Bar Mitzvah

Andy

Dear friends of ours are leaving town after 10 years. We're very sad about this, of course! The mom asked me a few months ago, did I know any good photographers who would shoot her eldest son's Bar Mitzvah? Of course I said I'd do it as a gift to them



You'll see a bit later that the Temple posed a bit of a challenge - extremely back-lit, and of course warm-toned wood paneling everywhere. I used Canon 5D Mark II and Canon 580 EX II, paired with my Canon 50mm f/1.2 for most of the formal shots.





During the service, I was only able to shoot from the rear of the Temple, and of course no flash. So, I popped on the 70-200 f/2.8L IS II, and cranked my ISO to 6400 and shot hand-held. Here's the look of the venue:



I used LR3 to cull 1500+ shots down to 402, using the 'pick' feature, then I applied global adjustments to all similar files, and then used the awesomness of LR3's adjustment brushes to bring back some detail in the windows, to raise exposure in places where needed, and to handle oversaturation in some spots. What an great tool, totally a time saver!



I would've liked to be up front and closer. But we make do. I played a slideshow of these photos for the Mom & Dad today, and she wept. Job Done!





These are some of 400+ shots I gave the family - they're just proofs, I fully intend to improve them more when they order their prints :deal

Enjoy (doing a mitzvah for your friends) photography,

gfxartist

great job andy! and 6400 iso? i can't even tell!

jeffreaux2

Nice job Andy!

Im not bowled over by the first three, but am rather drawn to the last three with the backlight. Nice middle ground on the white balance in those!

ian408

Manually metered?

I think they're nice and I like the interior shots. Nice location!

Andy

ian408 wrote: »

Manually metered?

I think they're nice and I like the interior shots. Nice location!

Well, I shot in Av mode, but manually dealt with how much flash I wanted to use. Thanks, Ian! The 70-200 shots were manually metered.

Mitchell

A beautiful temple, but the lighting and the architecture there is making me weak in the knees. Between the giant wall of backlighting and the glass doors on the front of the ark, you really had your work cut out for you. Had you been there before? The last three are great.

Andy

Mitchell wrote: »

A beautiful temple, but the lighting and the architecture there is making me weak in the knees. Between the giant wall of backlighting and the glass doors on the front of the ark, you really had your work cut out for you. Had you been there before? The last three are great.

Hey, Mitchell! I did two things before this shoot: checked out your shots, and also went to the Temple to scout it out It was very challenging. I sacrificed the highlights from the giant wall of white glass on many shots and then used the adjustment brush in LR3 to bring 'em back.

It was very challenging and very fun.

adbsgicom

+1 on the last 3!!!

Andy

adbsgicom wrote: »

+1 on the last 3!!!

Thanks - I agree There's only 15 minutes with the Ark and scrolls, before the service. Not much time to do a mess of formal poses with the main family, in-laws, out-laws, cousins, etc etc, so I had to just get 'em up and shoot shoot shoot. But the Mom likes them so that's what counts

CynthiaM

Andy wrote: »

Dear friends of ours are leaving town after 10 years. We're very sad about this, of course! The mom asked me a few months ago, did I know any good photographers who would shoot her eldest son's Bar Mitzvah? Of course I said I'd do it as a gift to them

What a wonderful gift. They will cherish these for years to come.

Might I suggest that in your further post-processing that you consider some subtle vignetting. Two tools that I think are terrific and easy for this are the Nik Color Efex Darken/Lighten center; you can control if the edges get darker or lighter or stay the same and if center gets darker/lighter or stays the same as well as the size and placement of the center and the burning set in Pixelgenius Photokit (not Photokit Sharpener; that's different). It allows you to darken 4 corners, just the top corners, just the bottom corners, same with the edges, top and bottom or sides. You can adjust opacity although the default is usually just fine. What I like about both of these is that when someone looks at the finished image, they don't say, oh, he did some vignetting.

I have no doubt that the finished images will be stunning as is all of your work.

Regards,
Cynthia

Sam

A wonderful thoughtful gift that will live on for generations.

Sam

BradfordBenn

Amazing shots and compensating for the glass wall is pretty amazing. I am really starting to think about going up to LR3 from this story.

Also an amazingly nice gesture to do. Reminds me of doing wedding pics for a few friends. Best thing is that while we might not like the images at times cause we have critical eyes, it puts smile on people's faces that we do these mitzvahs.