Rick’s Rants and Raves

This past weekend, I didn’t shoot my first wedding. That may sound kind of odd, but that is intentional. The last wedding I went to was my cousin Ashley’s, and I took my camera, got some decent shots, but never considered that I might have been capable of being the wedding photographer. I considered, briefly, whether to offer my skills as the official photographer for my step-sister-in-law’s wedding this weekend. But I didn’t offer (and thus no-one had to worry about hurting my feelings by turning me down) and it turned out for the better. I got to be the “really great family photographer” and at the same time I got to watch, up close, as a couple of lightly-seasoned pros shot the wedding.

For me, the weekend’s festivities started with the rehearsal and dinner. This is where we got to meet the photogs, and my wife immediately started networking for me, telling them about my music photography aspirations. She’s so sweet, and much better at talking about me than I am. The photogs stayed for only about 30 minutes of the rehearsal, then took off.

Prior to the processional rehearsal, I mounted my camera on a gorilla-pod imitator and hung it off the side of a pew. I then sat two rows behind it with the IR remote shutter release. This allowed me to capture folks coming down the aisle without knowing that I was shooting them. Unfortunately my alignment was a bit off, but I still got this fun series.

After rehearsal we all had dinner at the Red Door tavern where there was food and drink aplenty. This young man was up at the bar, vying for the attention of an older woman, but was mesmerized by the pouring of a adult beverage.

We arrived at the church the next day two hours prior to the ceremony for some formal portraits and final preparations. Of course the photogs were doing the heavy lifting here, arranging people, making the shots, etc. The men were being shot in the chancel with dark paneling all around, and three-story high ceiling, with only the church’s lighting.  I was a bit surprised that the photogs were using only on-camera (external) flash with the head rotated hard right (at or nearly 90 degrees). It looked to me like there was no noticable light bouncing to the subjects. I look forward to seeing how the portraits turn out.

After the formals, I caught a glimpse of one of the photogs shooting the groom by a window in the parlor of the church. “Ah, right, cloudy window light” I thought, and went to find a my daughter. “Want a new Facebook pic?”

About 45 minutes before the ceremony, I headed to the sanctuary to save a seat for my wife and kids (all part of the ceremony). I put my Jive Thirty Five on my camera, set to aperture priority at f/2.5 (so as to have a little DOF) and 1600 ISO. This was my only hope of getting any shots at all in the dark pews. I then saw a moment transpire that I was fortunately prepared for–great-grandma and great-great uncle met for the first time since his wife (her sister) had passed away several months ago. I knealt down in the pew, steadied the camera, and took several shots. Only one was steady enough to be called “decent”, though unfortunately the moment didn’t turn out to be as emotional as I thought it might.

As I shot, one of the uncles, who’s had a dSLR for much long than I have, stood next to me and shot the same scene. At first, I thought I heard the shutter open, but not close. When he pulled the camera down to look at the LCD, I assumed that I just hadn’t heard correctly–that I hadn’t really been paying close enough attention to hear the shutter close. I walked back to my seat to review the shots. A minute later, he came up next to me and asked “Did you get that shot? I thought my camera was broken. How did you get that?” Evidently I had heard correctly–his shutter remained open long enough for me to dismiss my initial thought and walk away. I explained my aperture and ISO settings and he requested a copy of my image.

I continued to watch the photographers during the processional and didn’t see anything that surprised me. One shot ambient only and the other shot with a bounced on-camera flash as participants entered the sanctuary. I later learned that one of their cameras was capable of 3200 ISO with very little noise. They shot with Canon, so I’m not entirely sure of the camera models. I’m pretty sure they were using F/2.8 17-55mm lenses the majority of the time. I, however, stayed in my seat.

I’m a bit surprised now to see the f/5.6 since I don’t recall setting it that way. Perhaps I was thinking I wanted to eek out a little depth of field rather than the nearly all blurry f/1.8 would have made this scene. I do remember thinking “to hell with the noise” and cranking the ISO to “Hi” since it isn’t technically up to ISO3200 specifications.
During the reception, friends of ours asked me to make a quick family portrait–they’re rarely all dressed up at the same time, and wanted to have something to show for it. Since their 18-month-old was still clean and happy, I decided the time was right to make it happen. We headed back up to the parlor where we found a comfy couch, non-descript background and a bit of space to work with. I initially set up my Vivitar 2800 behind the couch for some background separation, but didn’t really like the result. So I moved it to camera right on a table, with the LP120 camera left in a Voice Activated Light Stand (aka my wife). I knew I had about four pops before the 18 month old would tire of the activity. Fortunately a couple of them came out nicely.

When Anne and I got back down to the reception, we learned that Lance & Laura had already cut the cake. Oh well, I guess that’s why they paid real photographers to be there.

The reception was a lot of fun, with plenty of dancing, singing, and laughing.

I also continued to watch the photographers work the crowd and Anne and I occasionally gave them pointers on people to shoot if they hadn’t noticed. They continued to shoot with external on-camera flash rotated away from the subject. Some of this light I’m sure was getting back to the subjects (white walls and ceiling), but not much. Their flashes had very fast recycle times–getting 3-4 pops in quick succession before missing a beat. They also seemed to be set at a pretty low setting to my eyes. So I’m guessing they had their flash EV dialed way down just to add a flick of light to the ambient. I didn’t ask about their settings as it felt it would have been tacky for me to try to get an education while they were trying to do a job. They’ll be delivering full digital files to Lance and Laura soon. I sure hope the EXIF is intact so I can see their settings.

While he was taking a break from shooting, I chatted with one of the photographers, asking how long they’d been shooting together (less than a year, hence the “lightly-seasoned” comment above) and asking about their choice to not use off-camera flash for the portraits. They hadn’t felt like they could make that investment yet and ambient+on-camera had worked well enough for them so far. He also asked me a bit about my music photography and expressed interest in seeing my work. I thanked him for his interest and handed him a card.

It was a good learning experience for me to closely watch some wedding photographers doing their job with my current level of knowledge. I’m really looking forward to seeing their work.