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November 29, 2010
lighting the romantic portraits of the bride & groom
Scouting around the location during dinner time, I peered over the edge of this spiraling staircase and thought it would be a good idea to get some light on the couple, seated on the couch. I posed Melissa so that she lounged back with her head on Dennis’ lap. There is no way to get light on them from my position with on-camera bounce flash, and definitely not if my intention is to get light only on them. It needed off-camera flash.
To add some variety, I also thought of a few other things to try with the lighting, using the same set-up and pose.
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November 22, 2010
non-photography goodies in my camera case
Work as a wedding photographer isn’t just about the gear – cameras, lenses and flashguns – and about taking photographs of key moments. Often enough it is up to you as the wedding photographer to help guide the day’s time-line and flow, and also just to help. For me, wedding photography isn’t just a passively observed event where I take photographs in a photo-journalistic or story-telling motif. I’m there to record the day’s events, but also to help, if necessary, making it a spectacular day.
In the photo above, I took over from the maid of honor when her fingers weren’t strong enough for that final button and clasp at the back of the bride’s dress. My fingers were stronger, so I finished the last button. So as a photographer I’m often called on to do more than just take photographs. And in my camera roller case, I keep some extra non-photography related goodies …
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November 2, 2010
Drawing from a story-telling photojournalistic sensibility; and also from the classic style of wedding photography; with a dash of Fashion flair; and Romance … the intention is to give you images that will forever recall this fantastic day. Click on the thumbnail images to see more.
My style as a wedding photographer is flexible – it is whatever we can do on the day to give you the best possible images. We’ll collaborate with ideas you may have – look at clippings from magazines that you like – drawing from any elements that you’d like to see in the photography of your wedding day.
I also photograph weddings in New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. So whether you’re from Manhattan or Philadelphia or New Haven, I would love to hear from you if you’re looking for a wedding photographer. Follow the links at the top to the other Galleries or my Contact page if you’d like to have more details about style and pricing and fees.
Neil vN
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November 1, 2010
finding (and using) interesting available light
I hope that no one thinks that the flash photography and lighting techniques that I describe on the Tangents blog are only applicable to wedding photography. In a recent post I described where I photographed a model in an alley way when I noticed a splash of sunlight (reflected from a window) falling onto the wall. In recognizing that interesting splash of light, and using it, I got an image which was different than I would’ve had if I had just used the even shaded light in the alley.
I used this very same idea at a recent wedding in photographing the romantic portraits of the bride and groom. The safer way of working, which is my usual initial approach to make sure I have the essential photographs ‘in my pocket’, is to work in the shade, or have the couple backlit against the sun. In approaching this one area, I noticed the dappled light falling onto the wall. But it was a large area of sunlight sneaking through, not just a messy splotch of sun & shade …
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October 20, 2010
exposure metering – bride & the bride’s dress
From a technical point of view, photographing a bride in her dress can be a challenge … depending on the lighting. If everything is under your control as the photographer, and you’re lighting the formal portraits with off-camera manual flash, then it is essentially a study of the zone system.
The simplest way for me then to get accurate exposure, is to use the histogram. I place my brightest relevant tone at the edge of the histogram. All the other tones will fall into place. (It is clearly explained in that linked article, and in my book on flash photography techniques.) In using flash like that as your dominant light source, you simply expose correctly for your subject – the bride in her white dress.
Now, when working with ambient light (perhaps with a touch of fill-flash), things are slightly different .. but not really. You still always (or nearly always**), need to expose correctly for the bride’s white dress, making it the brightest tone that you want to capture detail in. For this article, we’re going to look at exposure metering for available light. The same thought-process can be applied to flash or other additional lighting, but just for simplicity of explanation, let’s just stay with available light here.
So, looking at this portrait above of Jill, a gorgeous bride whose wedding I recently photographed …
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October 11, 2010
favorite image from the weekend – romantic bridal portrait
When possible during a lull in the wedding reception, I like to sneak the bride and groom away for a few minutes to do romantic portraits. Since time is usually tight, and the couple wants to enjoy as much of their reception as possible, I like to work efficiently. Jessica and Michael had their reception at a venue where I hadn’t worked before, so during dinner time, I quickly went around the venue with my assistant, to scout a few places to photograph the couple.
In the basement of this venue, I noticed the light shining through gates … casting interesting shadows on the wall. I thought this might be ideal to pose the couple, and then light them beautifully with a hand-held video light.
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October 5, 2010
wedding photography in hard bright sunlight
Hard sunlight overhead is some of the most difficult light that you can find yourself shooting in. When you aren’t able to position your subjects, then your options are limited – fill-flash or working with the RAW file in post-processing.
However, when you’re able to move your subjects, but don’t have the opportunity for off-camera lighting, then your best two options are:
- have your subjects turn their backs to the sun,
- use the light from the sun so that there are no harsh cross-shadows.
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September 19, 2010
wedding day portraits – simplifying composition for effect
With this article I want to reinforce the idea from a few recent posts about being very specific about your composition. By simplifying the image, we have greater impact. We include only what we need to include in the frame to enhance it. Just as important, is what we exclude:
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July 31, 2010
photography technique – looking for great light
This afternoon I walked around the Princeton campus with a couple, Renee and David, looking for cool spots to photograph them. I noticed the spread of light on a wall coming through an entrance way …
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July 30, 2010
In the spirit of the resource pages on off-camera flash photography, I wanted to do the same for all the blog posts on wedding photography. I pulled together the more important articles, and this resource page on wedding photography is now accessible from the menu on the left-hand side, under the index listing of articles and posts. In this way it will be a permanently anchored reference that I will keep updated as I add new posts to the Tangents blog.
If you find these articles interesting and of value, then you can help by using
these affiliate links to order equipment & other goodies. Thank you!
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Also join us on the Tangents forum for further discussions.
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