One day myself and my beloved partner Eve were taking a drive and along the way we would see this abandoned house with some cool graffiti on it. I stored the info in my brain and thought ‘Hey I can use that someday for something.’ When our dear friend Dave and Felicity announced that were getting married last year some time as a wedding gift to our dear friends myself and Eve decided to photograph their wedding. They were excited by our gift as they were on a very tight budget. They both work in the retail industry which as we all know is taking a serous pounding.
A good wedding photographer photographing a moderately sized wedding should cost about 10% of the total cost of the wedding. Add onto that figure if you want special not-on-the-way-between-church-and-reception-area location shoots extra albums etc. So it can get quite costly fast. But in the defence of the cost of the photographer, the photographs will be the only part of the wedding that will remain. In years to come you will still have the rings and the marriage certificate but short of that there will be nothing left of your day. The wedding dress probably wont fit the hall is gone the decorations are no longer the food was eaten the drinks were drunk so the photos are the only part that records the whole thing. 10% now does not seem too bad seeming as it will be with you for quite a number of years. And since the day is special and the photos will last to skimp on the photographer will only mean you will probably get unsatisfactory results and you will have to live with those for the many years to come.
The current trend in wedding photography these days seems to be, photos taken on the wedding day, and then either a week before or after the wedding day a creative shoot. The creative shoot normally is done in a location where the couple feel the surrounds compliment their characters or somewhere that is special to them.
This shoot was a bit hectic for me as I had just driven back from another shoot. I picked up our lovely couple and had to driving back out to the location to shoot them. But never a dull day I suppose.
I treat the creative shoots a little like fashion shoots. To me its to show off the beauty of the people the clothes and the location. To get the wow factor of the couple. The wedding day shoot is the capturing of the moments of the day of the couple. The creative shoot is all about the couple, to capture the couple together, separately, and they are the superstars.
First the wedding day shoot This was an interesting one as the venue was very small and intimate. This was really nice for the guests because there was enough space for the guests but one was not screaming to say hello to everyone. For the guests this was cool but for me no space=battle for light placement and wide angle lens has to be used. Using a wide angle lens in close quarters has to be used carefully because you can get it so easily wrong. Just because the way the lens sees things on the edges. It does tend make the people towards the edges look a bit stretched. So you got to be careful or auntie so and so will look like she had some experimental gum at Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and had to be stretched to attend the wedding.
The lighting was going to be a real pain and not really ideal because of the lack of space but this is what we photographers thrive on. Well not really but it is normally what we have to deal with. I went around to check the venue and setup the lights the problem is that the lights had no where to go and to add to that the bride and groom were going to be standing in a spot that really was not going to help getting light to them. So I spent some time scrutinizing the venue and found something that was going to work. That was to get some g-clamps and clamp them to the frame of the marquee. Then attach the flashes to the g-clamps and there you have it. The light was going to be hard but Dave and Felicity are good looking people and they can handle the hard light. The light was come from both left and right and I felt it was going to give that movie star walking down the red carpet to the Oscars feel to it. The marquee was also white and that I felt could also give me a bit of extra reflection and soften the light. Looking back I think had I had step ladders and more time I may have moved the flashes further back and used the roof more as a reflector. Having said that there would have been other complications to go with it and throwing some extra diffusion in would have been nice. That would have been a bit complex and were do I put a panel and keep it there, hang it with skyhooks?The layout of the flashes were a 580EX II attached to a 7.5m ETTL cable and the cable was carefully concealed so no one would trip over it. This gave me limited mobility because after hiding the cable, it does not take the shortest path. The cable was long enough though and considering the limited space there really was not too much mobility needed. The other was a 430EX set to slave mode and basically facing each other.
The camera was on manual and the flashes were set to full TTL. Basically I dialed in the settings and let the flashes decide how much light to fire out. I have 4 speedlites I only used 2 to light the ‘I do’ target area and after doing this wedding with not really accessible flashes the idea of having more flashes suddenly sounds quite good. As you have more flashes the amount of light each one throws out is less. You will also be able to light from more area and maybe even get softer light. The 2 flashes that were up there did OK but toward the end they were battling a bit and the recycle times were getting a bit too long.
I also setup a mini studio in the venue and this was a simple 2 monoblock light setup with umbrellas and a white background.
That was the big day shoot and now onto the creative shoot. Remember that house I mentioned well I was really wanting to a shoot there. This was the perfect opportunity to use this interesting venue. The venue is interesting and a bit alternative with all the graffiti on the walls inside and out. This I feel compliments Dave and Felicity’s personalities. Felicity’s wedding dress attests to that. It is not your average white dress and vale. By the way that dress was made be Ebony. Ebony is probably one of the most talented people I know. She can make really awesome dresses, do amazing make-up, sing in a metal band, and and and. Ebony is really talented. Myself and Eve started by posing Felicity on the stairs leading up to the house with Dave in the background.Again with the flashes I wanted to try and get light from the flashes onto them and drop the background by a stop or two. But you think I can get that right with the flashy flashy rubbish communication of the lights. Next plan, go with a bit if fill from the off camera flash and hope for the best with Dave in the background and go natural light seemed to work quite well. I was using my Sigma 10-20 lens here and it was just right I got some nice wide shots of the house. Then inside, the wind was only picking up so the inside was not really that protected but a bit better than outside. The shot I liked best was the one of them in the hallway. There was a doorway on the right as you down the passage. I wanted to get the two of them in the hall. I set an umbrella in the doorway I also put a flash on the floor to get a bit of the environment. Again manual on the camera and a ETTL cable linking flash and camera. I let the flashes decide how much power to give with some minor adjustments here
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