Rings form a heart-shaped shadow on a bible
I’ve made a new friend. About two weeks ago, I was preparing my thoughts for how I was going to shoot a wedding when a thought popped into my head: the bride and groom will be getting ready at a hotel. Hotels frequently have bibles in their rooms. Put rings just so on an open book and light it just right, and you can make a heart-shaped shadow. Works like a charm and now I’ve got a new favorite image to shoot while I’m waiting for my clients to get ready in their hotel rooms!
I have to come clean and admit that the image you see here is not the one from that wedding a few weeks ago. The bride’s ring in that wedding was so thin, it wouldn’t stand on it’s own in the crease of the bible very well, so only the groom’s ring was really used. The image you see here is my second attempt at this. These rings were thick enough to stand well on their own, though I couldn’t light the rings quite right to get the diamonds in the front ring to be lit, so they’re a little dark. Also, in that very first attempt, I just opened the bible to any spot and plopped the rings down. I realized later that the right chapter to use is the Song of Solomon, with all those wonderful references to love and all. That’s what you see here.
The trick in this kind of shot is to open the bible to a chapter that’s reasonably near the center of the book. Too many pages on one side will cause the curves of the heart shadow to be asymmetrical. Fortunately, in the King James version, the Song of Solomon is pretty near the middle of the book. To get the shadow just right, you need to play around with the height of the flash to get the length of the heart shadow just right. Too high and the heart will be too short, too low means too long. Also, the flash should be just about the only light hitting the bible. Too much ambient light and the shadow will be too faint to non-existent.
Taken with a Canon 5D Mark II and Canon 135mm f/2 lens. Exposure was 1/200th sec @ f/16, ISO 100. The flash used was a Canon 580ex II. Pocket wizards were used to trigger the flash. All settings were on manual on both flash and camera.
I’m looking forward to the day when my clients are a huge groom and a petite bride. I think a large groom’s ring would make a heart shape wide enough that a small bride’s ring would fit laying down inside the heart shadow. So, all you engaged and soon-to-be-engaged football players and/or weight lifters out there: call me: (804) 564-1765!
I’ve been specifically requested by the leader of the workshop I was attending in Arizona to not mention the name of this canyon, as he is trying to keep it from being as overwhelmed with visitors as Upper and Lower Antelope Canyons have become. I will say, however, that this picture was made on the rim of another slot canyon not far from Page and requires a hiking permit from the Navajo Nation to get to.
More often than not, 
if there is a small child in the wedding party, they’re going to be rather shy around the photographer. Frequently, I can turn this into a game of hide-and-seek, or a kind of peek-a-boo, but with a camera. I often find that my best shots during these games are taken when shooting from the hip, as it were. I find that the kids respond better over time when I don’t constantly have the camera in front of my face. If they can see my eyes and my smile, they start to realize that that guy in black with all the hair on his face (I have a beard) isn’t so bad after all. I do this by holding the camera out away from me, pulling on the camera strap for tension, and guessing the framing of the image. I’m pretty good at it. After a bit of this, the kids almost universally warm up to me and start seeing me as a friend. By the reception, they are practically hogging the camera, finding ways to position themselves in front of me on the dance floor or tugging on my sleeve to say “Mister! Take my picture!” 
The third image in my Page, Arizona series is another image taken at Horseshoe Bend, but from a different perspective. I have no idea what kind of bush or tree this is growing out of the rock near the edge of the canyon, but when I realized the rising sun was about to cast a beam along the right edge of the white spine-like branches, I quickly put the camera and tripod in position to record the event.
While shooting the exposures for the above image, I got to really like the contrast of the colors around that island in the river. The golds of the reflected light from the rocks and the deep blues of the sky’s reflection really attracted me. With my Canon 5D with the 16-35 lens on the tripod to photograph the tree, I grabbed my 40D with a 70-200 lens to capture a detail of the river scene. This image was made using a single exposure since I was hand-holding the camera and lens (which makes accurately stacking multiple exposures very difficult).