Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Wedding Recap - WOW!

WOW! What a weekend – 14+ hours and over 4200 images later we made it back to the studio about 1:00 a.m. the next morning! My team and I met at the studio at 10:30 a.m. to review the day’s shooting strategy. We were to be on site at 11:30 a.m. I was lucky enough to have Mary Mannix – our regional Canon representative on board to help out. Mary was a successful studio owner for over 25 years before joining Canon in January, and boy, she knows her stuff. (And she brought along her Mark III and a 40D too!).

A funny thing happened at the wedding when a camera enthusiast guest asked her what camera she was shooting and when she showed him, to his great surprise, that it was the not yet available, brand new 40D. It almost “blew her cover” as my team member.

We arrived on time, and entered cameras blazing – mostly scene setters, bridesmaids in the “make-up” chair, etc. But, as luck would have it the girls were running a bit behind schedule. I kiddingly suggested I could come back next week same time - minor giggles especially from the father of the bride. I have been hired previously by the family six times - three other lifecycle events – Bar and Bat Mitzvahs of three of their children, one senior portrait, and two family portraits. I was honored and thrilled to be invited to be the photographer at their daughter’s wedding. They are such a wonderful family and feel more like friends than clients.

Once we got started, we were flying – 20 people in the wedding party, large families, high noon lighting conditions, and time running out. Thanks to our advanced planning, we pulled it off, albeit with only seconds to spare.

Here are a few of the shooting strategies we used. All indoor portraits, with the exception of a few window light images were illuminated with my Quantum T5d flash shooting though an inexpensive 36” translucent umbrella held by my assistant. This makes for a very fast and beautiful lighting set up. I filled the scene occasionally with my on camera flash, but dialed down about 2 stops as to not ruin the beautiful direction of light I was getting from my umbrella.

For the outside “small group” images, two things are important to note here. First, I need to balance the lighting on the background with the lighting I am placing on the subject so I set the ISO at 100 and the flash output to full power. I am limited by the sync speed of the camera. My 1/200 sec fastest sync speed on my Canon 5D at ISO 100 lets me shoot at about F5.6 – my preferred aperture because of how soft the background becomes with my Canon 70-300 D-O IS lens. With my flash at full power, I can still get the direction of light on my subjects without the ambient over powering it.

For the large “Wedding Party” images, I always keep one thing in mind – ALWAYS BACKLIGHT with the sun. This puts the camera side of the subjects’ faces in the open shade. Now I can create a direction of light with my off camera flash once again. One hitch though – the assistant has to be so far enough away from the group so he is not included in the shot. In this case, we have to “loose” the umbrella which cuts down 2 stops of light when attached to the flash. The direct flash is now four times stronger without the umbrella. Now it’s light can reach the subjects at its greater distance – and give us that “pretty” light once again.

The ceremony is always photographed “hand-held” with image stabilized lenses. For the close ups, I love my 70-300 IS lens on my 30D – that gives me almost a 500mm optic to get up close and personal for the ring exchange, and those wonderful expressions from family as well as the attendants and the bride and groom.

Reception images are always created with one “room light” supplying and overall illumination. This light is bounced off the ceiling. My assistant travels with a second flash and adjusts power output as needed for the working distance he/she is to the subject. Yes, we are using the Quantum in “manual” mode. My “on-camera” flash is set to give the best exposure on the subject. The position of the lighting is as such – consider the face of a clock. The subject(s) are at the clock’s center. I am at the 6 o’clock position. My assistant is at either the 10 and 2 o’clock position depending on his/her position relative to the room light. This set up gives a beautiful three dimensional lighting on the scene eliminating the “cave” look so prevalent in wedding photography today.

One of my favorite images from the evening is the image of the couple dancing and looking over at the bride’s mom and dad. Notice how my assistant’s flash bounced off the bride’s gown while still creating a strong “rim” light on the couple and illuminated mom and dad, who have great expressions, by the way.

Well, the battery is getting low and the plane is about the land. Enjoy the small selection of images in the slide show and see if you can pick up on my techniques discussed here. I’ll try to pick up any “loose ends” in tomorrow’s post. Vegas, here we come! --David

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