October Wedding

Another month and other venue and a completely different style of wedding.  Two great friends of mine, Claire & Dave, asked me if I wouldn't mind "taking some snaps for them" at their recently arranged, civil ceremony, which was to be on a small scale.  Of course not, it would be a pleasure, but I could never take it that lightly!  I took a fair bit of kit but only really used the D700 with 24-70 lens and SB900 flash and the D300 with 70-200 lens.

I offered to visit them at home during preparations to get some shots of them and their lovely and photogenic children.  I set manual exposure to deal with ambient room light coming in through the end window then popped some bounced fill flash in from the same direction to reduce the flatness.

D700, 24-70 @ F3.2 & ISO 400 plus TTL-BL bounced flash

I like to try and get this or a similar shot of a bride getting ready as it is something that most people would never take themselves and has a certain fun element to it.

The venue was the lovely old guildhall with its large airy space and light flooding in through the large windows from camera left at 10 o' clock in the next image.  I varied exposures from time to time to either brighten the interior or hold more of the highlights as it was easy to let the windows and sections of floor blow out.   The light was fine for ambient shots at ISO 400 but was a bit flat where the ceremony was to take place, so I decided to bounce fill flash up and to camera left so it was from a similar direction to the natural light.  The white paint certainly helped and did not introduce any nasty tones.  

I took this image over the ceremony table in anticipation of the couple entering through the doors at the end of the hall.

During the ceremony it was important to meter on the couple and let the background blow out where it would.  I didn't wish to use harsh flash and smaller apertures just for the sake of holding the background highlights and I rather like the effect of a bright backlight for some images, especially as it adds a more romantic or dreamy look.

D700, 24-70 @ F3.2, 1/125th sec & ISO 400,  TTL-BL bounced flash

After being constrained at the previous church venue it was nice to be given full freedom to move about here to capture different angles.

D700, 24-70 @ F5, 1/200th sec & ISO 400 plus TTL-BL bounced flash

.......even to the extent that I shot from behind Claire & Dave.  I thought it would be nice to get a shot more from their perspective for a change.

Another example of exposing for the subject and letting the background over expose.   Claire reckons she isn't photogenic...I have to disagree!

D700, 24-70 @ F4.5, 1/200th sec, ISO 640 plus bounce flash

For the register signing I took a number of shots that were a mix of more formal ones and others with all the kids crowded around, to give them some variety. This was one of the former.

Outside the sun was beating down on a lovely day, which is great for everyone...except the photographer!  There was a lovely double stairway from the hall to street level, with half brightly lit and the other half in diagonal shadow.  I took some shots of the couple on the sunny side then tried some more on the shaded side.  I exposed for the background to retain detail and colour in the sky and trees, then popped in direct fill flash to try and balance the exposure contrasts.  While I hate using direct flash to control this level of contrast, owing to the inevitable shadows, it did work well in balancing things up and the couple remarked later how they really liked the colours on these shots...after all I am taking the images for them!  I set the shutter speed to max sync to maximise flash power, while reducing ambient exposure and set the widest aperture I could to try to hold the background exposure and allow more flash light in.

D700, 24-70 @ F6.3, ISO 200, 1/250th sec, TTL-BL direct flash

Some other shots taken at the same location at wider angles required much smaller apertures of F11-14 and therefore much more flash power.  They looked somewhat artificial but not wholly disagreeable.  Maybe using reflectors and an assistant would have helped deal with this contrast problem more subtlely, but I had neither.

I took some snaps of the couple getting showered in confetti, which I hope captured the fun aspects of the day.  I could say that I was trying to connect myself to the photo by allowing my shadow to creep in here along with many others, but I was just shooting away and trying to capture the action!

The sunny side was fine for fun shots of these little girls running down the steps because the colours really pop and I wasn't too concerned about the subjects squinting or harsh contrast here.  I think the coatings on the latest lenses give awesome colours...virtually nothing was done to this after download.

I liked this almost mirror-like view of the girls together and shot it on the D300 with 70-200 lens in ambient light.  I spot-metered off the skin tones so the girls did not disappear into shadow.

D300, 70-200 @ F4 & ISO 200

Then it was inside the pub next door for a quick drink.  The relatively low light meant I set ISO 1600 to allow the ambience to register and used bounce flash from the direction of the windows to add some sparkle.  Therefore many shots have a subject but the background view is obviously that of a pub.

A relatively small group then set off to share an informal meal with the couple at a local restaurant.  It was a really relaxed and fun time so I wanted to capture that with some of the images.  Even the cake was fun and very rich too!  I had some interesting exposure issues again, with Claire and Dave sat right in front of a big, sunny window!  I set exposure for my subjects and used fill flash bounced from the ceiling and wall to the left.  Miraculously the camera did hold the highlights on some higher angle shots like this first one but others were totally impossible.

 I also tried to get shots of guests, most of which were snaps, but one or two more formal.

D700, 24-70, F5.6, ISO 400, 1/100th sec, bounced TTL-BL flash from window direction

Overall it was a really great day that I enjoyed hugely and the pressure of doing the photographs did not detract from that.  Indeed it was great to be able to do such a different wedding with different challenges and file it in the experience drawer.