"A Wedding Sunrise"

"A Wedding Sunrise"
©David A. Ziser

Here is one of my favorite images from my Monday morning sunrise shoot.  It was one of the last images I captured and it was already getting warm and very humid.  The shoot reminded me of my experience in shooting in Miami, Florida.  Every time I pulled out a lens, the front element immediately fogged up and I had to wipe it clean before I could make the shot.

The entrance to Spindletop is lined with this very long row of trees on each side of the drive along with a long row of fencing.  The sun's low angle was casting these very unusual vertical shadows on the grass.  I thought the scene would make a great setting for my photograph.

I positioned my bride to the right of the compositional frame letting the row of fence pass right through her, figuratively speaking, of course.  Notice how the fence meanders gently from the far distance right into the foreground.  The trees offered a wonderful leading line from the left side of the image.  The vertical shadows complete the composition with all my compositional pointers leading right to the bride - poetry in motion ;~)

Now on with the lighting - this was one of those situations that worked great using my "reflector key" technique.  The sun was coming in low from the right so I had the bride turn away from the sun thus putting her face in shadow.  The key light or main light was supplied by my assistant reflecting the early morning sunlight back into the bride with my Westcott reflector from approximately 15 feet away. 

Using the reflector instead of my flash allowed me to use a wider aperture thereby softening the background for the final result.  Camera specs: Canon 7D fitted with 70-300mm lens at 300mm, F 5.6 @ 1/800?, ISO 200. Enjoy!  David