I was browsing around checking out a few websites that I stalk from time to time and found a photo that I really liked! I thought this was one of those images where I kinda spoke a little out loud "whoa"... Have you ever done that? Anyway, Dan & Anne Almasy have been rocking out some images in Atlanta. Check out their stuff, they are pretty rockin photographers... Dan writes: I think that this particular shot is pretty representative of the way we approach lighting at weddings, and that includes two elements, simplicity + interest. With every wedding we shoot, we make a concerted effort to show up early enough so that we have time to set up our lights, and do some test shots, that way when the ceremony is over, our lights are all ready to go - we just show up at the reception site, turn on the PocketWizards and get to work. In this shot we had a challenge that I'm sure most wedding photographers encounter at some point or another - lighting an outdoor venue, in the evening. Now, we've been through this before, but I have to say that each time is a little different. A lighting setup that worked for one situation doesn't always work for another, which is where the preparation comes in. Earlier in the day, Anne and I showed up and decided that we wanted to set up the lights in opposite corners of the dance floor. The lights we use are Quantum T2 models with Turbo battery packs. We had these set on 1/8th power, they were set up about 10ft. in the air, and triggered of course with PocketWizards. By the time the ceremony was over, we were at a point where daylight was becoming more and more scarce. I had already decided early on that I wanted to shoot the dancing shots with my shutter a little slower than I normally shoot (1/25th) to retain a little subject movement. I chose to use my favorite wide lens, Canon's 14mm f2.8L to really just frame out the dance floor and our lighting setup, and I was shooting at f5.6 at 400 ISO. The majority of credit for this shot really goes out to the bride and her dad. They simply provided me with an extremely well-choreographed dance number, and after watching them for about a minute, I knew that I was going to snap that shutter at a point in their dance that they had repeated earlier, and at just the right moment, they swung apart from each other, hands extended outward, and what we end up with is a graceful and dramatic shot from a very brief moment in this father-daughter dance. The light set up on camera-right acts as kind of a prop in and of itself, and while the moment itself carries some drama with it, I think including the light in the shot takes it up a notch. As I stated earlier, this shot exemplifies exactly what we're about - creating simplistic yet dramatic images for our clients. We use our lights to solve problems, and in some cases the light itself steps up front and center to enhance a moment into something much more powerful. -Dan

 

Great shot Dan! I totally agree, simple and interesting. I'd say that timing in that PJ moment helped a tad too :) After seeing this shot on their homepage, I recalled another shot that Dan's wife Anne captured back in 2006. Being that this is a husband and wife duo, I felt like they both deserved some spotlight for their flash lighting props! Anne writes: I shot this at a wedding in April of '06, and it was really the shot that got us excited about using lighting in a different way to enhance our wedding work. We were still pretty new to the industry at the time, so finding new ways to grow and improve were especially thrilling! I think the funniest part about this photo is that it was hugely luck. Sure, we triggered the flash to bounce off the tent ceiling in front of the bride, but there is no way we could ever duplicate this shot! The bride's arms are poised so beautifully (you can even see her ring shining on her left hand), and the bouquet is so perfectly silhouetted. We couldn't have directed it if we had tried! I didn't crop this image at all; this is what I got straight from the camera with just a bump of contrast. To get it, I sat down right behind the bride on the dance floor, and set my camera to burst (I don't usually shoot burst or I end up with 50 gazillion photos - ha). When she tossed the bouquet, I pretty much shot wildly, trying to track her arms and the bouquet backwards across the ceiling and to the girls waiting to catch it. This was the first frame I got of the toss. The others were pretty useless. ;) I've learned since that it's MUCH safer to shoot WIDE during a scene like this, but I can't regret the narrow frame in this case because I feel like it made for a really classic image. -Anne

 

