A POTN wedding!! =)

[picturecrazy]

I had the honour of shooting a fellow POTN member's wedding: Mr Smiley, otherwise known as Calvin.

His wedding was in the Rocky Mountains in Jasper, Alberta, CANADA at the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge. If you're familiar with the Fairmont hotels, you know they're pretty much the best around.

Calvin totally matches his username. He is totally a smiley guy, and his bride, Carlene, was absolutely stunning.

1. Carlene getting done up
http://www.nightanddayphoto.ca/misc/forumpics/POTN/CarleneCalvinW/CarleneCalvinCollage-001.jpg

2. Dress, shoes, bouquet.
http://www.nightanddayphoto.ca/misc/forumpics/POTN/CarleneCalvinW/CarleneCalvinCollage-002.jpg

3. The whole prep scene was really funny and fun.
http://www.nightanddayphoto.ca/misc/forumpics/POTN/CarleneCalvinW/CarleneCalvinCollage-003.jpg

4. The ceremony was in a field on the hotel grounds. It was SUCH a sunny, bright, hot day the little flower girl had trouble keeping her eyes open. hahaha.
http://www.nightanddayphoto.ca/misc/forumpics/POTN/CarleneCalvinW/CarleneCalvinCollage-004.jpg

5. We went to Athabasca Falls for the photoshoot. Holy moly it was CROWDED! But we still managed just fine.
http://www.nightanddayphoto.ca/misc/forumpics/POTN/CarleneCalvinW/CarleneCalvinCollage-005.jpg

6.
http://www.nightanddayphoto.ca/misc/forumpics/POTN/CarleneCalvinW/CarleneCalvinCollage-006.jpg

7. The reception. Calvin was "Screeched in" which is an initiation rite for him to become an honourary Newfoundlander. He had to sing, say tongue twisters, and kiss a fish among other things.
http://www.nightanddayphoto.ca/misc/forumpics/POTN/CarleneCalvinW/CarleneCalvinCollage-007.jpg

8. We then snuck outside for some night shooting. The sky really was that colour.
http://www.nightanddayphoto.ca/misc/forumpics/POTN/CarleneCalvinW/CarleneCalvinCollage-008.jpg

Had some fun with the D700 and it's interval feature and made a short little timelapse during the reception:
http://vimeo.com/6059358

If you wanna see more, a slideshow of the day is here:
http://www.nightanddayphoto.ca/slides/09/CarleneCalvinW

POTN weddings rock, as you know they'll certainly value and appreciate photography. hahaha. Thanks Calvin, it was an awesome weekend!

[perfeng702]

amazing set! well done.

[booboo]

nice set... wait where is the picture of him kissing the fish!!!

[RunAmok]

You did a really great job on these!

[TheHoff]

Oy.. kiss a fish?! I'm glad I married a BC girl instead of a Newfoundlander!

ps. great set

[AlanU]

Lloyd,

The night shots are wonderful. I've never seen such colours.

Great job man!

[FamilyJules]

*drool*
Love 'em Lloyd... they're all fantastic.
Can't pick a favorite, but those night shots are absolutely jaw dropping
Always a fan of your style

[Ancike]

Great pics, I loved them all!

[Undispu7ed]

Very nice work!

[Valjoy]

Just lovely...and what a backdrop. cheers Val

[JustChillin]

stunning! Can I ask what lighting set up you used for the night shots?

[carshop]

what a great set

[picturecrazy]

Thanks guys. It was a super fun wedding for sure!

Oy.. kiss a fish?! I'm glad I married a BC girl instead of a Newfoundlander!

ps. great set

LOL... yeah, I married a BC girl too. The whole initiation was pretty funny though. If there's one thing about maritimers... they sure know how to party and have fun.

stunning! Can I ask what lighting set up you used for the night shots?

Just a portable speedlite. But it was too powerful even at 1/128 (I was shooting at ISO800 F/4.5 1/15) so I bounced the light off the bride's brother to soften the light and reduce the power. LOL. He was a good sport. :)

[Wazza]

Awesome shots Lloyd. Great to see shots of someone else from the POTN community :)

[jgrussell]

Terrific set, and the slideshow is wonderful.

