the light from above
posted on Wednesday, October 10, 2007 in Photographers Matt Adcock
On the way out of the church on a cold winter day, I needed to take advantage of any indoor photo chance I could! One thing you must do is utilize your resources.
I looked up and noticed a 20 foot high balcony! This was a perfect location for a light source....(especially with the wide isles and also noticing that the church employees had just turned OFF all the inside lights).... I had my assistant take our speedlight up to the balcony and set up the lighting for this quick and easy shot. In order to minimize spill, we added a homemade snoot to the flash and set the power setting to 1/8th power.
I decided that I wanted to underexpose the background, so we quickly set the ambient to 4 stops under and the 1/4th power setting on the flash dialed the veil in just perfectly. Sounds easy huh? It was...
This type of shot works well with a veil, but the typical veil over the bride & groom head shot can get pretty cliche. SO, you often will need to have a client who is willing to work with you and give you some energy. It helps if you have a cathedral veil too :)
For this shot, I felt like the anticipation of the kiss inside the veil brought this shot together, along with the nice light from above.
Cheers!
matt
ps. we actually got to thank the church lady for only allowing us to use the balcony:)
ps. we actually got to thank the church lady for only allowing us to use the balcony:) 9 comments for "the light from above"
Awesome stuff as always Matt!
Matt
Great Stuff...thanks for the shoutout...
Hey guys
Studying Matt and other photographers like himself has catupulted my career...Matt you set the bar for photographers to follow. Keep up the good work.
Matt McGraw
Matt,
I REALLY appreciate the quick response to my questions. Want to hear something funny? I actually live in Maryland, and read the online sports page of the Baltimore Sun every day, and had never heard of David Hobby until I checked out your snoot link. How ironic....
Well, I have 2 perfect guniea pigs to experiment with...my 2 young sons (ages 5+ and 2+). Alas, I fear for the "lives" of my 2 newly acquired Nikon SB-800 speedlights (I bought a Nikon D80 earlier this year) in their little hands, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?). I'll have to learn Nikon's CLS/TTL system.
I noticed in previous blogs that you make use of the pocket wizard system. Have ever ever used Nikon's CLS system, and if so, how does it compare to using pocket wizards?
It should be fun learning to shoot with off-camera flash, and if I can even come half close to how your shots look, I'll be more than satisfied. I'm PSYCHED!!
Excuse the exuberance (result of too much coffee earlier in the day).
Regards,
-Ade-
Boone, Eddie, Jonathan, Thanks for the nice thoughts... Key thing with this type shot, anybody can do it and I hope can rattle off a try next time you are in this situation :) Eddie, I agree, the light is a tad softer. I ran one of my custom actions on this frame to soften it up a tad. I also believe that the light from the snoot from such a great distance had a chance to soften up based on the throw.
Ade, Glad you like the shot... Keep coming back for more :) Regarding Strobist, I would HIGHLY recommend you bookmark that baby and go through the lighting 101 link on his site. David Hobby is a PJ who works for the Baltimore Sun and updates his blog pretty much every day. You will learn and your work will change if you follow his stuff. Also, I recommend you tell 1 million of your friends about it because I am a firm believer that it is one of the most valuable resources on the internet.
Regarding your questions, Not silly at all.
1: Snoot was 4-5 inches.
2: Yeah, I pretty much always bracket if i'm not sure about the exposure to begin with. Its always safe to set exposure in camera and bracket with the flash power settings, that way the ambient exposure stays where you intended it to. By now, my intuition has trained me to pretty much know but with digital, you can always do some on the spot figuring by evaluating the LCD and the historgram. Know your system in and out and how to make changes quickly and you will soon be making on the fly decisions to get accurate exposures with the Manual flash system!
 1/4 power was my flash power setting.  The 4 stops was set inside my camera to make everything go dark as night.
Cheers & thanks again for commenting!
matt
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Matt/Sol,
An addendum to my last comment:
In your blog entry above, I was somewhat confused by the following text:
"so we quickly set the ambient to 4 stops under "
Are you refering to your cameras exposure setting, or the strobes? Please elaborate.
Thanks again!
Thanks!
Matt,
A straight-up classic shot. Pretty classic as far as classic goes. Got some quick questions for you.(BTW, I just discovered the strobist site per your snoot link. Thanks for that)
1) Out of curiousity, how long was the snoot?
2) Did you bracket your shot shot sequences, and pick the best image, or did you pretty much know from experience that the flash power would be adequate for the distance between your subjects and your shooting apparatus (camera light meter, lens, et al)?
Sorry if I'm asking "silly" questions, but I'm a newbie when it come to flash, strobes, and serious photography in general, and this is how I learn. Thanks in advance for the info.
Awesome.
I always look for balconies for shooting from but had never thought of putting lights up there instead. Very cool.
Matt, what can i say with this pic? It's awesome. I am wordless.
BTW, where you aim with the snoot? seems the light is soft.
wow, way to add a little quick variety into the album. great shot and nice work (as i've come to expect!) with the clever, on-the-go lighting.