Tangents

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lighting ideas for romantic wedding portraits

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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  Read more inside...

New Jersey wedding photographer

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New Jersey wedding photographer - photojournalistic style

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. The images on the New Jersey wedding photographer blog will show you the style and consistency of work that you can expect for your own wedding. As an author of several books on photography, I’m definitely serious about this stuff! The domain name I chose for me wedding &  Read more inside...

Exposure metering for the bride’s dress

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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,  Read more inside...

the moment after ‘the kiss’

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favorite image from the weekend – the moment after the kiss

I'm normally in the center aisle when I work as a solo photographer at a wedding.  But with the wedding on Saturday, I knew I could trust my 2nd shooter to nail the photographs I needed.  This allowed me the opportunity to move around, looking for other angles. I was hoping that Lori-Ann would hug her husband, George, in the first seconds after The First Kiss. I was hoping to get her expression in that hug. She did hug him, but with her face over his other shoulder.  I had a 50% chance of guessing that right! So I didn't  Read more inside...

fire performers … at a wedding

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The bride and groom at last night's wedding are veteran burners - people who attend Burning Man - and several of their guests are fire performers. Later the evening during the reception, four of the guests showed their skill in juggling and dancing with fire.

Photographing fire performers

Photographing the fire performers, especially in such low light - i.e. near darkness - was a challenge.  A slow shutter speed to show the movement of the fire, would cause the performer to be completely blurred.  But a fast shutter speed would not show enough movement in the fire.  A fast shutter  Read more inside...

wedding photography – anticipation and timing

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style in wedding photography - anticipation and timing

I'm sure every photographer has this experience, where your shutter trips, and you just know you have the shot.  Something that you see - whether anticipated or just lucky timing - and you capture it.  This is how I felt when I captured this moment between Marie and Andrew at their wedding this weekend.  I got it! A bit of background to this image: During a Catholic wedding service, there is a short time after the exchange of vows and rings, where the couple are seated again for the Mass.  With everyone's attention now on the  Read more inside...

flash & low ambient light – adapting during an outdoor wedding ceremony

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wedding photography: flash and low ambient light - adapting during the shoot

I'm often asked what I would do when I encounter a situation where you need to use flash, but there is no easy way to bounce flash.  My flippant answer is ... you're screwed! Well, not really. My advice is that you have to improvise and in some way of finesse your use of light.  In tough situations, you still want to try and shy away from using direct on-camera flash whenever possible.  Direct on-camera flash as the main source of light is rarely aesthetically the best choice.  Read more inside...

bounce flash examples – wedding receptions

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bounce flash examples - wedding receptions

Over the course of the past year or so, I've made a steady attempt to move this blog away from being wedding-heavy, and take the material more towards general photography, and photographing people. However, since the most of my work is as done as a wedding photographer in New Jersey, I still get a large number of questions which relate to wedding photography - and specifically, photographing the reception.  So I thought I would expand a little on the techniques I use in photographing wedding receptions. A few years back, I would  Read more inside...

Bridal portraits with on-camera bounce flash

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Bridal portraits with on-camera bounce flash

With the formal portraits of the bride & groom, and their families, I usually set up off-camera lighting.  But I also try to bring in some variety to the portraits - and I shoot on-location portraits of the bride beforehand, just after prep.  It's a good idea to get as much done as you can, earlier on in the day - just in case the time-line gets compressed and things don't quite follow the original plan. You'll be much happier then for having some solid portraits in your pocket. In this example, I wanted a few portraits of Michelle  Read more inside...