[Svetlana]

Congrats to Mr.Smiley and his beautiful wife!!

Lloyd, these photos are amazing! How did you battle the bright sun during the ceremony?

[shimmishim]

Just a portable speedlite. But it was too powerful even at 1/128 (I was shooting at ISO800 F/4.5 1/15) so I bounced the light off the bride's brother to soften the light and reduce the power. LOL. He was a good sport. :)

lol. creative. :)

[Lunajen]

Beautiful work and wonderful location!!

[picturecrazy]

Awesome shots Lloyd. Great to see shots of someone else from the POTN community :)

Yeah, I thought it was cool to shoot a fellow member. Like I said, I knew they would appreciate photography!

Terrific set, and the slideshow is wonderful.
Beautiful work and wonderful location!!

Cheers. Thanks! Jasper is probably my favourite getaway location in the entire world. And it's practically in my backyard. :)

lol. creative. :)

Haha, yeah, sometimes you gotta come up with creative ideas to get the shot under poor circumstances. It was actually REALLY dark... you could barely see the clouds at all. But shooting 1/15 at ISO800 really brightened the sky out and brought out these crazy colours!

Congrats to Mr.Smiley and his beautiful wife!!

Lloyd, these photos are amazing! How did you battle the bright sun during the ceremony?

Oh gosh, the ceremony was a tricky one. I figured there were three ways to handle it:

1) shoot available light and be careful of the angle of the sun to avoid too much exposure differential on their faces or bodies.

2) use on-cam flash to allow me to shoot at any angle, but with a less than idea angle of flash light.

3) use off-cam flash for directional light to balance the sun, but with little flexibility in angle and position.

The solution? Use all three. I set the 40D and 1D to shoot with on-cam flash. My D700 was set up for ambient only, and the 1Ds was set up for the tighter compositions with off-cam flash. A fast prime, ultrawide, normal range, and telephoto were on the bodies. Variety is the spice of life.

The sun was REALLY bright and hot. There were clouds in the sky but none of them blocked the sun at all the entire time. I chose to have most of the shots taken with the off-cam flash. Calvin and Carlene traveled nine hours away from home to have a wedding in the mountains, so I really wanted to make sure the mountains were visible in the shots. The available light shots blew out and obliterated the mountain backdrop.

For most of the shots that didn't have the mountains in the background, I chose a hot exposure for the sun, and a balanced exposure for the flash to try and get a proper skin tone. The sun provided a light ratio that added some dimensionality to the people. In this shot, the off cam flash is to the left.
ISO100 F/4 1/500
http://www.nightanddayphoto.ca/misc/forumpics/POTN/CarleneCalvinW/130911_4364.jpg

For the shots with the mountains in the back, I dropped down the sun exposure more in order to see the mountains clearly, and used off-cam flash to fill in the people. Actually, I messed up this shot because I forgot to lower the light source for the shorter subject matter. D'oh!
ISO100 F/8 1/250
http://www.nightanddayphoto.ca/misc/forumpics/POTN/CarleneCalvinW/140532_1804.jpg

The available light shots really lost the details in the mountains, but it's still nice to get a mix of them in there.
F/2.8 ISO200 1/2000
http://www.nightanddayphoto.ca/misc/forumpics/POTN/CarleneCalvinW/132026_9134.jpg

And some bare, direct, undiffused on-camera flash too. It doesn't always look horrible, but often adds a lot of detail and clarity to the subject as long as it's properly balanced.
http://www.nightanddayphoto.ca/misc/forumpics/POTN/CarleneCalvinW/133618_2992.jpg

That's usually how I deal with sunny outdoor weddings. This one was lucky, as the sun was pretty much behind the couple. When the sun is to the couple's side, then it gets trickier. Which is exactly what happened two weeks later at my next rocky mountain wedding.

