Turning Your Wedding Imagery Into Art | The Dramatic First Dance
Through out the wedding day there are certain milestones that must be documented without fail, without deviance, without a doubt. These are the shots that you must perfect, nail down, secure, capture, whatever it takes just get them and everything else is icing on your wedding cake. Why are they so important? Because as a wedding photographer you are there to tell the story of the wedding day. If you miss these images you not only leave your clients story incomplete, but also you can bet your going to have an upset bride, or worse yet an upset MOB. You pick your poison, but I’d rather walk around the mountain if it means avoiding the bite of the Black Mamba.
What does this have to due with turning your wedding imagery into art you ask? Well when you know that you have certain images that you take at every wedding shouldn’t you have developed a certain style? Shouldn’t you have a particular set up? And if you do have a set up you use each and every time, are you happy with it? Could it use some refining? The truth is if your not pushing yourself how will you improve or perfect? We’ve all heard the old saying that, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” Really all this is just a cop out to not push yourself to the next level. If this has been your motto, perhaps you could look at it from a different perspective. Maybe something like, “It ain’t broke, but how could I polish it?”
One area of my wedding photography that has evolved over the years is the way I approach the first dance. This isn’t to say that facial expression; eye contact or tears in the eyes are irrelevant, not at all. But wouldn’t it be great to capture those dramatic moments in dramatic lighting? After all, lighting is everything. Don’t believe me try photographing without it. The problem in creating dramatic light for the first dance is often time the venue’s lighting isn’t. Many times the venue’s lighting is quite flat or even worse, fluorescent. But lets just say that you’re shooting in a nice venue with decent lighting, beautiful chandeliers hanging all around as in the photo above. In this case one of the most effective ways I know to create dramatic lighting is to backlight.
Back lighting or lighting your subject from behind can do a few things, some good, some not so good, but when done properly it’s some of the most beautiful lighting I’ve seen. It’s dramatic, it’s colorful, it can create beautiful lens flare or horrible lens flare, and it creates long dramatic shadows across the dance floor and these shadows lead the viewer’s eyes to the subject. Backlighting can be accomplished using one light or several.
Exposure is key when it comes to back lighting. While silhouettes are nice, I like to see some detail in the faces of my bride and groom. To accomplish this you need to balance your strobe with the ambient light, or you can use a second on camera strobe dialed down as fill. But for now lets stick to a one light setup.
Controlling your lighting using one strobe. This is pretty easy, if you’ve done a few weddings you will find that you have particular settings that your always using during the reception or at least within a narrow range of those settings. I’ve found for the most part that I’m shooting at an ISO of around 1200 to 2000 with an aperture of F2.8 to F5.6 for nighttime receptions. My shutter speed will vary from 1/10th sec to 1/60th depending on the available light and the look I’m after. The beauty of this is that once you have your basic settings you will be able to control your fill simply by adjusting your shutter speed, while your strobe will remain constant as long as you don’t adjust your ISO or aperture.
You will hear a lot about modern strobes being TTL, ETTL, or I-TTL. My experience has shown these automated “SMART” settings to be unreliable at best and detrimental to creative lighting. The solution I use is to shoot in manual, always. The perks for this is longer battery life because I’ve set my strobe to either 1/8 or 1/16 power and sometimes even to 1/32. I know with these settings my strobes will last 3 to 4 hours on a single set of rechargeables.
Position is key and slight adjustments to positioning will yield quite different results. You will find yourself constantly moving, twisting, stretching or bobbing to get just the right angle and height for an effective backlit image. In the image above I positioned my strobe directly behind the couple at seven feet high. This meant that I had to squat down slightly to block the light source behind the head of the bride. I wanted the light to be as close too visible as possible without showing. This would ensure the most amount of rim light around hers and the groom’s heads. My ambient light was underexposed about 1 ½ to 2 stops so that I would have detail but not silhouette. What you don’t see is my assistant holding the light, but you don’t need an assistant to pull this off, a light stand placed strategically will suffice, but using an assistant that knows by hand signals where to be is invaluable and if needed they can make adjustments to your power out put without interrupting your work flow.
Remember, backlighting isn’t the only trick in your bag, but for the first dance it sure is a crowd pleaser.
