John and Maggie, and old lighting  

Posted in

Friday I worked with Stephanie and Wendi at John and Maggie's wedding. John and Maggie are extremely detailed, and I knew that I'd have some great environments to shoot. Since we had three shooters, I knew that I'd be able to really work creatively.

Before the ceremony, I worked with nothing but natural light.



The church was surprisingly dark (ISO 3200 @ 2.8) - it didn't really look that dark to the eye! I worked hard on creative focusing and using the available light to my advantage. (I exposed for the candle, letting John & Maggie be slightly underexposed, as well as out of focus, to show the symbolism of the unity candle).

Usually during the formals, I work with a single off camera light, and an on-camera light as fill. This time, I went old-school. I used vivitar 285s with radio triggers (you know, the same flashes that have been lighting weddings for 35+ years?). The manual modes allowed me to use these just like studio lights.

This image of Maggie was done with 2 lights - a main to camera left, and a fill back and to camera right. An umbrella helped soften the shadows from her hair, but I love the directional light. Honestly, doesn't it look like a window?
Here we were having a little fun. I had John pull Maggie over the edge of the pew, and I put a hard light just out of view behind all the pews to the left, and a main light with an umbrella to the camera right. I love the warm light through the window, the shadows of the pews on the floor, the highlight on her shoe - just fun!


Now, the reception is where I really had fun. I set up 4 lights around the room, all set at 1/16 power. I wanted them to be turned way down so I could capture some of the ambient light, since the DJ had set up 3 rear-projection screens. All I had on my camera was the trigger - extremely freeing!

On the dance floor, I always had good light. ISO 400, f4.0 - check these out!



This one was off the floor. Since I didn't have lights all around, I kicked up the ISO to 800, and opened up the f-stop to 2.8. All the light reflected off the dancers and gave me a very nice, soft, directional light.
Here you can see the setup - two of the 4 lights. The other great part - since my camera never flashed, people didn't know when I took a picture! It's much more discrete than you might think!

Is it soft light? Is it hard light? Well, the answer is both! Since light is coming from all angles, you rarely have deep shadows. Light also bounces off the people around your subject, giving a soft look. The highlights have this dramatic feel, and there's no doubt that this was no snapshot!

I'll be doing more of this style lighting in the future, no doubt. It takes a little time to set it up - 10 minutes or so - but the freedom and results I think speak for themselves.
Oh, and if you're wondering - these are all straight out of the camera. No retouching, no adjustments - just awesome!

Always working to get the best I can for my clients. Hope you get a chance to try this!

Now to give credit where credit is due, I can't take 100% claim on this lighting style. While we have used vivitars for years off camera, Rick Delorme is the first person who told me to get the lights completely off the camera. I had never had good reliability with my old radio slaves, and my old flashes didn't have any manual settings but "full", so it was never a true test. I'm not sure he drags the shutter to get ambient light in, or if he goes full flash, but I have to say thanks for the encouragement and ideas!

Shan

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 2, 2007 at Sunday, December 02, 2007 and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed .

1 comments

Anonymous  

Good words.

November 10, 2008 at 9:38 AM

Post a Comment