![](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/weddings\/tonya\/Tonya_1298.jpg\")
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There’s this balance I feel I need to maintain in my professional photography, and especially with weddings. The photos I take, need to solidly be within the style that I show on my website – this is what my clients hired me for. On top of that though, there is the urge within as an artist, and as an obligation to my clients, to produce more. To deliver photos with a little extra. Something slightly different. I want to expand what I do, and expand on my style and ‘look’. So with every shoot and every wedding, I’m always looking for anything out of the ordinary. Get the solid photos in my pocket, like the example shown above … it works. The bride looks beautiful. The lighting is good. The pose isn’t rigidly controlled – it is natural and complements her personality. Typical of my the kind of romantic portraits I do during a wedding. But I also want to get something unusual and artistic, yet is still within my style. I want to surprise myself, my client, and anyone who sees the photos.<\/p>\n
Serendipity plays a role. Louis Pasteur had this beautiful saying: “Chance favors the prepared mind.” It is up to us as the photographers to recognize these opportunities and run with them.<\/p>\n
I want to show two examples at this wedding\u00a0when we photographed the bride, Tonya, and we chanced upon something a little out of the ordinary by playing with the light.<\/p>\n
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![](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/weddings\/tonya\/Tonya_1196_5x4.jpg\")
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For example, this image came about when we saw how the light and shadow played across Tonya when my assistant was holding up the light, and it swung, and we saw the pattern of light move across her dress. We instantly knew we had to use it. Then it was just a matter of guiding Tonya’s gaze and the light falling through a curve in the railing, to accentuate her eyes. The pull-back shot will show this better – the light is the bare modeling light of the\u00a0Profoto B1 flash<\/a>\u00a0(affiliate<\/em>).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I wanted to distill the essence of what we, as photographers, work with – light! Before we can truly grasp on-camera flash and off-camera flash, and really, any kind of photography, we have to be aware of the direction and quality of light. We need to observe the light that we have, and then decide how best to use it, or enhance it.<\/p>\n With this book, I try my best to share those \u201caha!\u201d moments with you, and I do believe this book can make a difference to your photography.<\/p>\n The book is available on\u00a0Amazon USA<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Amazon UK<\/a><\/strong>, or can be ordered through Barnes & Nobles and other bookstores. The book\u00a0is also available on the Apple iBook Store, as well as Amazon Kindle.\n\t\t\t\t<\/div> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The initial effect here was fairly subtle – the bevelled edge of the mirror refracting into strips of light. For this, I asked Tonya, the bride, to move very slightly to her right until the beams of light were over her eyes. The pattern is irregular, and the effect might not be to everyone’s taste, however, this is another sequence that added variety to the final selection I offered to the bride and groom. It all adds up to more variety.<\/p>\n Here is the pull-back shot to show the position of the light – the bare modeling light of the\u00a0Profoto B1 flash<\/a>\u00a0(affiliate<\/em>).<\/p>\n The reason for the images shown here – from the initial photo at the top, and the subsequent two variations, is that the modeling light has a White Balance that matches the warm tones of the Incandescent and warm fluorescent lights in the venue. I don’t need a powerful flash \u00a0– I just need a subtle light that can enhance the existing light. And for that, the modeling light of the Profoto B1 was good enough. The image at the very top was with the modeling light bounced into an umbrella. The other main images were all with the bare modeling light directly on Tonya.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The key here is not to get locked into just the usual way of working, but to always be aware of possibilities – to recognize opportunity when it comes your way. Make serendipity part of your style.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Wedding photography – Style & Serendipity There’s this balance I feel I need to maintain in my professional photography, and especially with weddings. The photos I take, need to solidly be within the style that I show on my website – this is what my clients hired me for. On top of that though, there Read more inside…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[66,260,633],"yst_prominent_words":[8635,8636,7247,8644,7638,1913,2192,7640,8645,3058,7241,3057,1113,1107,1575,1086,7246,7639,2940,1224],"class_list":{"0":"post-43408","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wedding-photography","8":"tag-nj-wedding-photographer","9":"tag-style-in-wedding-photography","10":"tag-tips-on-wedding-photography","11":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43408"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43408"}],"version-history":[{"count":70,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48906,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43408\/revisions\/48906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43408"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=43408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/weddings\/tonya\/Tonya_1174.jpg\")
<\/p>\nCamera settings & Photo gear used during this photo session<\/h2>\n
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![](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/weddings\/tonya\/Tonya_1200_900px.jpg\")
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\n\n\t\t\t\t\t![\"Direction](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/books\/NvN\/3-qualityoflight-250.jpg\")
<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\tDirection & Quality of Light<\/h2>\n
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\n![](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/weddings\/tonya\/Tonya_1250_900px.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/weddings\/tonya\/Tonya_1236.jpg\")
<\/p>\nCamera settings & Photo gear used during this photo session<\/h2>\n
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\nSummary<\/h2>\n
Related links<\/h2>\n
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