"Garden Party #2"

"Garden Party #2"
©David A. Ziser

I've been posting a lot of images from this shoot because I feel we captured some really nice photographs and I get to give our readers a few lessons in lighting along the way.  Remember, the images of the beautiful young lady were all made over a very short amount of time – less than 90 minutes.  We were challenged by location, lighting conditions, and really, REALLY hot weather.  Nevertheless, as a professional you still have to get the shot, no excuses.  This image illustrates how you can take a fairly plain setting and really make it work for a beautiful portrait.  I was challenged with finding a location that was not full of bright spots in the background.  I kept maneuvering my position to find an area in the background that would give me what I was looking for.  Using a longer lens helped because it expanded the smaller area of the background behind my subject and threw it pretty much out of focus. I had to turn the bride to camera left to get her in the correct position against the background. The brighter yellow areas do not bother me - actually I think they bring the viewer's attention more to the bride.  Notice too how I used the wrought iron railing to lead the viewer's eye to my subject.  I simply brought my off-camera flash in from camera left at about 12 feet away, balanced it with the ambient at about 1 stop less that the flash exposure and shot away.  Camera specs: Canon 7D fitted with 18-200mm IS lens at 200mm, F 5.6 @ 1/160 second, ISO 200.  Enjoy!  -David