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Romantic wedding portraits with video light

September 22, 2011 Neil vN 18 Comments

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  Read more inside...

Be the wedding guest, not the photographer

September 8, 2011 Neil vN 72 Comments

You're a photographer, but at a wedding as 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  Read more inside...

Wedding photography – Developing a personal style

August 18, 2011 Neil vN 38 Comments

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?  Read more inside...

Romantic wedding portraits – more than just the kiss

August 12, 2011 Neil vN 11 Comments

Romantic wedding portraits - more than just the 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  Read more inside...

Wedding photography – Tips for detail shots of the wedding rings

July 31, 2011 Neil vN 27 Comments

Wedding photography - Tips for detail shots of the wedding rings

In photographing the detail images of the wedding rings, there are a few things to aim for: - context within which to place the rings, - a few images with different angles, - great lighting which is easily achievable. Then we also have to take care of the depth-of-field and the tricky focusing ...  Read more inside...

“Using the available light” is not a random decision

July 20, 2011 Neil vN 27 Comments

"Using the available light" is not a random decision

Since I often use flash or additional light, there was some surprise in the (favorable) comments in the Facebook album when I mentioned this photo was shot without any flash. Not even fill-flash. Just the available light. But where I posed the bride, was a specific decision. It wasn't just random. Now, I often get the feeling that when someone boasts they only use available light, that it is meant to disguise that they don't know how to use additional lighting. My thought here is that unless you find yourself in great light, or  Read more inside...

Bounce flash for bridal portraits

July 14, 2011 Neil vN 25 Comments

Bounce flash for portraits of a bride

Deep into the busy part of the wedding season, the articles posted recently will be more wedding-centric than usual. But, as I've mentioned before, many of the techniques translate to other fields of photography. This photograph of a bride, Christine, received some very favorable comments when I posted it on Facebook. So I thought it might make a good topic here, as well as being a good recap of some essential bounce flash techniques. The portrait is quite straightforward in execution - the lighting was quite simple, but effective. It was also  Read more inside...

Sydney & Paul – their wedding day – fusion clip

July 12, 2011 Neil vN 10 Comments

Sydney & Paul - their wedding day - photo & video fusion clip

This idea of blending photographs and video snippets from a wedding, into a fusion clip, still fascinates me. In a 5 to 6 minute clip you're able to give a nicely condensed view of the wedding day. Combining the photos and video in a sensible way that visually makes sense, takes time however.  And Jessica and I are still on the learning curve. (Is it even possible to really get to to the top of things these days with the rapidly accelerated pace of digital photography?) Anyway, I love the results so far! So here  Read more inside...

Wedding photography – lighting large groups

July 10, 2011 Neil vN 48 Comments

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.  Read more inside...

wedding photography – light & lighting; posing & direction

July 5, 2011 Neil vN 44 Comments

wedding photography - light, lighting, posing & direction  - making the decisions

The title of this article is quite ambitious. To cover all of that, it would be a 50,000 word book. But in editing this wedding at the moment, I noticed this photograph, and I love the look of it. So in the context of that one single image, let's look how it all came together. While the photograph itself isn't complicated, a lot of quick decisions went into making this image work ... and easy to edit. A number of things had to be considered, but instead of being overwhelmed by juggling all the  Read more inside...

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