Real Exposure Photography: Candidly Speaking
Candy bars have been very trendy in the last couple years of wedding planning. There are several reasons for their recent popularity as they are pretty, fun, easy to pull together and work as both a focal point of the wedding day and a take away favor for guests.
After a family photo session at Baker Beach, we decided to run up to the Marin Headlands to enjoy the warm 75 degrees and perfect sunset timing. The parking up there was miserable, but after getting through the crawling traffic, I landed a spot and joined the hundreds of tourists and photographers sharing the awesome view.
(My shooting partner, Stevie, took a candid of me in the zone. Check out his work.)
This is a quick lighting tutorial for those wanting to get started with off-shoe strobe lighting.
Backyard shots in the middle of the day are seemingly idea for most people, but the challenges are dealing with mixed exposures of the sun’s powerful direct light and shadows.
In the shot below, I grabbed a closeup shot and had my camera center-weighted meter to properly exposure for skin tones. The distant background house produces a drastic highlight that could be distracting. I could’ve retaken the shot and compensated a half stop, but then the house in the background would’ve been more bleached out.
Zooming out in aperture priority mode, the camera exposes for a mixed composition and averages out the shot to expose mainly for the sky, and less on my subject. Again, I could’ve compensated 2 stops to brighten my subject, but then the background would’ve been very blown out.
I setup a studio strobe off to my right and made a shot while exposing for the blue sky.
Then I moved the light to my left and took another shot.
I added a second accent light to my right slightly behind my subject. Ideally you would put this on a light stand, but used a chair to improvise.
Here’s a final shot with both lights in action.
Here’s a look at the setup.
Why go through all of this?
1. It highlights your subject by underexposing the hard sunlight and sky.
2. You get greater detail in your image.
3. It adds depth to the image. A wider gradient from highlight to shadow.
Here are 100% cropped views to show the detail.
This shot below is without lighting:
This shot below is with lighting:
Additional Details:
These were taken on a Canon 5D Mark II with a 24-70 2.8 L lens. The main strobe was a Profoto AcuteB 600R, Acute D4 head with 22″ white beauty dish. The 2nd strobe was a Canon 580EX. The lights were triggered using a cheapo Blazzeo MegTrig from hotshoe to the 580EX, the Profoto was triggered via built-in optical slave from the 580EX.
Remarks:
I’m far from a master of lighting, and the obviousness is that you can actually tell I used lighting. True masters will set this up and you won’t even be able to tell that tons of artificial lighting was used.
We had the splendid pleasure of capturing some great photographs on a perfect sunny day at the Healdsburg Country Garden. With the vineyards as our backdrop, it was difficult to not catch ourselves gazing out into the valley to taste the fresh summer breeze. The venue was fabulous, established just after the turn of the century, featuring a well-equipped antique barn and cottages. The reception was catered by Girl & The Fig, Sonoma. Thanks to Andrea and Barbara for all your help in making a great event!
One of the greatest outlets for inspiration for me is being around children. Their constant curiosity, direct display of emotion, and endless desire for an experience is something we often miss. These are some of the basic things we, as artists, can look at closely. For example: Water is fun. More water is more fun. Splashing water is contagious. And when everyone’s wet – everyone therefore having fun! This is a theme to digging deeper in our subjects – finding more ways to capture our subject and to watch for the absolute truth behind a moment.
A studio shoot for a dancer & musician, we captured some great shots and had a blast.
Tucked back in the cozy neighborhood of Atherton, CA, we experienced pure bliss as our couple, Marie & Ryan, posed for some incredible photographs. This historical site for polo featured a grand venue that left everyone enjoying the event into the late hour.
Sandra & Dan chose a cozy church and reception location in the East Bay of San Francisco, CA. We took shots out in a park with tall grass that made for some great photos.
The creators of the new R-Strap by Black Rapid features something very clever – a strap that’s easy on the shoulder, less cumbersome than a conventional strap, and offers quick fire-style of grab and shoot – all from a sliding coupler in an across the shoulder configuration.
The single camera strap fits across the body and I’ve used this for a couple months now. The shoulder pad stays on the shoulder, and when you bring up the camera, the coupler slides along the strap so the pad doesn’t move when you bring up the camera from your hip.
The double-camera version offers a harness and will be fantastic for weddings when I need to wear both cameras and have them up ready to fire at a moment’s notice. If you shoot a lot with 2 cameras, you will often complain that once shooting with one camera, the other camera is still worrisome, as the strap begins to slip and sometimes get in the way. With a conventional strap, the actual strap links to both sides of the camera, and often gets in the way of the grip and screen, so the new Black Rapid strap eliminates all of this. I would recommend this to anyone with a DSLR.
Last Sunday we were honored to participate in Gump’s annual Wedding Chic Bridal Event, as the preferred wedding photography vendor. We met many blushing brides-to-be (and fiancés) and were thrilled to be in the company of so many talented vendors.
In keeping with Gump’s tradition, they presented a visual feast of amazing tablescapes, bountiful flowers, stunning wedding gowns, and decadent treats and bubbly.
Join us at the Gump’s annual bridal event! We are the exclusive wedding photographer being showcased. Sip sparkling wine while perusing an exquisite line of home goods for your wedding registry.
Sunday, Feb 7, 2010 at Gump’s San Francisco.
http://www.gumps.com/shop.axd/Bridal
Amber & Matt’s wonderful twin boys were born and we had the delight of dropping by for a quick photo session to capture the boys hanging out.
We had the opportunity to photography a perfect beach wedding in the Monterey area at the Asilomar State Beach, a narrow one-mile strip of sandy beach and rocky coves. The typical summer fog burned off and the high winds ceased in perfect queue, as Amanda and Michael shared vows on the powdery sand with waves gently crashing behind them.
Place cards were uniquely displayed for guests on bicycle wheel spokes.
The drastic 90 degree East Bay heat calls for measures beyond my first-time-parent desires for an inflatable pool with deluxe sprinkler system, but… it certainly does do the trick =)
Located in a quaint second-floor North Beach, San Francisco apartment grows a bump of art. Two souls connected – noggin-to-noggin – twin babies that are about to embark on an exciting urban journey outside the womb… Coming this summer!
The 5D Mark II will need to be surgically removed from my hands after shooting video of my son. This is one of the first clips I took and is hosted at SmugMug, and available at 1080HD. You take this 170MB clip and after uploading it, comes down smoothly – amazing!
Using the video mode is nothing like using a consumer camcorder. You’ll need to setup and plan your shots to keep things in focus, when and where you want them. Because the focusing is such a challenge, there’s a 2-stage digital zoom so you can spot focus. Focus points are movable, and autofocus is available, but will be less desirable for professional use. The built-in microphone still records the sound of focus stuttering and the chopping focusing as well as the Image Stabilization echoed through the barrel.
The rest of the still camera features are solid – a few new LCD display features that I’ll probably never use. It does seem, however, slower in shutter response than the 40D – but I haven’t truly measured the difference. Overall, it’s a slower camera, shutter speed-wise, but the 21 MP sensor probably has something to do with it 
