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December 10, 2011
During the past week I did a major (but nearly transparent) change to my one website. My wedding & portrait photography blog, One Perfect Moment, now resides on the base domain, and not in the /blog/ folder. The change was purely to clean up the website and simplify a bunch of things. No changes to the actual content, aside from the usual regular updates.
The reason why I mention this, is that I know a fair number of people who regularly follow the Tangents blog, also has the One Perfect Moment site on their RSS feed. This is the new RSS feed for One Perfect Moment. So please update your RSS feed.
As as aside: as I mentioned in my page on my style in photography, was that the name, One Perfect Moment, encapsulated the ideal that I strive for with photography – capturing essential and distinctive moments. It derives from the idea of the ‘Decisive Moment’ in photography where everything just falls perfectly into place. Hence … One Perfect Moment.
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November 25, 2011
wedding photography: bride & groom portraits with video light
For that dramatic Hollywood look, a video light is probably the easiest light to use, especially when there is the need to work fast like on a wedding day. With Alli & Scott’s engagement photo session, I knew I’d be working with a couple that would easily go along with any ideas that we’d come up with. We worked indoors at the Temple Israel in Long Island, New York, and there were all kinds of interesting nooks to explore.
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November 14, 2011
wedding photography – when technique, style & choice of equipment converge
With Manhattan as a back-drop, I wanted a cinematic look for the photograph of Nima and Peter. A magnificent view behind them as they snuggle in. While I approach wedding photography with my eye on telling the story of the day, for me, where a photographer really reveals a specific style, is in the portraits of the bride and groom.
I wanted a romantic look to this sequence of images, so there were specific choices to be made in terms of equipment, camera settings and the lighting. So let’s run through the thought-process.
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November 2, 2011
wedding photography – looking for those key moments
Wedding photography has become more modern in style over the past decade or so. Instead of overly posed images, the general trend is now more of a story-telling (or photo-journalistic) style. It’s now as important to capture the day’s events as it unfolds, as it is to get beautiful portraits of the couple and families. As photographers we’re now much more focused on the moments and the gestures that tell the story.
With this intent, I really try and observe the day as closely as I can, capturing what I hope are the key moments. With experience, this anticipation and timing becomes second nature. (And as an aside, you can’t do this if you are constantly checking your camera’s preview.)
What we can’t always foresee, is the specific value that some photographs might hold …
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October 19, 2011
wedding photography – favorite image – city lights
This photo from a event wedding received a lot of favorable comments when I posted it on my Facebook page, as well as questions about how it was shot.
For the romantic portraits, I often take a couple around the venue – the light is just different than during the day. This is where video light comes into its own. Here though, I wanted some of the city lights and light from the traffic outside the venue to appear in the background. The way I envisioned it, was as a stream of cars behind them, but in the first few test images, the cars were too distinct, even at f2.8 and 200mm focal length. Looking at how the approaching cars lined up at the traffic intersection, I decided to use that instead, and let the cars’ headlights flare out.
Then I just needed some light on the couple to complete the image …
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September 22, 2011
romantic wedding portraits with video light
By now it should be clear that I’m quite a fan of video lights for the romantic portrait session with a couple. The Incandescent WB of the video light usually matches the existing light fairly well. Because video light has a rapid fall-off in light intensity to the edges of the beam, it doesn’t “flatten” out the light like bounce flash would. In addition, the video light can seem quite natural in context of the existing light, and not even look like additional lighting. Somehow the light just appears to be great right there.
Here are two of my favorite images from a recent wedding, where I had my assistant hold up an LED video light to help light the couple. (It’s the same wedding where I used the black foamie thing during the indoor ceremony.)
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September 8, 2011
You’re a photographer, but at a wedding as a guest? Well, then just be a guest.
A recent article on the Off-Beat Bride blog, dealt with the topic of the unplugged wedding. They mention some brides now request guests switch off their cameras, and rather be in the moment and enjoy the wedding. I truly want every photographer, whether professional, amateur, or at any level, to read that article and take it to heart.
If you’ve been to a wedding and observed the people there, you will surely have noticed the barrage of cameras. It is especially prevalent during key moments such as the bride entering the ceremony with her dad. What you’d also notice is that as soon as the bride has swept past any guest with a camera, they are immediately checking their cameras. Engrossed in the image on the back of their cameras with their heads down, they give the bride and groom only a further glance again as something to photograph.
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August 18, 2011
wedding photography – developing a personal style
I’ve been mulling a while now over a question someone asked me about how long I think it took to develop a personal style in photography.
“What does it take, and how many years do you think it generally takes a photographer to develop their own personal style, meaning, you can look at a photograph and know who took it. Not everyone would know, but some people could tell it’s your style. I think very few photographers actually have their own style and I’m curious what you think it took to get there.”
How long do I think it takes? A life-time. But that’s too glib an answer, even though I think it is a never-ending journey as a photographer – honing your style along with your technique, understanding and skill. So how does one develop a personal style in photography?
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August 12, 2011
wedding photography – the romantic portraits – more than just, “and now, kiss”
More frequently than not, when looking at the work of other photographers, I see that the romantic portraits of the couple are just of them kissing. Having worked with a number of photographers over the years, I’ve also seen how the instruction “and now, kiss”, becomes reflexive. Pose the couple; have them look at each other … *snap* … and now kiss … *snap*. And then the photographer takes no other photos of the couple at that specific place. Yet, there are more (and perhaps even better) ways to show intimacy in the romantic portraits than just having the couple kiss …
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August 11, 2011
4 tips on selling wedding albums
We all want our clients to get nice wedding albums. On their 50th wedding anniversary, this will be the one thing that they will cherish from their wedding. But, being a big investment, clients often need to be convinced of the value.
Selling really isn’t that hard, and selling albums isn’t that hard if you have a few tips that will get you launched. Here are some simple strategies for selling albums in a straightforward way, by making your clients want the albums.
photography & design by Frank Salas, Orange County Wedding Photographer
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