So you think that shot was luck eh? How about some props for placing that as the top dog 1st place shot in the WPJA's quarterly contest for Bouquet & Garter toss? If anyone reading this blog is looking for a little inspiration prior to this weekend's wedding go check out their BLOG and their website too! Remember, we grow stronger with our own vision with the help and influence of our peers! Anybody else like these images? Give them a shout! Cheers, mateo

Have you ever been shooting and had this miracle blessing where an off camera strobe (not your intentional flash) just appeared from the background / foreground and illuminated your frame, thus delivering a magical image that was totally unplanned and seemingly excellently executed? If so, then you should be thankful to be LUCKY :) Well, in our few years of shooting we have been lucky enough to see a random strobe appear. In this photo example, Sol Tamargo squeezed off a pretty cool shot of the bride leaving the church and kissing her mother. You can see the camera toting dork in the background (me) with my associate just next to me, holding a remote flash. Sol was not intentionally triggering this flash when she composed this frame, it just happened. The resulting photo is....luck! I like this photo because it is a strong exit moment. Bride embraces mother prior to getting in the limo. I'll take luck :)

 

Accidental flash flavor can also come as a gift from the typical film shooting family grandmother or family relative. In this frame, our our associate Melissa. She was shooting the processional with a 24-70 when the mother of the groom squeezed off an award winner. Timing a camera shutter from a handheld P&S camera is impossible... try timing that to ISO 1250, 2.8 at 1/40th. I've been lucky enough to get a handful of frames with a shutter going off. I really liked the effect this one had on our image.

 

Lastly, I wanted to finish up with some humor. Sorry if this offends some folks, I laughed out loud after I shot it. The bride saw this photo on the LCD and just about made me show it to the entire dinner table. This was just some random golfer at a golf club. The groom was terrified to see this out of the corner of his eye...Anyway, my associate was using a flash and had placed the strobe on the top of the lockers. Having no idea that it was actuallly receiving a signal from my transmitter or that it was even there! I got this lucky nicely lit bounce light frame. Wow, sometimes when you dont plan things, they still come together! YEAY!

 

I've talked about a few other random accidents before... Accident 1 and one of my favorites Accident 2 Anybody else have any happy accidents to share that involve a strobe or some crazy flash moment. Please share your images with the Flash Flavor Flickr image pool

Our job as a documentary photographer is to showcase the mood and ambiance of an event. Often enough, 5-7 hours into a wedding is enough for us photographers to start to get tired and lazy on our feet. Have you told yourself or assistant "hey, we have shot this dancing stuff for hours, I'm going to start shooting less"? Well, I would totally agree that 50 drunk folks on the dance floor can start to look redundant! I would suggest that the moment this question comes to your mind, OPEN YOUR MIND and start exploring the possibilities of creativity! What a better place to experiment with the flash! Heck, the flash doesn't even need to be part of your creative exploration as your camera is a wonderful tool to play with. Because this is flash flavor, I've included a few examples of our team using flash to SPICE up our time... In this photo example, we decided to exaggerate the movement of the dance floor. I chose a moment when the bridesmaids decided to get on the floor and turn circles around each other. The blue color of their dresses helped the photo moment too. I cooled the photo down in PS to blend with the tones in the dresses and such. Our assistant can be seen in the upper right hand side of the frame with a flash stick. The slave was triggered by pocket wizard and set to 1/8th power bouncing off a very tall ceiling, meant to spill enough light on the entire room but not overpower the dragging movement. Its really a mix of the strong ambient and flash. Canon 5d ISO 250 2.8 at 1/2 second

 

These two images came from a Greek wedding where they were throwing money at the bride and groom during a traditional Greek dance. I used many different approaches to get some great shots here, but these two occurred when I started "experimenting" with my flash. With the help of an assistant hand holding a slave triggered by pocket wizard, we set the flash to 1/4 power and set the head to a 28mm zoom. The instructions I gave him were to go over to the middle of this chaos and hide from me, aiming the flash in many different places. For this frame, a 45 degree bounce off the floor, aimed camera left. Notice camera prospective! Canon 5d ISO 1250 2.8 1/60th Here, I change camera prospective and the flash is aimed at pretty much the same prespective. Added emphasis to make compositional lines drew your eye to the kid :) Cheers! mateo

