First Wedding last Saturday...hard day, many questions.

[Julé-Anne]

So, I shot my first wedding last Saturday and it was tough work, not that I ever thought it would be easy! To begin with it rained like crazy the whole entire day. The ceremony wasn't until 6:30pm so it was terribly dark in the huge church! Walking to the reception hall in the rain trying to keep the lens from getting wet was a challenge as well as the fact that it was 8:00pm and darker. How does one do flash outside at night without making it look super cheesy? It was a fast-paced situation and I just went with it. When we were suppose to be doing some fun portraits outside the reception hall the father of the bride whispered to her that her car had been broken into in the church parking lot! Of course she broke down crying as her laptop with her thesis was in her suitcase as well as her purse. Needless to say i went away for a bit and came back to do photos inside again with flash. The whole day was flash and at about 12am at night they wanted family portraits done. My lens isn't wide enough to blur out the backgrounds in such a small space and I just bounced my flash of the ceiling. It was hard and I hope I have some good images. Any flash outside and inside advise would be good. I know I need a new lens by this weekend...assisting a wedding. I have a borrowed camera and 2 lens for now.
I have a couple of images to post but I haven't really worked on them yet. I'm rather disappointed because I wish I had some natural light shots.
Advise is welcome and appreciated.

[danedel]

sorry to hear about the "disruption" I like the image of the champaine :-)

[rightaway]

Hello Julé-Anne,

Welcome to the wedding photographer club! Although you had a rough day, weddings are very often unpredictable and very fast paced. The weather was indeed pathetic this weekend (I am in Fredericton) and we had the same weather. I had the day off and sent good vibe to those working on that day...

If I know that I will likely shoot inside, I will bring an extra speedlight that I can mount on a stand and use it as slave. It helps with the lighting. Some folks have two. All the photogrpahers I have seen around here only use the camera mounted flash...
I bought a lightsphere II and have used it on a couple of occasions although it cuts down the light by at least a full stop, it works vey well in giving a more diffuse light.
You can see examples of lightsphere here: http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=162638
The other option is to find a fast lens and crank up the ISO, but that has its limits as well.

You pictures looks good!! I love the angle with the dress.
Hang in there, there will be better days!! ;)

Stephan

[song4themoon]

So was the father pulling a game on her or was the car really broken into? I hope it was first!

The two images that you posted look nice to me. Personally I would probably run the first one through reduce noise ones just to get rid of some of the noise and soften it a bit.

[Julé-Anne]

Her father wasn't joking. Her parents digital cameras got stolen as well...right in the church parking lot as she was getting married. What a world!
I actually added noise to the dress to try to make it look like film grain more. Perhaps softening it more would be a good idea. Do you have a special black and white conversion technique (or anyone for that matter)? I find that digital is hard to get those true and lovely blacks, midtones and whites. Maybe 2 layers one colour, one grayscale and then adjust each colour in levels? I haven't tried that yet but would like some pp help and tips. Especially for skin tones, hard to get rid of the muddiness. I'll post some of the couple to explain what I mean. So many here have rich black and whites.
Oh and it was nice to hear from someone in Fredericton. Thanks rightaway, I'll check that out. Right now my money has to go towards a new lens. Tamaron?
Thank you thank you!

[OdiN1701]

What did you use to get those borders? I like em!

[Sharyn1983]

I do my BW in 3 layers and use the channel mixer to monochrome the red, blue and green layer separately. That might be alot of work. You could also get a plugin to do it for you. Alienskin Exposure is a really good one. I like the old BW film look they have in the color film filter folder. It is a good contrasty smokey black and white

[Lord_Malone]

Those are pretty cool shots, dude. Can we see some people captures too?

[rightaway]

If you want to read a neat thread on black and white, have a look here:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=170719

It is very informative ;) .


Stephan

[spencer87]

sounds like a pretty hectic day (pretty crappy thing to happen on a girl's wedding day!)

as for the photos, i like the way you captured the texture in the dress. would love to see some of the people shots.

[obiwan]

What did you use to get those borders? I like em!

Ditto - love the borders on those pics.

I feel your pain on the hectic pace a wedding can be. I assisted on my first a week ago and was exhausted by the time I got home.

[OdiN1701]

Ditto - love the borders on those pics.

I feel your pain on the hectic pace a wedding can be. I assisted on my first a week ago and was exhausted by the time I got home.

Yup, I spent 12 hours at a wedding once.

[jamiewexler]

Yup, I spent 12 hours at a wedding once.

Once...?

[tim]

14 hours is my longest. Never again, unless they're paying my full hourly rate, and even then i'd be reluctant.

[Sharyn1983]

2 days. And I loved it, crazy, but fun. Total of probably 9 hours shooting and then slept for 7 hours and then 15 hours the next day.

[Julé-Anne]

Hi,
It was so great to get so many responses. I enjoy this forum because it's nice to talk to people in the same industry who can relate. So many can't relate to my stress. I like it here.
Thanks for the feedback on my first images of last week's first wedding. I haven't had time to work on many more yet. As for how I made the frames around my photos (which I love) I'll fill ya in.
It's a scan of an 8x10 black and white photo that I printed with a filed out negative holder in the darkroom a few years ago. (film? darkroom?) I then placed it into a photoshop document and put a mask over it. I got rid of the photograph itself and cleaned and softened the edges...adjust the levels to bring back the black and dodged the highlights to bring back the white (scanning turns it a bit gray). Then I had just the frame. I worked on the desired picture, flatten it and moved it into the frame document. Sometimes a little free-transform or re-sizing is needed. The photo of course goes underneath the frame. I hope this answers your questions. I really appreciate the comments! Here's another photo but it hasn't been completed yet. Looking for ways to create a nice black and white image...like the way I use to in the darkroom!
Cheers.

Julé

[LewisImaging]

wheres the photo? :)

[Julé-Anne]

I just wrote an entire new thread. It's there under Part 2!