Tangents

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Using on-camera bounce flash outdoors at night

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Using on-camera bounce flash outdoors

With wedding photography, when doing the night-time romantic portraits of the couple, the pressure is usually on. The only opportunity to whisk the couple away for a few minutes, is during dinner time, when the party is at a lull. The pressure is on because you have even less time than you had during the earlier part of the day, and you also don't want to lose the attention of your couple who wants to get back to their guests at the reception. I usually scout a few places before-hand, getting a clear idea of what I want. When setting out with  Read more inside...

Using flash with incandescent / tungsten light

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Using flash with incandescent / tungsten light

I have used this photograph several times in the past to illustrate various aspects of flash photography in low light, so it might be time to discuss this image more thoroughly. We'll also pull together a few other topics and see how it all comes together at this one point: Dragging the shutter Gelling your flash Bounce flash technique Direction of light The advantage of using TTL flash Working alongside a videographer    Read more inside...

review: Fuji X100 – photographing a wedding

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review: using a Fuji X100 for wedding photography

Being impressed so far with the image quality from the Fuji X100 (affiliate), based on my initial impression of the camera, I was tempted to put the camera to a real test. A test where we remove the luxury of using the camera just as a walk-about fun camera. Instead, I wanted to shoot an event where there are real expectations from the images. With that idea in mind, I asked around if any of my wedding photographer friends would consider using me as a freebie 2nd shooter, where I would use only the Fuji X100 as my  Read more inside...

wedding photography – a photo-journalistic style, or more posed?

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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  Read more inside...

a rainy-day wedding

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a rainy-day wedding

A lighting strike in the background as a groomsman makes a mad dash across the rain-soaked path ... this about sums up the weather we had on Saturday's wedding. What you can't see in this image is his umbrella being pulled away from him by the gusting wind. Here is the shot I was aiming for when I got that lighting strike in the frame ...  Read more inside...

wedding portraits: finding something to bounce your flash off

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wedding portraits: 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 ...  Read more inside...

video light as fill-light for wedding portraits

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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 ...  Read more inside...

Wedding photography – Dealing with the videographer’s light

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Wedding photography - Dealing with the videographer's light

With wedding receptions, we're most often working within a very warm spectrum. There are tungsten (incandescent) lights all around. (**) There is candle light. There might be twinkling lights as decoration ... and there is the videographer's light. The videographer's light will be Tungsten balanced, even if it is an LED video light that they are using. (***) So while a wedding photographer might be using a lot of flash to dominate the lighting .. and settle for Cloudy or Flash WB, there is often a conflict of interest  Read more inside...

photography: looking at the available light

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photography - 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  Read more inside...