I know everybody is totally annoyed with me that I only update this blog once every 7-8...ok, maybe 9 days or so. SORRY. I'm busy shooting and traveling, really, I promise! Anyway, I need that time to muster up content that is actually worth something, so this week, I want to post something that I think will help a few of my readers grow closer to actually nailing the shot they initially envisioned! Sound easy enough? Well, with some practice and some studying, its totally doable! In this post, I want my readers to consider the tools that help us do what we do! Before anybody gets started reading this post, I would like to give some tips that will help ANY photographer, regardless of skill level, reach the next level! Lets start with my toolbox. First off, we use Canon 5d's, L series Glass, off camera flash triggered by pocket wizards and we also use PHOTOSHOP. I want this post to feature a little Props to Adobe for engineering such an amazing piece of software...Before I get into the description of how we use PS, I would like everybody to know that we shoot JPG files on our 5d at the 1 step compression Large setting. Sol & I have been shooting weddings for 6 years now and combined, we haven't yet shot a RAW file for a client. I DO NOT want this to turn into a raw vs. jpg argument, because I really want this post to be about that topic... But what I do care about, is that you understand that we shoot JPG files and we think that shooting the correct color balance, exposure and composition is extremely important to get RIGHT when you squeeze the trigger. Raw has its benefits and I love the format however for us, it doesnt work for our production process. That said, for the sake of the following photos, I'd like to throw some props to some of the resources that we have found very helpful in the development of our creative vision. Anybody heard of NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals)? Well, if not, I recommend you rush and join their association and start sucking in all the excellent resources available through their network of professionals. Scott Kelby, Dave Cross, RC, Matt Kloskowski and you may want to check out PhotoshopuserTV. I have spent many a days logged into NAPP's website following video tutorials and studying techniques to better my imagery... If any of these sites are new to you, I'd recommend taking some time to indulge in them! I think its paid off. In the following example, I've got an image that showcase before and after techniques to emphasize how photoshop helps us make a prettier image :) We don't rely on PS 100% for our imagery, but sometimes, it sure helps us tweak our images into some super magic! This particular image wasnt shot with the best framing and exposure. PS was needed to "rescue" it. We were saved by the tools that PS offered us! I don't want to explain exactly what I did as it took me about 8 minutes or so to make this photo work and look seamless. Just understand that sometimes, PS can make the difference in a saved shot vs a shot that makes the cut, but isnt quite the "one". In this photo example, we used a slave snooted speedlight (nikon sb-28 triggered by PW) that was set to 1/8th power with a full CTO gel. This photo was cropped, and touched up in PS using curves, patch tool, cloning tool, and history brush with a few masks and some custom actions to achieve the end result. I've included the BEFORE & AFTER images for full impact. The results are subtle and more appealing to my eye. Canon 5d, ISO 50 2.8 1/160th with a 16-35 L at 16 mm. After a little Photoshop Help... To back up the usage of the CTO gel... I decided early on during this portrait session was shadowed by a setting sun with some very beautiful directional light that was very orange colored and replicating this look was something easy enough to do with the CTO. The following image is NOT a Flash Flavor image, but included here to emphasize the available light quality and color and back up the decision I made to use the CTO gel.

 

here is another one that was shot with a snooted speedlight, a tad blown out. Slave was set to 1/4 power and just TOO close to the subject. Canon 5d, ISO 200 2.8 1/160th As you can see, the color version is just a tad hot...its actually pretty blown out. BUT, contrast is ok, and with few custom PS actions and a B&W conversion, the contrast is sexy!

 

Anybody got PS or love it as much as I do... Isnt it a blast to use this software? Editing can get you down, but when you really know how to use the software, its a total BLAST! Thoughts? Cheers! Matt