This post is all about dealing with tough circumstances at a wedding reception. Basically, night club lights! I did have a killer guest photographer assisting me on this one... If you didnt get a chance to see this piece of fine art, check out my amigo, Mark Adams from LaCour who contributed to this past FF post: beach ceremony at night with no available light. Mark recently took a trip down to the Riviera Maya to lend a 2nd shooting hand. We were covering a wedding in one of the most exotic locations I have ever seen... just off the hook folks. We teamed up to deliver one of my most favorite portfolios of 2007. This wedding took place at Xcaret an Eco theme park, just south of my studio in Playa del Carmen. Folks, this place is a must visit...just friggen unbelievable. Check out the wedding slideshow delivered to the client here: ****Luis & Denisse at Xcaret, Mexico**** Luis & Denisse's wedding reception yielded some pretty tough shooting conditions for us. We were dealing with strobes that are flying around everywhere, panning lights with patterns and gobos, bright strobes and spotlights, changing colors and smoke, in our FACE. Sometimes, you have too many lighting elements in the scene that you must harness to work in your favor... This post will showcase how we did just that.

 

Just after the ceremony, Mark stepped outside and setup his tripod to shoot the chapel at dusk... I had to throw this one in there because it is Beauuutiful! Mark set his 5d to 8 seconds, at f16 ISO 800. He then walked about 10 feet or so away with his 580, set to manual mode and 1/128th power, and blasted off a burst aimed over towards the cross, not triggered by the pocket wizard! Mark used the 8 seconds and pushed the self trigger button on the back with his finger... Cool idear! He was able to spill just a tad bit of light on the cross for accent... I like how he had a little flavor from some ambient tungsten source mixed in there

 

 

Mark doesn't own a fish eye and will often publicly denounce it... He discovered a new love for this lens as he was caught red handed, sneaking mine out of the bag. Mark set up his tripod and shot this perfect scene setter for a grand total of a 30 second exposure at ISO 100 at f16, to showcase the ambiance of the evening. Check out the house lights..Pretty much every column has a house light mounted above. I think there were 8 house lights that were spitting out patterns, color changes, rotating spotlights, and some insane stuff to try to balance with the camera settings. We call this "the night club setup".

 

 

I've added this frame to showcase my setup with one of my off camera units. The strobe burst seen in the left of the frame was was set to half power with a half CTO gel. This frame brings to light a few things.. (pun) :) It showcases how hot the house lights were. This light was about 20 feet from center of the dance floor. I also had another unit set 45 degrees away from this unit, just over my left shoulder. You can see a shadow of a chair back on the floor. I made this "sweet spot" on the dance floor that would give me results that could slightly overpower the house lights... My settings in the camera for this shot were 2.8 at 1/30th at ISO 400.

 

 

Mark was not using any off camera flash assistance during the entire reception as we felt like we could offer a more dynamic portfolio with one of us triggering and one working with available. Available light in this circumstance is in my opinion, the most technically challenging condition to shoot in. These lights are moving, hot spots are in, out, red, blue, yellow, strobing, patterns...just friggen everywhere. If you drag the shutter, you risk unwanted movement blur when unexpected light sneaks in across the face or other body parts... shutter speeds are constantly changing to accommodate this shooting environment. We took 2 approaches on the first dance. Mark shot some moody stuff here.... I would qualify this one with "added flavor"

 

 

Here is one of mine, same exact moment as above. I took the safer route and depended on my flash to place some "dependable fill" on my subjects... It also had to be as hot or hotter than the house lights, or we would have unwanted blur. Luckily, the house added some bluish flavor. In these circumstances, you are at the mercy of the lighting technicians to get the flavor added. Is my shot a "safe shot"? I dunno... Shot at 1/40th 2.8 at ISO 1000.

 

well, that is going to wrap this one up... I have so many more that we could write about from this wedding... If you want to see more, spend 5 minutes and watch this slideshow. ****Luis & Denisse at Xcaret**** Cheers! matt PS. Thank you Mark Adams for coming down to hang out!