Pro Photo Business Forum

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 1/10^th sec to 1/60^th 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 @ 1/16^th power.

Next Time: Taking Your Wedding Imagery to the Next Level – “Romantic Portraits”

Houston Wedding and Portrait Photographer - Scott Villalobos www.rsvpstudios.com

If this is your first ime here, then welcome! I’m so proud of this site and its members!

My name is Aric Hoek, and I have been a professional photographer all my life. 100% of my income has been, and always will be from photography. I’m the host of The Pro Photo Business Forum.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love talking about the business of wedding photography to just about anyone that will listen, so the creation of the Pro Photo Business Forum was a very natural progression for me.

You’re either the type of person that likes to hang out in forums, or you aren’t. There isn’t much in between. If you like forums, then you are going to notice one fundamental difference when you visit the home page of the Pro Photo Business Forum. The difference you see is in what’s NOT there. You don’t see a listing of recent posts. You don’t see forum statistics. You don’t see a listing of members. You don’t see calendars.

What you do see is information that can help photographers, which is what this community is all about. What you do see is a blog, created by the members of the forum. And we’re not just talking about how to take great photographs, but we are talking about the things that really matter to professional photographers. We’re talking about the business of photography.  We’re talking about the bottom line.

Would you like to join us? Would you like to contribute to our blog as a PPBF Contributing Writer?

We’re looking for experienced photographers to help contribute to our new experiment. In return for two scheduled blog entries a month, PPBF Contributing Writers receive the following:

1. Free access to the Pro Photo Business Forum.
2. Recognition on the PPBF homepage.
3. A link to your homepage from the PPBF homepage.
4. A link to your homepage in the signature of your articles.
5. Access to a privte staff forum on the PPBF.
6. Profile page with a listing of all your articles.

Contact us today if you are interested in filling the a position. Currently we have five contributing writers. My goal is an ambitious fifteen. With fifteen Contributing Writers, each writing two articles, the blog will have fresh information for it’s readers every day of the month!

Come and join the ride! Contact us today!

You’ll never be the same. You’ll be better!

Aric C. Hoek BFA, CPP, Author
PPBF Administrator
Join The Pro Photo Business Forum
Educational eBooks by Aric
Houston Wedding Photographer, Aric Hoek

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, 1/25^th @ f – 3.5.

Next time: “The Dramatic First Dance”

Join the Pro Photo Business Forum to talk with me further.

Scott Villal0bos
Houston Wedding Photographer – RSVP Studios

Houston Wedding and Portrait Photographer - Scott Villalobos www.rsvpstudios.com

If you’ve been a professional photographer for any amount of time, you’ve had friends and family ask you to shoot their wedding, birthday, or portrait. For amateur photographers, this can be a great opportunity to build a portfolio in a more relaxed environment. But for the working professional, this situation could end in a nightmare unless you treat it very carefully. For this reason, many photographers refuse to work for friends, afraid of repeating a bad experience that they or a colleague had. But if you keep a few things in mind, working for friends and family can be a rewarding experience that is beneficial for both you the photographer as well as your friend or relative.

Making sure the whole process runs smoothly starts when your friend or family member asks you to photograph them. Nothing is more critical at this first step than ensuring that you understand their true expectations. Look out for dangerous phrases like “snap some photos” and “take a few shots”. Very rarely does anyone actually want just a few snapshots. Otherwise they wouldn’t have asked you. A fellow photographer I am friends with recently spoke on the phone with another friend of ours about doing a few “quick” portraits of his daughter. What he described as “passport-style shots” turned out were going to be used as senior portraits. Had the photographer taken some boring passport photos, the girl would have surely been disappointed, and worse, would have expressed her disappointment to her friends. There’s a clear lesson in that story: ask questions, and don’t stop until you’re absolutely sure about your friend’s expectations. Whether they are direct about it or not, your friend is asking you to photograph them because they trust you. They trust you because they’ve seen your top quality work and level of professionalism. Don’t let them convince you that they are interested in anything but your best work.

More than trust, price almost always plays a factor in family and friends requesting your services as a photographer. Most people’s budgets are tighter these days, and you as their friend the professional photographer are a perfect way to fit in under budget for their wedding. There are several ways to approach pricing yourself in these situations, all of which are valid and depend on both your business and your relationship with your friend.

The first way is to charge your regular rate. If you are a busy wedding photographer and your friend’s wedding will fill a date you will likely get other inquiries for, this is a good option. Your second choice is to give your friends a discount. Lower your normal rate, and treat the discounted amount as your wedding gift to them. The third and final option is to only charge them for expenses, but not your time. To properly photograph an event, you’ll need assistant(s), possibly rental gear, and other items. Don’t ignore these or you may very well end up losing money by photographing them. This is only appropriate for photographers with low rates such that only charging for expenses would not be a huge discount. Notice that doing the event for free is not mentioned here. If your friend is not even willing to cover your costs, that likely indicates that photographing them will be far more trouble than it’s worth. When you don’t charge any money, you are no longer a professional, but a volunteer. If you cannot respect your business enough by charging friends and family members, they surely won’t respect the fact that you a professional.

Once you’ve agreed on a price, the worst mistake you can make is deciding that because you are such good friends, a contract is unnecessary. A contract ensures that both parties understand each other’s expectations and binds them to a set of terms. The same way a contract protects you in the event a regular client is unhappy, it ensures that you are not liable for anything outside of your friend of family’s expectations. What happens when your friend who just wanted you to take a few “family snapshots” at his wedding is upset that you haven’t delivered a stunning portrait of his bride? Photographers worry that insisting on a contract could upset their friend and damage their friendship. In reality, not signing a contract could do just that. Signing a contract and then having to use it to defend yourself to a friend is an unfortunate and uncomfortable experience, one that we all hope to never be part of. But having a friend sue you and demand that you pay for a restaged wedding and a new photographer will surely sever your relationship with that friend. Don’t opt to skip a contract. You’ll only be sorry later.

Photographing family and friends can be a fun experience. Because your subjects know you well, the session can be more relaxed and produce beautiful portfolio quality images. But if there is confusion about the expectations of the photographer and the client, it could also be your worst nightmare. A solid understanding of expectations and payment formalized in a contract will prevent future hassles. Be friendly, but be professional, but remember: make everyone’s expectations clear. With that in mind, have fun photographing your friends and family and providing them with beautiful images they will cherish forever.

Please leave a comment below, or join the PPBF to discuss this topic further.

Ben Drucker
PPBF Contributing Writer
Maplewood Event and Portrait Photographer: Ben Drucker Photography