"Lovers In Fantasyland"

"Lovers In Fantasyland"
©David A. Ziser

In honor of being at Texas School I thought I would revisit one of my favorite images from last year’s class. This image was called the “outstanding image of the week” at Texas School 2011.  I captured this image on the last day of shooting.  I was scheduled to be one of the instructors at Thursday' Night’s Shootout.  Although we were to meet in a nearby park to begin the photographs, as the evening progressed I knew I wanted to capture a few shots around the “Blueprints” sculpture at Addison Circle just a block away from the park.

I had been “eyeballing” this unusual sculpture as a photographic background throughout the week as some of the Texas School festivities were held nearby.  Thursday night proved to be the night.  We wrapped shooting in the small park and then began to walk back to the hotel toward the location of the sculpture.  It was well past sunset, but the sky still held that twilight glow that I love.  I always say, “We keep shooting till we can no longer see the camera bag.”  That was exactly the time I was capturing this image.

I positioned the bride and groom at the base of the imposing sculpture after selecting the best composition for my photograph. I didn’t want to see the many buildings around the site so I took a camera position that gave me as many trees as possible in the background behind the sculpture. I also liked how the sky’s brightness and “blueness” transitioned from dark to light across the top of the image.

The rest was simple – just get a flash behind the couple and fire away.  That flash was my remotely fired Canon 580 EX II flash in “manual” mode at 1/4 power.  The spray of light highlighted the green grass nicely but, most importantly, gave me that dramatic rim lighting around the couple.

The contrasting colors, gentle tones in the sky, dramatic lighting, and very unusual location made for an impacting wedding image.

Camera specs:  Canon 7D fitted with Sigma 8-16mm lens at 8mm, F5.6 @ 1/80 second, ISO 1600. Enjoy!  -David