SGirimont Photography Blog: The Stories Behind the Images

Archive for February, 2010


Father-Daughter Reception Dance

Published February 5th, 2010 in Stories, Techniques, Weddings | No Comments »

Father-Daughter Reception Dance

Father-Daughter Reception Dance

I love the effect you can get with this type of reception lighting.

Here we have Kelli, the subject of my last two blog posts, but this time dancing with her father at her wedding reception. I’ve positioned a remote-activated flash on a light stand in the far corner of the dance floor. I’ve got another flash on a bracket over my camera. Both flashes are gelled for full tungsten, and the camera is set on tungsten white balance, but the fact that the facility has dimmed their lights, means there’s still a nice amount of warmth in the shot (because dimming tungsten lights just makes them appear even warmer).

The flash just off camera on the bracket is connected with a TTL sync cable and is on TTL auto-exposure. The camera is on manual exposure (15th of a second at f/4.5. ISO 800) with the aperture and ISO set for an appropriate exposure from the remote flash, which I had metered previously.

The result is a nice cross lit scene, with the flash at the camera providing a nice general exposure and the flash in the background creating a rim light along the dancers and shadows on the floor. I’ve positioned myself to catch the shadows cast by the people in the background, which lead the eye down into the frame where the bride’s white gown leads you to the pair of dancers. In all, a very nice father-daughter moment and a great memory to keep. I chose this image to appear as a two-page spread in their book and it looks wonderful.

I will admit that I had no idea where everyone was going to be standing during the dancing when I set my lighting up. It was luck that this scene presented itself, but it was preparation that permitted me to be ready for it and catch it.

A James River Portrait

Published February 3rd, 2010 in People, Stories, Techniques | No Comments »

James River Portrait

James River Portrait

This is Brian and Kelli again, shot a few months prior to my last post, the Adam and Eve Portrait.

This couple booked me in the late spring/early summer for their wedding which wasn’t going to be until November. I suggested that we had the time to shoot a number of different locations for their engagement portraits, shooting some in the summer with the nice weather and another set in the fall after the leaves turned. The previous Maymont image was the autumn shoot, this one was one in the summer, as if you couldn’t tell.

Both Brian and Kelli love their dogs. They have three of them and all three were with us this day. They didn’t trust the other two to sit still enough for this portrait, though, so only this little guy got to join in the fun for this shot.

The lighting here is pretty simple: I’m using the sun, of course, as the key light with fill being provided by a Canon 580 exII in a small softbox held by a friend of the couple. The flash was fired remotely using a couple of pocketwizard remotes. The camera was a Canon 5D Mark II, the lens was a Canon 85 f/1.2L and the exposure was 1/200th of a second at f/16 (ISO 400).

It was incredibly hot that day. I think the temperature topped out a little over 100 degrees that afternoon. Fortunately, we started this shoot in the morning, moving all around Belle Island, and were having a nice lunch at O’Toole’s before it got too hot. In all, a terrific way to spend part of a day.