrop. Now it was just a question of light …
(more…)
Comments (20)
February 24, 2012
romantic wedding portraits – working with an idea
I was down in Baltimore last weekend, photographing a wedding there. The groom, Chris, follows the Tangents blog, and he and Lindsay sought me out as their wedding photographer. While this is hugely flattering, there is now a little extra pressure to live up to and even exceed expectations!
(more…)
Comments (19)
February 1, 2012
bounce flash photography & the inverse square law
After you’re done noticing the decorated candles that the bride is holding while dancing with the groom (a tradition in Palestinian weddings), you may well notice how evenly lit this photograph is – from foreground to background.
The people visible in the background seen there between the bride and the groom, are nearly as well lit as the bride and groom. Because this was on-camera bounce flash, the background will be brighter than may have been anticipated. If I had used direct flash, or flash with a diffuser cup or bounce card, my background would’ve been much darker. This is because when we bounce flash behind us, the Inverse Square Law works for us.
This gets interesting, but hopefully we can make it less complicated than the topic often appears. So hang in there …
(more…)
Comments (43)
January 23, 2012
a simple lighting setup for photographing the wedding formals
Photographing a wedding can be pretty hectic at times, especially as it so often becomes the photographer’s de facto responsibility to keep everything on track. The formal photo session specifically is a part of the day that many photographers find challenging. (The other is photographing the wedding processional.)
When photographing the family portraits, you can really help yourself by nailing your lighting. Get it down. Then you can concentrate on getting the groups together, and concentrate on posing the groups. But your lighting works! Much less stress.
I mostly work with the Quantum flashes since they are workhorses and don’t melt when used hard. They also have a bit more power than a speedlight. But quite often, I like working with a speedlight setup …
(more…)
Comments (30)
January 16, 2012
exposure metering – let your background blow out!
Too often there’s the desire for us to bring the detail in our backgrounds back in by adding flash. But there are times when the image will be stronger if we just allow the background to completely blow out. It especially works in our favor if the background is cluttered, because then by letting the background completely over-expose, we can simplify our composition.
(more…)
Comments (10)
January 10, 2012
wedding photography – using bounce flash outside
When working with a couple during the romantic portrait session, there’s the need to bring variety to the images – not just in posing and composition, but also in terms of light & lighting. For this reason I use a variety – available light; video light; off-camera flash and on-camera bounce flash. I really like using on-camera bounce flash since it is such an easy light source to use, always at hand. There was a recent article on using bounce flash outdoors, but I’d like to add another example where I used bounce flash outside a wedding venue. Let’s look at the sequence of images …
(more…)
Comments (31)
January 3, 2012
2011 was another busy year for me as a wedding photographer. This slideshow features some of my favorite wedding and engagement session images of 2011.
(Soundtrack courtesy of TripleScoopMusic.)
(more…)
Comments (12)
December 28, 2011
Alli & Scott – their wedding day – fusion clip
The latest Fusion clip where we blend video and stills to give a short form overview of the wedding day, is of Alli and Scott’s wedding. They were also the couple in the recent article on photographing the bride & groom’s portraits with video light.
The Fusion clip was edited in iMovie, with the soundtrack from Triple Scoop Music.
More interesting is the thought-process that went into choosing the camera settings for the Canon 5D mk II that the video clips were shot with …
(more…)
Comments (17)
December 15, 2011
wedding photography – tips on posing – asymmetry
When working with a bride and groom for their portraits, there are a few ideas that I know will work. You have to have somewhere to start. Some fail-safe ideas for poses that allow you to at least get the essential images. From there on, I try to improvise a little, depending on the personalities of the couple, and also the place where we find ourselves, and the light. So opportunity does sway the portrait session a fair amount.
I prefer working this way, rather than applying a more mechanical “flow posing” technique. I feel that allowing opportunity and the couple themselves to guide the photo session to an extent – is a more natural way of working towards definitive portraits of the couple.
This does mean that you need to *look* at the couple, and how they appear within the camera’s frame … and then gently adjust their pose if necessary. At this point then, it becomes more about photographic composition. Now we need to look at balance and symmetry … and asymmetry.
One key tip that I rely on, is that while a symmetrical pose can be striking … the easiest way to break it up and get more variety, is to change the position of hands and feet. One hand lower than the other. A different level. The same for how you position feet – one foot on a different level than the other. Up / Down. Front / Back.
Here’s a sequence to show the thought-process …
(more…)
Comments (9)
December 12, 2011
back-lighting with flash for dramatic silhouetted wedding portraits
One of the easiest ways to create dramatic light for a silhouette when photographing the wedding portraits, is to add a flash behind the couple. The beauty of this is that there is a fair amount of leeway as to what would work. We need not be all that exact, but there are some a few things we should check …
(more…)
Comments (10)
Older Posts »
|
|
