The Formals0
neil posted in Photos, Naomi and James' wedding on October 24th, 2007
The lighting was my job at the wedding, in principle its simple. I only had one light, I shot it through an umbrella to give a nice soft spread light and hung it high on camera right, close as I could without getting it in the frame. I set the aperture to expose for the light (use histograms!) and the shutter speed to blank out the horrible ambient light. The NON simple part is making sure eyes are open, people are paying attention, smiling and composed. My next post however will be the candid’s I shot while the rig was in place for the formal shots. It took awhile to get people arranged and the nature of the people involved meant there were plenty of jokes and some clowning around. Shoot before and after you say cheese and you get some fun shots.
A short time ago in a wedding far far away…0
neil posted in Travel, Naomi and James' wedding on October 20th, 2007
A wee story from the wedding.
Being at the rehersal is real important in my opinion. You get to see roughly where the best bits are gonna be, scope the angles AND check you’ve brought the right kit. Alicia and I did all that. I could shoot with my 70-200mm comfortably from ambient so would snipe down the aisle during the ceremony. Alicia could get the other angle and we’d be out of each others way.
Day of, I’ve remade one plan because the seating changed shape. I improved a Macguyver snoot and did a ceiling bounce trick. I nip into the aisle to shoot the ceremony and check shutterspeed. Wide open, 1/30th. I do a double take, it was 1/200th yesterday! I check again, check ISO, check that I’m not at F28 or something wierd. Nope. Crud. I power up my flash and mentally apologise to the couple for turning their ceremony into a rave. I notice Alicia is using her flash too, ceiling bounced. Looking at the ceiling I spot that only the big decorative lights are on. The smaller powerful floods are OFF. I know where the switches are. The other side of the ceremony by the kitchen entrance. I mentally debate charging through the entire bridal party and slapping the toggle switches to bathe the entire ceremony in photographable ambient light. I then try to think of a combination of hand signals that could alert Alicia. She is still shooting away, reminding me I have a job to do. I give myself my normal pep talk: Shut the foxtrot up and COPE. Flash it is, 1/200th of a second, f2.8, angle the flash to hit the ceiling above the bride and groom. Ceremony is saved from demented photographer. In future, daylight temperature SEARCHLIGHTS on the couple please.
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All of this however failed to prepare myself or Alicia for the lighting ON the dancefloor. More about that later.