Tech Data: Canon EOS 5D, 17-35 2.8L, Speedlite Transmitter ST-E2, ISO 1250, 1/50 @ f-3.5, Canon 580 EX II off camera set on manual @ 1/16th power.
Next Time: Taking Your Wedding Imagery to the Next Level – “Romantic Portraits”
Houston Wedding and Portrait Photographer - Scott Villalobos
www.rsvpstudios.com
Art it seems is a term used loosely among photographers these days. Yes we would all like to think of ourselves as artists with our own unique vision of the world, that what we do has never been done before and that our prospective clients couldn’t live without us. But the truth is for the vast majority of photographers art is an alien word that is not completely understood. Think about it. When was the last time you actually painted with light? If you’re a studio photographer you do it all the time, but if you’re a wedding photographer working in the real world you may need to ask yourself if you have ever done it. The truth for wedding photographers is that theirs is a chaotic world. After all weddings are events made up of micro events which must be micro managed to be documented adequately, and for the wedding photographer this means running from one micro event to the next with no break until the limo drives off. So in all of this madness where is there time for art?
If you are a solo photographer you will simply wear yourself out trying to lug around the tools you need to really create and control the light by which we can take our imagery to the next level. (Trust me it’s exhausting!) So what’s the solution? Hire an assistant; see how easy this can be… Oh if only! Yes having someone to lug around all that gear will indeed make your life a lot easier and your time shooting much more enjoyable, but that being said, having all the gear in the world won’t make your images any better unless you learn how to use it. And by the way, turning your strobe to ETTL is not learning how to use it. In the coming weeks I will discuss in greater detail the lighting techniques I use for various images through out the wedding day. I will also go into detail of the post processing that takes place to finish off the image. But for now I will address what I think may take your images to a new level right away.
Though it is not a new concept, getting your strobe off camera will be like putting tires on your car. Yes you could drive on your rims for a while, but sooner or later your going to get tired of the lack of control you have. The same is true of getting your strobe off your camera. Direct flash always looks unnatural. But once you get your light source off axis you create depth, your create highlight and shadow, and you create contrast. Bounce the light you say emphatically! Well, yes you could bounce the light, if there is a wall or ceiling near buy, but often times there is not. Or what if the ceiling is dark wood and thirty feet high, then what? Solution – go out and buy yourself some radio slaves and take control of your lighting.
The Bridal image above was not taken in a studio; it was taken at the venue. (By the way, The White House Farm is an amazing venue especially for bridal sessions) In this image there were a few factors I took into consideration. (1) The chandelier over her left shoulder. (2) The abundance yet flatness of the available light coming from the bedroom to my left and the bathroom to my right. (3) Placement of an artificial light source. (4) I wanted to match the color of my strobe to the much warmer light of the chandelier. And finally (5) I needed to control the spill from my light source on to the floor and background.
(1) The chandelier. If your not careful these are easy to over look and over expose. A simple exposure check on my LCD ensured that this didn’t blow out.
(2) The available light was sufficient for fill but if used as only light would be flat and unflattering. Solution, introduce key light with a lighting ratio of 4 to 1.
(3) Artificial light source was a 580 EX II set high a top a light stand with shoot thru umbrella placed camera left at 90% angle to subject.
(4) Matching the color of my strobe to that of the chandelier. Here in Houston I’ve found it harder to locate color correction gels, but in LA they are abundant, however thanks to the Internet you don’t have to fly to LA to get them. Purchase yourself a set of these little gems via Calumet Photographic and it may just rock your world. For this image I used ½ CTO to balance my strobe, which burns between 5000 to 5600 Kelvin to the much warmer chandelier, which burns around at 7500+ Kelvin.
(5) How do you control your spill when using an umbrella? First remember I used a shoot thru umbrella not a regular one, I could also have used a small soft box but they take to much time to set up and time is of the essence. Second you will need to do one of two things or both in conjunction depending on how narrow you want your light to be. You can always zoom your flash head to 100mm or you can do like I did and place a set of SP video light barn doors over your strobe. If you’re a Strobist subscriber you know what I’m talking about. If your not you should be. (www.strobist.blogspot.com)
Finally I used a gold reflector on an assistant stand to camera right for fill. Mind you this is a venue I had never shot at before and I didn’t see this spot until we were heading into another room.
