I haven't even downloaded my 2nd shooter Sergio's images yet, but felt like this story has urgency due to the implications that hurricanes have on our clients and that the fact is we just experienced what some brides would call, "THEIR WORST NIGHTMARE" Actually, this group was the complete opposite of that. Vanessa has to be the coolest bride I've ever met... Under the circumstances, she played it out like a champion of champions. This girl wins the all time award for brides that go with the flow and do not get stressed out. I'm serious here, not 1 ounce of stress from this girl, all happiness and smiles. She did after all name her wedding "Mission Mexico" I had to put these images up before this storm hit landfall. Keep in mind, as I'm writing this post, this family is STUCK on the Yucatan Peninsula... They will be riding out the storm there in Valladolid Mexico, the small town in central Yucatan. Mexico has it figured out very well, government mandated evacuation. GET OUT NOW. And they do it several days for the Sh!t hits the fan... props to them. I can honestly say that this story is one that I will NEVER forget and I am so lucky that I was able to get these wonderful memories. The group totally didn't mind at ALL that we were documenting the entire day... From the moment we were awake until after midnight, we were flying around shooting everything! Why in the heck is this wedding on Flash Flavor??? Well, I managed to squeak out a technique that I feel folks need to try, when given the situation....more on that later. IN the meantime, I wanted to include a few images here and showcase the rest of them in my wedding blog, so feel free to jump over there to check out MY shots. I will update the link with sergio's images when I get to it, amongst other things, a slideshow of favorites too! I did a complete writeup over on my wedding blog, 26 + photos as well as a story time-line to showcase how I documented the event. I didn't want to bloat FlashFlavor with all those shots... even though this one is a MUST see story... My most favorite project to date out of 150+ weddings. First off, I was reading a post on Strobist the other day about this guy who was throwing his camera up in the air to get the shot...although innovative, I say the HECK with that idea... what do you do when you are shooting standing in the water? But it got me thinking....Why not put your camera on your monopod??? DUH? So, after reading that post, I was armed and ready to complete the idea and this wedding gave me the PERFECT opportunity to do just that. Take some notes here folks, this technique WILL change your wedding photography! All the guests were asked to bring all their luggage across the beach and to the edge of the ocean, and then to carry them over their heads about 100 yards to a few boats that were awaiting departure to get off the island... The scale of this was important to me...but, i'm kinda short, 5'8. Here, I was able to extend the monopod up to 8 feet or so, and then set the camera to timer mode (i didn't have the PW cables to trigger it) and set my focus on a subject about 5 feet away, set my Canon 5d to shoot at f14 around 1/200 with a 580 on camera, adding fill at +2... BUT, the point here was to photograph the event from a perspective that showcased the awesome spectacle of what was actually happening. Can you imagine this happening at ANY of your weddings? Here is another... Ok, so here is one image from Sergio's camera, showcasing the same moment seen above... and my bounce flash, aimed at the sky...do you like that??? and another (check out that freak storm in the background--not the hurricane) It arrived to add insult to injury or as a going away present to the evacuation... i guess it should be raining to justify evacuation an island to abandon your wedding location.. Here, Sergio & I are getting ready to make the "great escape". The bride's sister made this photo of our flee At this point, you seriously must jump over to my wedding blog to read this story if you haven't already... there is so much more pulp there to add to this experience...

 

Full story on the Evacuated bride Anyway, fast forward to the end of the ferry ride over to the mainland, and then a 2 hour drive to the city where they planned for the makeshift ceremony... I commandeered (politely asked) a guest who I had been hanging with and chatting with, to assist me by personally assisting me with the speedlight. This is proof that ANYBODY can do this. We set our SB-28 to 1/16th power and figured a distance of about 15 feet, with our 5d's set to ISO 800 F3.2 at 1/30th, to add some ambient in the frame. Guest assistance...who would have thunk it? I don't do this all the time, but I have actually enjoyed a few successful photographs with it! and the father and bride walking across street, traffic being stopped by hotel staff. We work lite at our gigs, after all, this one was some intense moving around. We had to utilize our resources and make do with minimal setup. Light stick (monopod) a few sb-28's and our cameras with our normal zoom lenses..