The reception was interesting. It was dark and I was shooting the head table at ISO3200 F/4 while strobing the snot out of the venue. 800ws of power and still ISO3200. LOL.

[HeleneD]

Gorgeous pictures! What an amazing setting. Well done!!

[JustChillin]

Just a portable speedlite. But it was too powerful even at 1/128 (I was shooting at ISO800 F/4.5 1/15) so I bounced the light off the bride's brother to soften the light and reduce the power. LOL. He was a good sport. :)

I once did that for a ring shot but wouldnt have come up with doing it for shots like that. Very cool. Thanks!

[ejicon]

you really nailed this one. That D700 really steals color from whatever it shoots... nicely done

[SuzyView]

Very nice series, Lloyd. I still think I should follow you around some summer, when it's warm in Canada. :) I could learn a lot. And I miss you all.

Thanks for giving us the rundown on the settings. I am allowing the extra images as people have asked for them. MODERATOR NOTE. Usually we only let 8 image per thread.

[Svetlana]

Lloyd, thank you so much for the detailed explanation!! WOW! I have to save it somewhere.

[Pete W]

Lovely images, only one little crit, the image of the B&G taking their vows, the verticals hurt your eyes (well mine). Hope you do not mind I used free transform to correct verticals and levelled horizon

I will remove if you want.....

[Skrim17]

Beautiful work Lloyd!!

[picturecrazy]

Cheers guys, thanks for the comments.

Very nice series, Lloyd. I still think I should follow you around some summer, when it's warm in Canada. :) I could learn a lot. And I miss you all.


Yeah, it would be great to see you again! Be sure to let me know if you're ever in Edmonton!

Lloyd, thank you so much for the detailed explanation!! WOW! I have to save it somewhere.

No problemo. :)

Lovely images, only one little crit, the image of the B&G taking their vows, the verticals hurt your eyes (well mine). Hope you do not mind I used free transform to correct verticals and levelled horizon

I will remove if you want.....

You don't have to remove it, but my status is NOT set for "IMAGE EDITING OK".

The horizon was a bit tilted... yes I'm awful at that. LOL. But the verticals don't really bother me that much. It offers just another unique perspective. But with UWA shooting, if you don't want the horizion perfectly centered in the frame, you'll need to mess up your verticals. I chose to get more of the trees and sky rather than fill half the frame with grass.

[Mr Smiley]

Congrats to Mr.Smiley and his beautiful wife!!



Thanks Svetlana,

I don't know if Lloyd mentioned it, but it was like 34deg C that day too!!!
He sure did an amazing job capturing the day. We couldn't have asked for better.

[Rob F1UK]

Awesome images, really big fan of your style! :)

[Svetlana]

Thanks Svetlana,

I don't know if Lloyd mentioned it, but it was like 34deg C that day too!!!
He sure did an amazing job capturing the day. We couldn't have asked for better.

You can't go wrong with Lloyd! :) 34C is...hot! It looks like it was a perfect day!

[mg550]

These are crazy good. Awesome series.

[Mossman6]

very nice series :)

[vegaspyx]

Beautiful wedding.Hooray for POTN!

[picturecrazy]

cheers guys!

Thanks Svetlana,

I don't know if Lloyd mentioned it, but it was like 34deg C that day too!!!
He sure did an amazing job capturing the day. We couldn't have asked for better.

Calvin! Glad you came around! How are all the canvases looking on your walls? :)

[brownbugger]

amazing photographs , and good wishes to the couple !

[SS308]

Great series...thanks for sharing.

[JMHPhotography]

Aww man, that is some fantastic stuff... I LOVE the mononchromatics of sequence #3, do you have a recipe or preset for LR associated with that look or do you just eyeball it?

[cruiserhead97]

great work! the sky looked perfect for those shots.

[lil_miss]

Beautiful images.. love the last ones with the sunset etc

[jodelak]

Awesome series, awesome venue, awesome couple. I think everything here is awesome, including the one taking the pictures :)

[haquocdung]

I always love the nature. and Weeding in front of a lake is so romantic.