Professional photographers have to be able to shoot any genre

As an Austin based architectural photographer, I often find I get complacent with that craft and don’t challenge myself with other styles of shooting. I suppose professional photographers have to be able to shoot any genre, even weddings which to me require a completely different type of shooting discipline. Photographers who shoot weddings generally only shoot weddings and those who do not, are happy not shooting weddings. Weddings are their own beast, and require lots of practice, trial and error, honing of the settings on your camera.

I shot a wedding last weekend in Houston and it almost dropped me to my knees, and reminded me why I don’t shoot weddings. I got some great tips from my buddy Dustin Finkelstein who shoots weddings regularly, so of course that put me a ease – for a while. So what I was fretting about all the week before is mostly how to NOT miss any shots of the bride walking down the aisle or the bride and groom on their exit. I scouted the location the day before and almost started crying with the challenges that revealed themselves. The wedding was to be held on a covered porch at Magnolia Ballroom which is a really majestic setting. The porch is cute but the backdrop behind the bride and groom is a blaring sunny f16. F22 is probably more accurate for this bright day.

Porch for wedding back lit by 6 stops

The porch shade interior was about f2.8. That is a 6 stop difference between the Bride’s spot and the background, and I cannot add light!!!. Just great! My only choice was to bump my ISO to 1000 in order to get and shutter speed that I can hand hold and keep the bride, groom and wedding party exposed and just let the background blow out. Way out. So way out that the bride had a halo around her. I suppose it made her look somewhat angelic. I practiced shooting against the bright background and remembered my camera settings on my Canon 5d Mark 3. Then I practiced shooting with Al focus turned on and set my focus trigger to one of the buttons on the back of camera. This way I could just hold down that button as the bride moved along and I would be assured she would always be in focus. Shoot back at the bride for the entrance was easy since all that ambient light was pouring in from her front.

Diana walking down the wedding aisle

This is what I was dealing with if I opened up the f stop to f2.8 and the iso to 1000. It was my only option.

Porch with iso up to 1000 and f 2.8

Bride and groom with back light

Though flashes and speed lights are not kosher during the wedding ceremony, I knew that once the bride and groom kissed, speed lights were open game. So I strapped two 600 ex rt speed lights up on either eve of the porch ceiling, and pointed them at the center of the group and another at the back of the porch pointing straight down the aisle. I set them to manual and had my ST E3 RT trigger on my camera ready to flip it on once the kiss happened. Here is a shot with the speed lights working just after the kiss – much better exposures.

Diana and Alex after kiss with speedlights on

We took a moment just before the ceremony to shoot a first look photo. The ICON Hotel has a spectacular Victorian smoking lounge that is very sultry and moody. I just asked Diana to creep in and touch Alex on the shoulder as I snapped away with 2 speed lights firing at about 45 and 90 degrees.

First look with bride and groom

Just after the ceremony we took a minute to take one bride groom shot in the stairwell to try to capture the majesty of the domed ceiling at the Magnolia Ballroom.

For the dancing, I hung 2 speed lights at 45 and 90 degrees and set them to manual half power output. I had another 600 rt on my camera acting as the master communicating with the 2 off camera 600s.

About halfway in the dancing I decided to try slowing down the shutter speed to accentuate the inebriation that was clearly taking over. It had a nice effect I think adding some light trails to anything in motion.

Diana dancing with slow shutter speed

We took a few minutes to pick up this shot while we were in the smoking room at the hotel

Bride and Groom in the smoking room. One main light, one kicker light and a hefty amount of vignetting in photoshop.

For the bridal party shots I found a room upstairs with huge windows that were a perfect start for large group photos. Lucky for me the light from the window was so dominate that when one of my speed lights decided to blitz on me, I could do just fine by filling from the right with just one flash.

Diana and bridal party