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July 10, 2011
wedding photography – lighting large groups
Weddings are one of those occasions when families and friends come together from far and wide. An opportunity to see people they might rarely see otherwise. So it is an important task of any wedding photographer to record this – to get photographs of the various family groups.
This photo is the pull-back shot from one of the big groups I had to photograph at an Indian wedding this weekend. Now, everyone who has been to an Indian wedding, knows that they are sprawling events. There’s lots going on and it can be slightly chaotic at times. So when the bride warned me before the wedding date that there were several large groups of people that she’d love to have photographed, I was ready …
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June 23, 2011
Video & photo fusion is something I’ve started working with recently. The idea with fusion is to create a vibrant blend of selected photographs with short video sections, to give a 5 or 6 minute overview of the wedding day.
As with the previous fusion clips I created with Jessica, my assistant with an attitude, I shot with the Nikon D3 bodies and she shot the HD video sections with the Canon 5D mk II (B&H). It’s a lot of work putting this together, for I think that adding stills and video is more involved than just doing either. But I like the result, and hopefully clients and prospective clients will also be taken with it.
While we’re on the topic of photographing weddings and showing new work to clients – this would be a good time to mention (or even announce! with fanfare!) that the Latest Work blog has been revamped and active again. With 900px wide images, it will hopefully show a selection of my latest work off to best advantage.
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May 23, 2011
wedding photography – a photo-journalistic style … or more posed?
A photographer who attended the recent flash photography workshop here in New York, asked me an interesting question regarding my wedding photography style. His observation was about how I seemed to consistently get such well-timed un-posed and natural looking images with my wedding photography. Since my explanation seemed to surprise him, and even bordered on being a real aha! moment for him, I thought it could serve as an article here which might interest other wedding photographers.
When asked by photographers about my style of wedding photography, I like to reply that I don’t quite subscribe to the purist photojournalism, nor the traditionalist style. I think my approach is more along the lines of get-the-job-done-alism.
Instead of subscribing rigidly to a defined style, I’m there to give the bride and groom the best photographs I can on the day. And for this, my approach has to be flexible …
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April 15, 2011
finding something to bounce your flash off
One of the frequent questions that come up, is what to do when there is nothing to bounce your flash off. When working indoors and there are bounce-able surfaces around me, my first instinct is to use on-camera bounce flash. It is easy to use, and the results can look surprisingly good, especially if you consider the minimal effort that went into it. No extra gear to carry around and set up. But when there is nothing to bounce flash off, you have to adapt your technique …
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April 1, 2011
wedding photography, The Grove, New Jersey
overview: Cherryl & Jim’s wedding at The Grove, NJ
A little bit of info about the video and stills photography …
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March 28, 2011
using video light as fill-light for the romantic wedding portraits
Having just photographed my first wedding of 2011, I’m back in the groove of things. Keeping to the recent theme of showing how video lights are used for photography, I’d like to show a small selection of images of Cherryl and Jim’s wedding where I used a video light to enhance the existing incandescent lighting at the reception venue …
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February 17, 2011
looking for, and using the available light
Let me say this out straight – I hate gazebos. I hate gazebos and fountains and I especially hate having to photograph a couple at whatever landmark/feature that a reception venue has, where every other couple from the last five years has been photographed. There, I’ve said it. I feel better now, with that weight off my shoulders.
Wedding portaits should be about capturing the romance, and capturing the relationship between the couple. I want to show how much they are in love with each other, rather than the wooden structure that the reception venue bought from Home Depot. I would much rather work with the couple and with the light that is available … and augmenting the existing light with some flash or video light if needed.
This photograph from a wedding a few years back, remains one of my favorites in my wedding gallery. The portrait session with Simone and Damien and their family and bridal party was to take place in the late afternoon. The maitre d’ of the venue suggested I use the fountain on the venue’s grounds as a backdrop for the couple.
Instead, I looked at where the light was coming from … and it was stunningly beautiful glowing light. And the best part of it was, the spray from the fountain was lit up by the glow from the late afternoon sun. This created that ethereal looking golden mist behind them.
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January 29, 2011
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It’s quite thrilling to hear that I won the Bride’s Choice Awards 2011 from WeddingWire! This is the 2nd year in a row. This means I’m in the top 5 percent of Wedding Professionals nationwide. Well, actually, it means I am in the Top 5 percent of wedding photographers in New Jersey. But being a percentage, it still holds true for nation-wide.
Working as a wedding photographer has its own reward in how clients appreciate the photography. Even then, it’s a great pleasure to be recognized like this.
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Swinging cameras around on the wedding day is pretty cool, but the hours and hours spent in the office in front of the computer … I’ll take this award as recognition of that as well. ; )
Comments (14)
January 25, 2011
using flash during the wedding ceremony in church
Whether or not to use flash during a wedding ceremony in a church, is a tricky decision to make. You have to weigh the solemnity of the occasion, with the contractual and artistic requirements to create awesomely awesome images.
When to use flash during the church ceremony?
- when there aren’t specific church rules against using flash, and
- the light levels are too low to give correct exposure for the shutter speed, aperture and ISO combination we need.
The decision to use flash, and how to use flash, strongly depends on technology. Before high-ISO capable cameras, it was customary for medium-format film shooters to set up additional lighting. There would be at least one other off-camera flash to “double light” the scene along with the flash on the camera’s bracket.
The modern trend of a more natural look has been made possible by high-ISO capable cameras, along with fast lenses.
For me, this is the way to go .. high ISO settings and wider apertures. Ideally, I’d rather just use the available light, and not use flash at all. However, the lighting in churches is sometimes less than ideal with top-heavy incandescent lights. Then I will use flash to augment the available light …
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Comments (56)
December 15, 2010
Melissa & Dennis – their wedding day from Neil van Niekerk on Vimeo.
review of the Nikon D3100 video capability
Nikon recently released two very interesting D-SLRs – the Nikon D3100 (B&H) and the Nikon D7000 (B&H). Improving on several of the entry-level Nikon D-SLRs, they also offer HD video capability (1080p at 24 fps), and even does so with full-time auto-focus capability.
So when B&H sent me a Nikon D3100 for review, I thought what better test than to start in the deep end, and use it during a wedding to shoot HD video. The intention was to use the HD video from the D3100 along with the still photographs from my usual set of Nikon D3 bodies … and compile this as a stills & video Fusion clip, shown at the top here. I shot the stills, and Jessica, my assistant with an attitude, shot & edited the D3100 video clips. A first attempt at stills/video Fusion for us.
So how did the Nikon D3100 fare? Quite impressively actually …
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Filed under: equipment review, fusion, Nikon, Nikon D-SLR, video clip, wedding photography — Tags: New Jersey wedding photographer, Nikon D3100 review, Nikon D3100 video, review Nikon D3100, wedding photographers in New Jersey, wedding photography — Neil vN @ 10:06 pm
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