"Pipe Dreams 3"

"Pipe Dreams 3"
©David A. Ziser

This is an image I made during last week's Digital Master Class.  The beautiful historic church in which we were working had a fairly large choir loft complete with pipe organ.  Having  photographed with pipe organs in the background before, I knew we could capture a great image.

The dark, colorful stain glass window above the organ pipes would be a welcome feature in the oval composition.  The problem when shooting in a balcony location is that, by design, the subject is positioned much more foreword than my assistant holding a strobe camera right.

I use a monopod to hold the strobe.  When making these balcony images, my assistant has to fully extend the monopod and then extend the light over the safety railing in order to get the light coming in for the proper angle to obtain my desired loop lighting pattern.  With the monopod  at it's full length and extended out over the balcony, it can become quite heavy and a strain for the person holding it. I've got to work quickly.

I was a little concerned how the organ pipes would look. Their light tone worked perfectly in the composition especially with the large stain glass window offering wonderful counterpoint to the organ pipes.

I set the correct exposure for the bride and then underexposed the scene one stop making her stand out from the rest of the tonalities.   The stain glass window held it's color and detail with great vibrancy.  The way it filled the curve of the organ pipes was a nice compositional bonus.

Camera specs:  Canon 7D fitted with 24-105 lens @ 65mm, F5.6 @ 1/60 second, ISO 800.  Enjoy!  David