SGirimont Photography Blog: The Stories Behind the Images

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.

Maymont Waterfall Portrait

Now that my clients have received their book and images, I can finally show off some of the images I shot during two portrait sessions and a wedding late last year!

I call the one above my “Adam and Eve Portrait”. I mean really, all we needed was for them to be naked with an apple near by, don’t you think? Meet Brian and Kelli.

This is my favorite nature portrait to date. The location was the waterfall at the Japanese Gardens in Maymont Park in Richmond, VA. We were extremely lucky with this scene as Maymont can turn this waterfall on or off and this was the first day in quite a few months that it had been on while I was there. I can’t quite figure out their schedule or if there is rhyme or reason to when they have it running or not. But on this day, luck was on our side.

The sun was setting, if not already set, by the time we arrived at this location. I’m lighting the couple (and what a great couple they are too!) with a single Canon 580 exII  flash on a light stand just out of the frame to the right. I’m several dozen feet away, shooting with a Canon 50mm f/1.2 lens on a Canon 5D Mark II camera with an exposure of 1/30th sec. @ f/5. The ISO was 400 and the flash was fired using a Pocket Wizard remote. The flash was gelled with a 1/2 CTO and the camera’s white balance was set to 5700 K.

I use a Sekonic I-358 Light meter to determine the baseline exposure for the flash in situations like this, then use the image review on the camera, with the histogram displayed, to work out the proper exposure for the ambient light. In this situation, I wanted the couple to stand out a bit from the background, so the ultimate exposure was one that underexposed the ambient light by about one stop, but kept the “proper” flash exposure. The trick is to do this fast enough that you don’t send your subjects into a coma from boredom. I think I got this in two shots. We were at this specific spot less than 2 minutes before moving on. I knew I had the shot; no need to linger!

We shot at several locations this day, in and around Maymont, but this one is my favorite.

The next blog update will be a shot of this couple we did at the James River.

Sunrise at Larkin's Garden

Wow. Can’t believe how long it’s been since I posted a Blog update. I must apologize; my only excuse is that I have been incredibly busy these past few months and things are only now slowing down enough for me to begin posting updates again.

What I’d like to start with are the images from my trip out west in September. Take the one above, for example.

What I love most about this image, after its apparent uniqueness (I can’t find any image like it after extensive searching) is the way the clouds are a reflection, if you will, of the canyons below them. I love how the pine provides a balance with the canyons in the background and how the entire image generates a sense of isolation and peacefulness.

Most folks I’ve shown this image assume this is the Grand Canyon. It’s not. It’s called Dead Horse Point State Park and it’s in Southeast Utah, next to Canyonlands National Park.

Almost every image I’ve ever seen of Dead Horse Point is taken from the observation deck at the end of the road, or from the rim near the observation deck.

“Sunrise at Larkin’s Garden” is taken from a ledge about 20 feet BELOW the observation deck. Some published images of Dead Horse Point are wide enough that you can actually see this tree, a Pinyon Pine, in the bottom right of the image. I thought this was such an interesting tree, I had to find a way down to it to make it the subject of my picture.

To get to this tree, you must brave a short climb (about 10 feet) down to the ledge by walking west of the observation platform until you see a way down to the lower ledge and then make your way back to where the tree is, almost directly below the observation deck. It’s not exactly a narrow ledge, but there is the small matter of an 800 foot drop straight down should you venture a little too close to the edge. Overall, it’s about 2000 feet down to the level of the Colorado River you see in the background. From the point where I’m taking this picture, I’m about 5 feet from the edge in front of me, and about 8 feet from the edge where the ledge ends to camera right. This image was taken with a Canon 5D Mark II and a Canon 16-35 mm zoom lens at 16 mm. The exposure was 1/10th of a second at f/16 using ISO 100. The camera was on a tripod, naturally. Unlike many of the images I make of my trips out west, this image was made with a single exposure.

I’ve titled this image “Sunrise at Larkin’s Garden” because there is a boulder to the right of this pine tree (just outside the frame of this image) with the words “Larkin’s Garden” carved into it. From the amount of weathering, it might have been 100 years since these words were carved.

The boulder with "Larkin's Garden" carved into it

I wonder who Larkin was. A little research has shown that Larkin is a fairly old name somewhat common among the Mormons of Utah. If anyone who comes across this blog post knows anything about who this particular Larkin might be, a rancher in the area at some time in the past, for instance, I would be very interested in hearing about it.

More images from my trip out west to come!