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.