{"id":36754,"date":"2016-12-11T06:29:40","date_gmt":"2016-12-11T10:29:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/?p=36754"},"modified":"2020-07-14T00:44:45","modified_gmt":"2020-07-14T04:44:45","slug":"romantic-wedding-portraits-with-incandescent-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/romantic-wedding-portraits-with-incandescent-light\/","title":{"rendered":"Romantic wedding portraits with incandescent light"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Romantic wedding portraits with the\u00a0modeling light from a flash<\/h1>\n

Defining your style in wedding photography is, for me, as much about the way you use light and lighting, as it is about composition and posing, and\u00a0timing. All the facets have to come together, continually through the day to create a successful and representative view of the wedding day. When it comes to the romantic portraits of the couple, posing and lighting are inter-twined. You can’t think of them as separate things.<\/p>\n

With the way I use light, I don’t want to be fixed with one specific way of doing it – the style of lighting has to suit the location and have context. This is a regular motif\u00a0on the Tangents blog\u00a0over time. For example:
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0Lighting ideas for romantic wedding portraits<\/a>
\n\u2022 \u00a0Adapting the use of light & flash photography<\/a><\/p>\n

Using different light sources need not imply a jump in style. If you understand that how to use the\u00a0Direction & Quality of Light<\/a>, then you can pretty much use any light source. With that, there are times when using a continuous light source that is balanced with the existing Incandescent \/ Tungsten lighting, is the better choice. In other words,\u00a0using video lights<\/a>\u00a0for the portraits.<\/p>\n

While I still bring along a video light with me when I photograph weddings, the\u00a0Profoto B1\u00a0TTL\u00a0flash<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0(B&H<\/em><\/a>\u00a0\/\u00a0Amazon<\/em><\/a>) has been a game-changer for me in several ways. \u00a0One of them is that I started\u00a0using the Profoto B1 modeling lamp as a video light<\/a>. While that example in the linked article has Anelisa as the model, in this article\u00a0I wanted to show examples from two weddings, and how I slightly adapted to my surroundings.<\/p>\n

With these three photos from\u00a0Marni & Nick’s intimate New York wedding<\/a>, we went across the road from the venue, to \u00a0Chelsea Market for the romantic portraits. It was cold outside, and we had a limit on the time, so I decided that the nooks and crannies of this\u00a0indoor venue would offer the most variety\u00a0for backgrounds. Since there was a lot of available light around us from the various light sources, I used the modeling light from the Profoto B1 mostly\u00a0to clean up the existing light so that the light on our couple looked good. The light modifier on the Profoto B1 was the\u00a0Profoto OCF Beauty Dish (24″)<\/a>\u00a0 (B&<\/em>H<\/em><\/a>\u00a0\/\u00a0Amazon<\/em><\/a>)\u00a0with the diffuser and deflector plate removed. So it\u00a0was a bare light source, slightly softened by the light reflecting off the beauty dish’s canopy around the flash. The White Balance of the RAW files were\u00a0set\u00a0around\u00a02800K in fine-tuning during post-processing. Close enough to an Incandescent environment to give a nice\u00a0fill light on the couple that matched the available light.<\/p>\n

Flash (even gelled) would have been too intrusive here – mostly for the lack of space to maneuver around. Also, I didn’t want to draw undue attention to us with the flash going off. So for these various reasons, this was the bed option here in terms of our lighting.<\/p>\n

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Camera settings & photo gear (or equivalents) used during this photo session<\/h2>\n