One of the most relaxed and well planned weddings I have ever photographed was Richard and Leslie-Ann’s at the Kinkell Byre in St Andrews. Here are some of my favourite images of the day.
After the bride is ready and is about to move to the wedding location, is the best time to take a formal shot of her. This time is ideal in order to do so, because everything is at the right place, the hair, make up are spot on, the flowers are fresh and dress has not yet been stepped on. The key to success is to find the right location. Most often, I place the bride next to a window and utilise the soft and natural daylight to take a couple of head and three quarter shots. This time, I had spotted the opportunity which was right at our door step. I like the way these trees frame the shot for me.
This is during the ceremony when the couple were exchanging vows. I take a variety of shots in these situations, full length, three quarters and close ups, both in landscape (which is the case here) and in portrait format. The reason for this, is to have as many option as possible later on when it comes to designing the album. You often find yourself liking the photo for the album but the format is wrong. As far as technicality of this photo is concerned, there are spot lights at the Byre which you can see how bright the groom’s face is and the back of bride’s hair. The dynamic range of these lights are way beyond what even the latest and the most advanced digital cameras (in this case Nikon D3s) can handle. I used spot metering and set the camera on Manuel Mode (I primarily use Aperture Priority) but still some work needed to be done at the post production stages to bring down the burnt highlights on groom’s face and lighten bride’s face.
When you have a classic car like this old Rolls Royce,you must take advantage of that. I always place the couple somewhere in the middle of the car. Therefore, the front of the car becomes the foreground to my picture. I use a shallow depth of field and focus on the couple. Now you have a wonderful portrait of the couple and have the car with all its glory. The whole point is to include the car in the shot but not to take the attention away from the couple.
As we were taking some shots of the couple, it started to rain. I captured very quickly some candid moments which you can even see the rain drops in them. The lady in the blue was the Paula from Bridal Hire Scotland where the bride brought the wedding gown and the bridesmaid dresses. In the morning, Paula steamed the dresses and made sure that they are all in great shape, put the dress on the bride and stayed on throughout the whole formal photo session to make sure that the dress looks its best at all time. If you can afford such service, I will definitely recommend getting one, totally worth it.
The sky was clearing out but still there was a tiny bit of a drizzle. We always carry white wedding umbrellas with us. They are wonderful in these occasions and also can soften the light quite a bit as well which is bonus when the light is too harsh. I gave the couple the brollies and asked them to have a chat and simply ignore me. The technical point in this shot is the frame the shot in a way that the horizon does not cut their heads. Therefore, I have squatted down to place the horizon at their waist line and also by using a long lens, eventuate the couple height. This is an old technique which makes everyone look slimmer and taller.
In addition to all the group shots or the formals, I tend to take as many candid shots as I can during the wedding reception. This shot is one of my all time favorites, It is very much like those images you may find on the Sartorialist blog. This one shows a variety of clothing styles, yet they are all bright colours with many wearing fascinators which makes it a quintessentially British wedding outfit for ladies.
As I am taking photos of the guests and the couple, Nicola produces most of the detail shots, This is a nice example of one of her shots of a table setting using a fisheye lens.
Dinner time is the perfect time to take pictures of the kids playing around. You do not need to do anything special to take a good shot of them but to have patience. The good thing is that, by the time of the dinner, they have already seen you and you are no longer a complete stranger to them. Yet again I tend to keep a fair distance from them not to interrupt them in anyway.
Formal shots are KEY. No matter how much you try to be creative during a wedding, what ultimately everyone wants to print and frame it on put it over a desk or the fireplace is simple, yet well executed formal shot. In this case, I used a slow sync flash of 1/30 of second at ISO 1000 which allows the background light to come in and then dialed down the flash power by one stop to make the impact very subtle. Furthermore, notice that, although the shots is taken in portrait format (vertical), there is no shadows behind the subjects, this is because I use a flash bracket on my camera. This is an expensive tool to have as it is heavy to carry it around but makes subtle differences which overall makes our images unique.
I take a variety of shots at the first dance. With strobe, without strobes, full length and close up. This is an example of a close up shot. The trick is that, in most cases such as in this one, the ambient light level is very low. My Nikon D3s has the highest ISO setting of any camera which is commercially available today (which in this case it was set at ISO 12800) so this was not a problem. The biggest issue is that when its so dark and the subject is moving quickly as well, the focusing becomes a challenge. I solve this problem by putting a Nikon SU-800 commander on my camera. This unit is designed to trigger strobes wirelessly but it has also has an inbuilt infra red sensor on top which helps the camera to focus better when the ambient light level is low
