Very nice couple for Saturday’s outdoor wedding in Sunny California. Visitors from all over the globe. Except it rained. No let me take that back... It poured rain!
Fortunately the venue had a tent for the reception area. Moved everything into the tent from pre-ceremony – to the actual ceremony – to the reception. Not a great place for the ceremony due to lighting conditions. More on that later...
So what to do?
Started in the bridal suite. Small suite but did have a nice couch and window (to view all the bad weather!).
Bride in the suite pre-ceremony:
Shannon, my second pro photographer, brought her husband’s “easy up” pop-up cover. He uses this for dirt motorbike riding… we use it in the rain.
Wedged it up on a pathway at the venue. Just enough to keep the bride out of the pouring rain.
Off camera Quantum flash with radio under the easy-up in the rain:
The ceremony was a challenge. The Venue decided to have it on the stage platform right where the tent cover ended. Even in the rain the difference from behind the wedding party and inside the tent was 4 f-stops. Wow!
So we had no choice but to setup lights. Two 1000 w/s strobes out of the way on PocketWizard radio controls. All manual on the cameras and set to balance foreground to background between the open tent and dark inside covered portion.
It worked well:
That’s “Me” - Old School on a tripod:
You can get pretty creative with all manual mode.
Turned off the PocketWizard and used the background as rim lighting
with foreground almost disappeared in the shadows:
Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, nor the winds of change, nor a nation challenged, will stay us from the swift completion of our appointed duties
They want outdoors – they get outdoors:
Even used the stage area with those strobes for family shots:
As the reception ended the rain stopped – go figure!
Was able to get some final images long after sunset on the patio and fireplace:
As usual....comments are always welcome.
Challenging day for sure. Not so much the weather. That's just part of the job. But the limited opportunities in bad weather. This particular venue is designed for outdoor weddings and that's it.
Without our "easy-up", external lighting, a dozen umbrellas, and willingness to let the gear get really wet...could not even image!!
Dan
Dan Pettus Photography
BLOG
