"The Colors Of Autumn"

"The Colors Of Autumn"
©David A. Ziser

Fall is about the prettiest time of the year for a lot of people. In the Midwest we get to enjoy those Fall colors for approximately a 3 week stretch throughout October. It's a great time to schedule family and high school senior portraits and pictorial bridal pictorials.

This is an image I made at a recent bridal pictorial session. This year our Fall season was a bit short lived because of our very dry summer. Still, as a professional ,that is no excuse for not being able to pull off a nice portrait of our bride.

The challenge is to find that one spot of color that will make a great background for your image. Many of the leaves had already blown off the trees but I found this small patch in the distance I thought would work. I needed a long lens to really stretch out the background behind the subject.

I also wanted to use a large aperture to throw the background well out of focus so that viewers' attention would go right to my subject. Solving the problems were easy. Place the 70-200mm lens on my camera, rack it out to 200mm and walk away till I had the bride framed up in my view finder. Next set the aperture to f4.0.

How to light the bride - how about I use my super reflective SunSpotz reflector [link] to bounce the sun’s rays back into the subject. When used a reasonable distance from the subject, it is less apt to "blind" them. I find that about 15 feet away works pretty well.  Remember, I’m not using the SunSpotz as a fill light – it’s my main light.

I had the bride strike a pleasing pose, brought the light in on her face creating a flattering loop lighting pattern and shot away. With the shallow depth of field the background colors just blossomed and looked great softly diffused behind the bride.

The light reflected from my SunSpotz - which again was my main light created a pleasing directional light on my subject and brought out the finer details of her gown. I think I pulled off a pretty nice Fall bridal portrait for my bride.

Camera spec: Canon 7D fitted with 70-200 mm IS lens at 200mm, F4.0 @ 1/400 second, ISO 200. Enjoy! -David

"Dream Dancer"

"Dream Dancer"
©David A. Ziser

I captured this image during my pre-con at Photoshop World. What makes this image interesting is the fact that it was made on a residential street right outside the church. Yet, it appears to be made at a beautiful park location. This is the kind of situation wedding photographers encounter all the time - no shade, bright afternoon sun, and not much to work with in the background.

I chose a 100mm F2.8 lens for the shot. I figured I could shoot it nearly wide open thus making the background go softly out of focus. The longer focal length lens also served to expand and enlarge the foliage in the background too.

The sun was Las Vegas intense so I had the bride standing facing me with the sun behind her right shoulder. I still needed to get her face illuminated. I chose to use my brand new SUN SPOTZ reflector [link]. It's super silver on one side and black on the other.

My assistant caught the sun's rays and bounced them back onto the bride's face creating the beautiful loop lighting pattern I prefer in my images. You've got to be careful not to blind your subject with the bright sun reflecting back onto your subject. Even looking back into the camera was too bright for my bride to keep her eyes opened without squinting. I opted to have her just look at the ground in a more reflective pose. I love how the image turned out.

Camera specs: Canon 7D fitted with 100mm F2.8 IS macro lens, F3.2 @ 1/2500 second, ISO 200. Enjoy! -David

"Wide Angle Wonderfulness"

"Wide Angle Wonderfulness"
©David A. Ziser

Here is another image I created from Wednesday's session. I love the contrasting colors in the image. I bounced the warm light of the setting sun off of my new SUNSPOTZ reflector. By balancing out the warm tones on the bride's face parts of the rest of the scene not receiving the warm light shifted to the cooler tones.

I think it works in the shot because the extreme wide angle view yields a very unique image. The combination of the two effects plus the sunbeams in the distance presents a very usual bridal portrait. Light from my SUNSPOTZ reflector, camera left, reflecting back the warm sunlight in a very narrow light pattern onto the bride's face.

Camera specs: Canon. 7D fitted with Sigma 8-16 super wide angle zoom lens at 8mm, F 5.0 @ 1/320 second, ISO 200. Enjoy! -David

"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