 

Please keep in mind that this post is all about being resourceful and making the best out of a situation... I think we all can improve in this category. These people were able to have a ceremony in a place they had never visited, all planning done at the very last second... like planning a 35 guest reception, 30 minutes away from the start time of that reception. Imagine that? Please provide comments :) cheers! matt

I found a killer photo online the other day and did a little investigating to check out the source. Turns out, the photo author had WAY more to offer than just the typical portrait session....He is totally the portrait master! And he was all about the Flash Flavor.... key thing is, he was shooting these puppies when I was in learning to drive! Yep, a film photograph...What the heck is that??? and he even used a light meter...I'm totally lost now.... This digital age has really taken off, and it is exciting to see photographers who mastered shooting weddings on film...Check his blog, linked later on in this post.... he is quite the photoshop guru! Just remember, no chimping on this one.... "Somewhere in Time" by David Ziser I was in Rochester, NY on a shoot a few years ago and, while filling some time one afternoon, wondered into a book store at the local mall. As I was browsing through the shop, I saw a poster of this location. I thought is was somewhere in Rome or Greece. The architecture "blew me away!" After inquiring where it was - I as told it was right there in Rochester, NY - it was City Hall!. I couldn't believe it - I wanted to shoot there. After a few days of phone calling, I got the necessary permissions and set up the shoot. It still stands out as one of my favorite all time images. Here is the technical background on the image. The image was made shortly after the noon hour so most of the building staff was at lunch. This is why it looks so empty. That said, you may ask... "Why is it so dark?" Here is the set up. I positioned the bride and groom on the second level of the building. I headed to the 4th floor. I had my assistant position my flash on the floor and out of site behind the bride and groom. It was set to about 100 watt-seconds. This flash supplied the nice broad wash of lighting behind the couple. I then positioned my assistant behind the pillar to the left of the couple. He was holding a small shoe mount flash which was fired with an optical slave. This is the flash that supplied the "front" illumination on the subjects. Since it was coming in from the left, it also provided the beautiful directional light. The ambient light was metered at F8 at 1/60 sec, but I wanted the building to render much darker than the proper exposure would have rendered it. I was using a Hasselblad medium format camera at the time which will sync with the flash up to 1/500 sec. I put a 40mm wide angle lens on my Hasselblad, set the aperture to F8 and increased the shutter speed to 1/500 sec. Since the subject's exposure was controlled by the flash, the reduction of exposure on the building was accomplished by "speeding up" the shutter to 1/500sec, thereby underexposing the building by 3 stops. This put the building's lighter tonal values right where I wanted them - substantially darker than the couple. As I said earlier, the resulting image still remains one of my "all time" favorites.

 

Dang Beautiful shot! film too...beaut! Recently, David has been showcasing more of his beautiful portraits on his blog, Digital Pro Talk and he also finished up a tour last year themed "The Digital Wake Up Call". Resident photoshop MASTER, Scott Kelby , threw some diggs David's way in AWE of the delivery & content from his workshop, turned dvd... I've got my set coming in the mail! cheers! matt

Recently, I motivated myself to come up with an idea I had and have since been practicing :) Seriously, I hadn't tried the camera on the monopod idea before August 18 and at my very next wedding, August 25, I pulled it out to see what I could do. Folks, I plan to wear this bad boy technique out! Its clever and different almost every time you use it, because it allows you to change your vantage point. How many times do you see yourself standing on your tip toes or leaning or stretching or doing something different to get the shot??? Almost every wedding I go to I'm trying to find a better angle. Plus, I'm short, 5'8...so I need the added height... How do you change this technique up and add a little flash flavor? Well, I was shooting a reception in a room with a ceiling of 20ish feet of height, and decided to use that to my advantage. I put my Canon 5d on my custom made painters pole / monpod, and gave my camera 14 ish feet of reach over the dance floor. I kept the on camera 580 with the head rotated 180 and facing up so it would be bouncing off the ceiling to provide my down light fill and set my associate operated slave Nikon Sb-28 to 1/2 power with a RED gel and asked him to point it at the dance floor. I focused the camera with about 8 feet of distance to subject and raised the camera on the stick towards the sky.... BANG!!! this is the shot that I ran home with....

 

You can see my assistant dressed in all black, holding the strobe towards the floor. I told him to face the opposite way so he wouldn't be recognizable....it kinda worked :) Feel free to check out the full wedding slideshow of photographer favorites here I'm loving this one... If I had 10 times to practice this one.... well, forget about practice... lets see your examples :) I'll keep it up, but for now, this is the best I can do for on the spot! Cheers! please post your new photo examples to the Flash Flavor Flickr group

 

***UPDATE*** After questions about how I did this...i reached into my vault and found this image that Sol Tamargo snagged of my setup with my rigged painters pole with a instant weld type product to hold the long threaded bolt to twist the camera down... This photo is not about fine art, but will give you a feeling of the "how to"