The post took about 5 minutes in Photoshop. Some levels adjustments, a little burn and dodge, and +10 in saturation. That’s it.
Original image capture RAW, Canon EOS 50D, 24-70 2.8L @ 24mm, ISO 800, 1/25th @ f – 3.5.
Next time: “The Dramatic First Dance”
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Scott Villal0bos
Houston Wedding Photographer – RSVP Studios
Houston Wedding and Portrait Photographer - Scott Villalobos
www.rsvpstudios.com
Whose Pond Is It Anyway?
Writen by: Scott Villalobos
In the wedding and portrait photography business, sooner rather then later you are going to have to ask yourself this question, “Why am I competing with Uncle Bob?” Perhaps the real question we need to ask ourselves is, “Why am I attracting people that would rather hire uncle Bob as opposed to me?”
In the words of wedding photojournalist great, Denis Reggie, “If your fishing in a pond with little fish in it, don’t be surprised if all you catch is little fish. If you want to catch big fish, fish in the pond that has the big fish. This often means changing ponds.”
Many people just starting out get stuck in this exact situation. They charged low, low prices to attract business and build their portfolios. Then the brides friends start calling wanting the same deal their friend got one or even two years later. The problem is now your more confident, have gained experience, have a decent portfolio, and you’ve finally figured out that you weren’t making any money so you decided to raise your prices. That’s great, but is your clientele willing to pay the extra? Not if you haven’t gotten new clientele and I’m not talking about new faces but different clientele. So as Denis says, “It’s time to move to a new pond.”
If you are just starting out how can you gain valuable experience without getting stuck in the low-end market? There are many ways to gain experience and build your portfolio without having to slit your wrist for your clients.
One of the best ways is to learn by proxy. This means working for other photographers either as an assistant and working your way into a second shooter roll, or if you’ve already cut your teeth on a few weddings and want to shoot your own, look for a studio that uses associates. No you’re not going to get rich this way, but you will gain experience without having all the responsibility of being in business for yourself. You will also be able to create relationships with other vendors. Why is this important? Because other vendors may be able to help you drop your lures in the big pond, so treat them well, they are like fish finders.
One thing that I’ve noticed in the last three or four years is that many people think they can follow in the steps of the Bella Pictures of the world. The business model is volume driven and nationwide service. This means they use alot of local photographers especially in the bigger cities. While there is a market for this type of service, there is an even greater opportunity for new photographers to gain experience and knowledge of the industry by going to work for one of them. However, this can also be a double edged sword as you may find them to be your greatest competition in later years, and these guys work cheap and create albums cheap. But if you think you can handle your own weddings and want to perfect your style and technical savvy this might be the way to go. You won’t get rich, you may not even make enough to pay the rent, but you can make a name for yourself and if your good get referrals for future jobs.
But let’s look at the problem. You keep hearing that your competing for business with either a family member, a photography student or a relative who is an avid enthusiast. What do you do then?
The answer is not necessarily saying that I’m a pro-photographer with years of experience. I was at the Bridal Extravaganza back in July and one of the best photographers in Houston ($10K+) came up to me and said, “There sure is alot of great photography here.” Many of these photographers are in their first couple of years in the business and the truth is they were darn good at their craft. There are alot of uncle Bob’s that are also darn good at their craft even though they are not professionals. How will you convince a bride and groom or even worse, the brides mother to lay down 3 to 7K with you?
To answer this question you need to know that being a professional means alot more then charging to photograph wedding or portraits or whatever. It means being a businessperson, a marketer, customer service oriented and good with people. If your not good with people you won’t get very far in this business. People have to like you. When people can make a connection with you they will be drawn to you and your services. You have to give the customer a professional experience. You need to show professional products in a professional way. You need to have a polished presentation & pricelist. You need to offer products that stand out. You need to let your customers know that you are not just a shoot and dump photographer, but that you actually care about them and their finished products. (I’ll get more into detail about this aspect in a later post.)
Ultimately if your choosing to compete with uncle Bob you will find that your not going to get anywhere fast. On the other hand, if you choose to compete with professionals, be a professional. However you choose to do it, if your starting from scratch and you find that your greatest competition is a guy named uncle Bob, you may consider changing ponds.
