I wanted to follow up with posting another set of images from one of the photographers I am keeping an eye on. Ed Pingol has recently contributed to a FF post on deleting the ambient. One of the things that really stood out about Ed's photography is the effort he takes to set up some of his formals. I think that a LOT of us can take some serious notes on this one... I often get lazy and claim that formals aren't my game... well, after looking at this stuff, I'm a little inspired to go out and try a tad harder.

 

Go to school on shooting some kewl formals.... Ed Pingol writes: The Importance of a Group Formals The bridal party which usually consist of family and close friends are typically required to take photos with the bride and groom. Providing the bridal party with the same personal experience as the bride and groom has been a HUGE benefit (even if there's over 20 of them total) for our business. Why? Because some of the individuals in the party can very will be your next client, plus they make for a nice spread in wedding albums which can add a great value to its worth. By taking a bit more time to set these "group photos", several benefits can be had: -you get an awesome portfolio - potential clients like to see these type of images because they see that we do take some time to get creative bridal party pictures. a huge factor when deciding on photographers -you get referred out by the bridal party if they don't hire you themselves - this part is pretty cool because several of our clients are great friends. when you shoot a close friend of the bride, you've already established a relationship before even clicking a single shot of her wedding. this makes things SO much easier than starting from square one. But the most important thing is that they already trust you -designing albums are easier - because you have taken a bit of time to set up, chances are the images you're about to capture is clean and well composed. clean and well composed images demand single spreads for themselves. one image per spread is SO easy to design, a caveman can do it. -it's just a lot more fun than traditional poses - of course we do the creative stuff AFTER we've done the traditional poses for the moms and pops. most of the bridal party has never experienced anything similar to this during a wedding. show them just one example and chances are they'll want to take several more. if you make it fun, they'll remember and referrals are sure to follow. Of course, when doing this, you should take several images of the same pose but just varying it up just a tad by saying "look anywhere AWAY from the camera (click, click, click), look to your left (click, click, click), look to your right (click, click, click), look at the camera no smile (click, click, click) and look at the camera AND smile (click, click, click)". We do this all the time to cover all the bases before moving on to the next pose. We include all minor variances of the pose (if the client decides to purchase a dvd) and more times than not, their favorite (and ours) are the ones when people are looking away. Go figure. =) So setting up a pose is cool and all but this is the time where we add a little FLASH FLAVOR to the mix. Below is an example of a typical "Ed Pingol" group photo (whatever that means) of the bridal party - setting is 100iso 1/180th @ f13 - lighting set up consist of dual nikon sb-28's triggered by a PW mounted on a monopod fired 1/1 @ 24mm beam spread - held high by Monica. See example of actual setup here. Kindly please take a look at the example below how an image typically looks like without any flash flavor. There's alot going on especially in the background that can distract the eye from your main subject. In order to "delete" that please read up on deleting the ambient. Other Examples: 100iso 1/180th @ f19 - lighting set up consist of dual nikon sb-28's triggered by a PW mounted on a monopod fired 1/1 @ 24mm beam spread - held high by Monica. 100iso 1/180th @ f13 - lighting set up consist of dual nikon sb-28's triggered by a PW mounted on a monopod fired 1/2 @ 24mm beam spread - held high camera right by Monica. 100iso 1/180th @ f13 - lighting set up consist of dual nikon sb-28's triggered by a PW mounted on a monopod fired 1/1 @ 24mm beam spread (heads swiveled left and right to provide wider cover) - held high by Monica.

 

Ed, how refreshing to see this post! I'm very impressed that you actually take the time to set these up. I know your clients dig them. I love it when you mix bright sunlight in the frame and blast them with the flash, just hotness! Lets hope that we all can take some inspiration from this one and change it up a little next time you set up a group of formals! Props Ed, thanks for sending me this submission. This is what Flash Flavor is ALL about amigo! Cheers matt

One of the blogs I'm stalking is from San Fransisco photographer, Anna Kuperberg. Anna's eye is always fresh and exciting, so for me, its a huge source of inspiration. If you haven't checked out her portfolio yet, let this post guide the way my friend.... The image in this post reminds me of Hollywood! I was once one the set of the television series "Touched by an Angel" and I specifically remember a scene that was being filmed inside a limo with intentions to be at night, however it was 2pm. The car was moved into a warehouse and all ambient light was completely controlled. I was amazed how the technicians set up this shot to work. The car never moved with the exception of a few guys on either side outside pushing back and forth, to give the perception of movement. The real trick with achieving perceived movement was all in the light setup! They had boom poles with lights that they would swing from left to right, turning lights on and off and then resetting them and going through different sequences. They even had rear headlight boom lights that gave the perception of cars approaching... Anyway, it was way cool experience. I hope I gave you enough of a visual on the experience to begin to "see the Hollywood possibilities" with your creative lighting. Anna Kuperberg was seeing the Hollywood vision when she made this killer image... Anna Writes: This is Maya and Boris. Their wedding was at a lodge up near Lake Tahoe. The room had two windows, one of them is not in the photo (it's to the left). I had my assistant pull the window shade out from that window and hold the flash behind, pointing it through the shade. After a few experimental photos I was able to get these amazing diagonal stripes from the blinds. It looks like there is a car passing by or something. I remember how excited I was when I was doing this shot, and how thankful I was for digital, because I could tell the light was working! I would never have experimented like this with film. The client was very happy with the photo, too. The technical: I was using two Canon flashes, a 580 and 550. One was on my camera and the other was in the assistant's hand. I simply used my on-camera flash to trigger the other one. Anna's blogs here Anna's website here

 

Sweetness Anna! Your work is exceptionally motivating. One must not forget about TTL off camera flash exposure...Thanks for sending me this submission, I love it! Wanna read about another amazing TTL shot previously discussed on FF... Check this one out. It too is absolutely amazing! Please leave comments for Anna, I'm sure she would appreciate some FF love! Cheers! mateo

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