Wedding Photography: Can’t forget the Groom!

Can’t forget the Groom! Brides, we know it’s your day; I get it and I do follow you around like your very own paparazzi. But we both can agree, it’s nice getting some groovy portraits for your husband to be. I made this portrait, with the help of my lovely wife, with one off camera flash in an umbrella on a monopod. There are two exposures happening here and we need to make them both sing, and we don’t have all day to do it. So we take the handsome fellow and make sure he’s comfortable, this was easy for him and set our base exposure without flash. So literally, he’s underexposed until we light him up with off-camera flash and umbrella. Once we add the flash, magically he appears. Look at the difference in color of lights going on in the scene. He’s being washed in a cooler color; with the background in a warm color. Yeah, I know! I could have color corrected my flash to pull the same color as the background, but that takes time, and I knew the colors would be awesome together because blue and yellow are colors that work together; see the color wheel.  Overall, I love this portrait and it was fun to make; with a great subject on his way to get married. Oh! Another thing about this. I selected this spot by quickly scouting the lobby. This was almost a guarantee no one would be in the frame and has background separation from my subject. Making wedding portraits with little time is kind of like being MacGyver; you make it work! This takes knowing your gear, how to pick a location with little distractions, keeping all things art in mind e.g. composition, color, highlights, and shadows. There’s a lot going on in my head, I’ll save that for another post. The idea is to pre-vision, setup and execute. Then get on to the next portrait. There’s a wedding about to happen and we need to be ready to rock-n-roll!