Excited to book a June Wedding in Lake Tahoe!

PrettyKitty

I'm totally excited! :barb I've shot about 3 weddings before, but I'm really excited about this next one! It's in Beautiful Lake Tahoe here.

The South Room of the Edgewood resort overlooks part of the lake and golf course. The wedding will be at 12:30 in the afternoon followed by a reception at the same place. It's such a beautiful place that I"m totally and completely excited! Plus, this is the first time that I'll be the primary photographer, and it's not a close personal friend or family member... lol... I've shot my neice's wedding and a good friends... but this is basically my first PAID gig. She is a friend of my fiance's family, and so she's getting us a place to stay the night before, and is willing to pay for my time! It obviously won't be as much as SOME of you make, but I'm excited nonetheless! She's seen my work and likes it, so I can't wait to capture her special day!

My question for you - any advice on shooting in a room with a lot of windows right near a lake? I'll have to go check out the place to see which way those windows face, hopefully not west! I'd hate to have the sun streaming in, and blowing out the windows if I expose for indoors. So I have some practicing and reasearch to do. Anyone have any similar photos to share - some ideas, advice, etc? I have my polarizing filter to cut down on reflections, I know not to flash straight at glass... lol.. but any other not-so-obvious things you've learned along the way? Honestly sample shots help me the most, so please share!

marikris

Yeay, congratulations! I'm very excited for you!

One thing I can think of is if you can meter the outside and compensate with flash inside to balance the exposure, you should be ok. This isn't the article I'm thinking of, but this is the one I found readily: http://neilvn.com/tangents/flash-photography-techniques/9-more-examples/

However, depending on actually how much brighter the outdoor ambient is will dictate how much power you need for flash.

Hope that helped some. And good luck!

PrettyKitty

marikris wrote:

Yeay, congratulations! I'm very excited for you!

One thing I can think of is if you can meter the outside and compensate with flash inside to balance the exposure, you should be ok.

THanks! I was thinking about that... hopefully I can get there the day before to try out a few test shots before the big day... see what works. I'll bookmark that article and read it in more detail laters when I have my camera with me and i have time to practice! (I'm at work right now... shhh! ) hehehe

mmmatt

Here is a gallery of photos I did in a really tough room. This room is a half circle with glass on the outside walls. This was actually a 50th anniversary party and not a wedding. http://www.lightcraft-photography.com/Client/Misc-Events/Dr-and-Mrs-Fine-50th/8700084_PMkAD#574981394_G5zoZ The password is pilot.

You will see that in the first few shots when I was shooting room details I was able to maintain exposure both inside and through the windows. In this room my exposures changed drastically depending on which direction I was shooting so I ended up not maintaining proper exposure of the exterior on most of the shots. In many cases the windows are blown out but I don't think that is such a big deal, and I was happy with the work as were my clients. As the sun moved and the evening progressed I had a lot of light streaming through as well as the ambient light coming through the windows. A few times I used the streaming light to my advantage but for the most part I dodged it.

I am normally a side wall bounce guy but this was done with ceiling bounce since I didn't have actual walls for most of the room. I used a polarizer filter. I treated exposures like I would outdoor in sunlight by using just a touch of flash for fill. you can check the exif data on any of the shots in the gallery by running your pointer over the photo and clicking on "info".

Matt

PrettyKitty

mmmatt wrote:

Here is a gallery of photos I did in a really tough room. This room is a half circle with glass on the outside walls. This was actually a 50th anniversary party and not a wedding. http://www.lightcraft-photography.com/Client/Misc-Events/Dr-and-Mrs-Fine-50th/8700084_PMkAD#574981394_G5zoZ The password is pilot.

Great photos... i'll study them more later but I see what you mean. Thanks for the samples! Pretty location too!

mmmatt

PrettyKitty wrote:

Great photos... i'll study them more later but I see what you mean. Thanks for the samples! Pretty location too!

Yeah, sometimes you have to make the best of what you have... I would have had to change iso and shutter speed and flash compensation and used hss every time I turned from front to back to be able to consistently get proper exposure inside and outside. If you scroll through the exifs you will see times where I tried to do it with shutter only at the end of the day but it was tough to do for sure. Complicate that by adding clouds and a setting sun and it was overwhelming to do all of that and then still focus on the compositions that I like to shoot.

My big regret is doing the group shots with the windows behind them. The band was setting up the other direction and I should have asked them to step asside for 15 minutes while we shot that direction. I used a speed light in an umbrella for those and it was a struggle to get the kind of light I wanted with all the backlighting... that was a bad call to even try without bringing my studio stobes along. Live and learn!!! The customer was happy though and ordered about 60 8x10 and 5x7 enlargements from me in addition to taking the time to write an email and compliment my work. I personally could have been happier but next time I will approach things a bit differently. The candid stuff however I feel I did as good as possible on. Direct flash would have been glaring all over the place and static lights wouldn't have done the job.

Matt