The Best of Wedding Photography.pdf - Free

f/4 for a balanced flash and room-light exposure. Be wary
of shutter speeds longer than 1/15 second, as you might
incur camera movement or subject movement in the background
(the flash will freeze the nearer subject although
the longish shutter speed might produce “ghosting” if
your subject is moving). These effects are actually quite interesting
visually and many photographers incorporate a
slow shutter speed and flash to record a sharp image over
a moving one for a painterly effect.
FILL LIGHT
Reflectors. It is a good idea to take a selection of portable
light reflectors to every wedding. Reflectors should be
fairly large for maximum versatility. Light discs, which are
reflectors made of fabric mounted on flexible and collapsible
circular frames, come in a variety of diameters and are
a very effective means of providing fill-in illumination.
They are available from a number of manufacturers and
come in silver (for maximum fill output), white, gold foil
(for a warming fill light), and black (for blocking light
from hitting a portion of the subject). In most instances,
an assistant is required to position and hold the reflector
for maximum effect.
When the shadows produced by diffused light are harsh
and deep—or even when you just want to add a little
sparkle to the eyes of your subjects—use a large reflector
or several reflectors. As mentioned, it really helps to have
an assistant so that you can precisely set the reflectors and
see their effect from the viewfinder. Be sure to position reflectors
outside the frame. With foil-type reflectors used
close to the subject, you can sometimes overpower the
daylight.
Be careful about bouncing light in from beneath your
subjects. Lighting coming from under the eye/nose axis is
generally unflattering. Try to “focus” your reflectors (this
really does require an assistant), so that you are only filling
the shadows that need filling in.
Flash Fill. A more predictable form of shadow fill-in is
electronic flash. As mentioned, many photographers
shooting weddings use barebulb flash, a portable flash unit
with a vertical flash tube, like a beacon, that fires the flash
a full 360 degrees. You can use as wide a lens as you own
and you won’t get flash falloff with barebulb flash. Barebulb
flash produces a sharp, sparkly light, which is too
harsh for almost every type of photography except outdoor
fill. The trick is not to overpower the daylight. It is
FACING PAGE—David De Dios created this image using the found
light of an overhead hotel ceiling “can.” He had his bride tilt her head
up to light her face and later darkened the shadow pattern on the wall
in printing. This portrait is evidence that, with a little inventiveness,
you can make a great picture almost anywhere. ABOVE—Al Gordon
created a studio at sunset by using a studio flash and softbox on a light
stand for flash fill. In this image, the flash became the main light, overpowering
the daylight, as the photographer underexposed the background
by about 1 1/2 stops in order to saturate the colors of the sunset.
Getting the light up and to the side gives modeling and dimension to
the couple’s form.
most desirable to let the daylight or twilight backlight your
subjects, capitalizing on a colorful sky background if one
exists, and use barebulb flash to fill the frontal planes of
your subjects.
Some photographers like to soften their fill-flash using
a softbox. In this situation, it is best to trigger the strobe
cordlessly with a radio remote trigger. This allows you to
move the diffused flash out to a 30- to 45-degree angle to
the subjects for a dynamic fill-in. For this application, it is
wise to equal or overpower the daylight exposure slightly
so that the off-angle flash acts more like a main light, establishing
a lighting pattern. For large groups, it may be
necessary to use several softboxes or to use a single one
close to the camera for more even coverage.
OUTDOOR AND MIXED LIGHTING 77