Tuesday, July 12, 2011
wedding Photography Gallery
Do you like this story?
Wedding Photography Gallery
Canon EOS 5D - 100th/sec - F5.6 - ISO 250 - Manual - Posed
No matter how big or small the wedding, it is always important to get some special portraits of the bride and groom.
Many women spend their childhood dreaming of this day (don't they?), spend a year or two planning it and organising the perfect dress, make up etc, so these photos are especially important to the bride.
I always make sure that during the preliminary meetings, we establish a time and place/s to get these shots. A minimum of 20 minutes and maximum of 1 hour is what I would recommend. Any longer and you are encroaching on "their" time.
A good time to shoot these and drag the couple away from the proceedings is after the ceremony and group shots have been done. The guests usually head for the bar/reception area and are more interested in having a few drinks than watching what you will be doing.
Also, once you are done, it normally means a grander entrance for the bride and groom to the reception as the guests wouldn't have seen them since the ceremony...it makes for a nice break in the day.
This was taken in an old converted monastery in the heart of Andalucia in Spain where the couple were wed. This walkway is great for portraits and the pillars are great for composition.
I used a telephoto lens and wide-ish aperture to enhance the location and placed the bride to the right of the image to add some "depth".
Lens 70-200 2.8 L at 170mm
Canon EOS 5D - 160th/sec - F5.6 - ISO 250 - Shutter Priority - Posed
This was taken at the same location as the previous image. The courtyard has a series of corridors above and around the main square which leads to all the hotel rooms.
When we were shooting these, the sun started to set and added an amazing glow on the colourful walls behind and set up a nice backdrop.
We whisked the bride and groom upstairs in the courtyard to make the most of this light whilst I shot from the square below.
If you know your area well, and you should have done a reccie visit at the same time one week before, you may well get a good idea of whether there will be a sunset or not.
Make a note of the time and work around it so that you have control of the couple at that point if possible, and you can get to your location in time.
I used Tv mode or "Shutter Priority" here for a good reason.
When light is failing and you are using aperture priority, your camera will, normally without you noticing, start to drop and slow the shutter speed automatically to allow more light in, depending on what aperture you have set.
I.e. you are on Aperture Priority and set at F8. You are getting 250th/sec shutter speed to start with but as the light fails you get f8 at 200th, f8 at 125th, f8 at 60th and so on.
If this starts to drop below the required minimum, and I was on the limit at 160th/sec (hand held at 190mm focal length) for this shot, you will start to get camera shake and lose those important shots.
Lens 70-200 2.8 L at 190mm
Canon EOS 5D - 125th/sec - F6.3 - ISO 200 - Manual - Posed
At any wedding, try and get as many detail shots as possible. By details I mean things like;
- The rings, bouquet and flowers before the ceremony like in this shot
- The dress, suits and shoes before they are worn
- The tables with wedding favours etc, before the guests arrive and demolish it all
- I even shoot the plates of food if they look really good
The reason for this is because during the actual wedding day itself, the couple are so nervous and worried about what is going on around them, they sometimes fail to notice and really appreciate the smaller details that they have spent so long organising.
It is nice for them to see it all in fine detail once the day is long gone and the honeymoon is over.
Standard set up just using bounced flash.
Lens 24-70 2.8 L at 68mm
Canon EOS 5D - 50th/sec - F2.8 - ISO 1600 - Manual - Natural
I have just included this image for a couple of reasons. The first is to always try and get some perspective during the ceremony...
As many ceremonies are quiet with very little movement, I try and stay in the same place and blend in for the important parts of the service. However, for this shot I moved a little to keep the groom in shot as the bride moved forward to "say her piece".
Secondly, this church was one of the darkest I have known with no flash allowed and this is where it gets quite tough. It is a small traditional Spanish church in the middle of Marbella.
You can see by the settings that I was really pushing the limits whilst shooting hand held at 50th/sec at f2.8. Where I was standing had no room at all for a tripod plus I had the video guy standing right next to me.
For me, the Canon EOS 5D has stunning quality and lack of noise at high ISO's like this at 1600. In fact I would go as far to say that this image is better than what I used to get with 400 ISO film way back when.
I had been to the church before during a reccie visit and had taken some test shots then so I knew where I stood on the day. If I hadn't have done that and turned up unprepared, it could have got quite panicky.
Preparation!
Camera Canon EOS 5D - Lens 24-70 2.8 L at 70mm
Canon EOS 5D - 200th/sec - F10 - ISO 160 - Shutter Priority - Natural
Even though the weather was pretty bad, the bride and groom still wanted some beach photos for this wedding in Marbella.
On the way down to the ocean, the groom received a phone call on his mobile and started messing about so I turned and started shooting.
I ended up using this image for an example front cover for their Asukabook. There was no sun so I tried to brighten the image up with a couple of filters and tweaking in Photoshop.
Again, to be safe, I was set to shutter priority and 200th/sec so I knew I wouldn't get any camera shake, especially at 24mm.
Here is a copy of the book image. I stretched the wall on the left to make up the back page. The text colour was meant to match the dominant colour on the front page image.
Lens 24-70 2.8 L at 24mm
Canon EOS 5D - 80th/sec - F6.3 - ISO 250 - Manual - Natural
Thinking about composition here and I always look out for reactions from listeners during the speeches rather than just concentrating on the actual speaker. Plus I try to incorporate both the bride and the groom in the photos.
I also use a telephoto lens and stand well back as not to get in the way during this time. I can also swivel round and shoot the guests and their reactions too.
Having the camera set to manual and speedlight set to E-TTL or auto means I can fire away and know that the exposure will be pretty constant. Again by shooting RAW, I have a little give if I need to push or pull any images that are under or over-exposed.
Lens 70-200 2.8 L at 150mm
Canon EOS 5D - 100th/sec - F7.1 - ISO 250 - Manual - Posed
A "standard" cake shot. If the room has a nice low, white ceiling, bouncing the flash gives a much nicer, diffused and even illumination.
For the cake shots you are sometimes limited with respect to composition as you normally don't have a say where it will be.
It is a good idea, during your earlier meetings with the couple, or reccie visits, to ask where it will be so you can be prepared. Even ask on the day if necessary so you know where to be at the right time.
I decided to shoot at this angle to include the reflection of some of the guests who were clambering to get a shot of the couple too. You will see more of this in the next shot.
Lens 24-70 2.8 L at 28mm
Canon EOS 5D - 100th/sec - F7.1 - ISO 250 - Manual - Natural
As digital photography gets more popular and more people have digital cameras, I have learned to deal with it and even incorporate it in my wedding photos.
It is all too easy to get annoyed with the attention that the couple get from guests, especially during the cutting of the cake, but it is even easier to just let them get on with it and make the most of it.
However, when I take the couple off for the special portraits, I insist that no guests are allowed. It is too distracting for the couple and will only elongate the proceedings.
I like this shot for its composition, colours and cameras.
It is good to have eyes in the back of your head at weddings so you can grab some real candids and having a second shooter is even better if you can...I don't normally.
Lens 24-70 2.8 L at 24mm
Canon EOS 5D - 125th/sec - F3.5 - ISO 400 - Shutter Priority - Natural
Whilst waiting for the bride to arrive at the church, I like to go into "stealth" mode and capture everyone waiting using a mid-range telephoto zoom.
This shot was taken outside in natural but changeable light and no flash. Having the camera set to Shutter Priority, I knew I would be safe with regard to shutter speed as the light chopped and changed.
In this instance, the subjects were in relative shade near the church and the shutter speed stayed constant at 125th/sec but the aperture opened up to f3.5 automatically to account for the low light.
Had I been in Aperture Priority, the aperture may have stayed at f8 or so and the shutter would have produced a slower speed meaning almost certain camera shake.
I also applied a little softening and lightening using free "Virtual Photographer" filters and software from Optikverve Labs
Lens 70-200 2.8 L at 70mm
Canon EOS 5D - 160th/sec - F3.2 - ISO 200 - Shutter Priority - Natural
I had arrived at the reception long before the bride and groom and guests so I was playing about shooting the location for my detail shots when the bride and groom turned up a bit early.
They were in a very crowded car park area and I was well above them in the restaurant on a hill when they started kissing totally unaware that I was above them.
I just cloned out all the clutter and vignetted it to hide the majority of the clone effect.
Here is the original RAW file...
...Maybe overdid it a bit on the filtering...oh well, I still have the original.
Canon EOS 5D - 800th/sec - F8 - ISO 125 - Aperture Priority - Posed
I am a sucker for symmetry and lighting...and if I can get away with it, I rarely use flash outside. I would rather place the couple with the sun behind them and make the most of the natural reflections from the concrete tiles in this case.
Nothing much more to say on this one really...a standard shot using the Spanish scenery as a landscape backdrop.
Lens 24-70 2.8 L at 32mm
Canon EOS 5D - 200th/sec - F3.5 - ISO 400 - Aperture Priority - Posed
Back at the monastery again and I decided to use a 50mm 1.4 for this shot again due to fading light. The 1.4 would get me out of trouble if I needed it.
When I set up shots like this, I desperately try to stop them looking too "cheesy" and obviously set up, but sometimes it is difficult to get away from that.
The least I can do is to get them not looking directly at the camera. It is a must, for me anyway, to get these shots no matter what. Once you have them you can play to your hearts content and push your own boundaries as it were.
Lens 50mm 1.4 at 50mm
Canon EOS 5D - 80th/sec - F4.5 - ISO 640 - Manual - Posed
We are quite lucky in Spain. From March to Early May and from Late August to Mid October, you are mostly guaranteed some nice sunsets.
Although, when they happen, they can be over in a flash so once again, it is important to make a note of what times they are most likely to occur on the wedding day.
The trick is to expose for the background, normally leaving a relatively slow shutter speed, and filling in with flash to illuminate the subject correctly.
If you go along to the venue a day or two before the wedding, take someone with you to practice on. If you generally know most of the settings you will need throughout the day beforehand, the actual day itself becomes a lot easier.
Lens 24-70 2.8 L at 32mm
Canon EOS 5D - 250th/sec - F3.5 - ISO 400 - Aperture Priority - Posed
This shot was an idea that the bride had long before her wedding day. By browsing through magazines looking for a dress, she came across an image similar to this that she really wanted to recreate...who was I to argue?
It was back at Ye Olde Monastery again and she got the pose off to a tee from the start.
The frame was added to match the colours in the image and to give it that magazine cover look especially for her.
Lens 70-200 2.8 L at 153mm
in Dept Reviews
Graphic designer, web designer and business man with really strong passion that specializes in marketing strategy.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 Responses to “wedding Photography Gallery”
Post a Comment