Lets see your bride and groom portraits at night!

jrmyrnsm · November 5, 2009

Hey I'm doing a wedding at the beginning of December and the ceremony is at 6:00pm so we will be doing the bride and grooms portraits around 6:45 or 7:00 and it will be pitch black outside and I'm in need of some inspiration. Every wedding I've done I've had at least a little light after the ceremony to get some pics of the couple so I'm looking for ideas and I'd love to see any shots of couples after dark. Thanks!

smbphoto · November 6, 2009

I'm in the same situation and have posted a thread today about it....

Shima · November 6, 2009

Set your exposure for the background and then fill flash the front. You'll get some fun stuff. Or if you're super cool and your name is Dan Gin and you own video lighting, mount that on your camera, and don't use flash at all!

Second shot the following three with Dan Gin while he was shooting and had the video light on:

1.

2.

3.

The rest I shot using my 580 EXII and just putting the camera into live view mode, exposing for the background, focusing on the couple, and letting the flash fire. Worked like a charm.

4. Can you tell this first one was inspired by my previous shoot w/ Dan? hehe

5.

6. And then every now and then you get awesome opportunities at night and get to do this (I exposed for a full 1 second to get the fireworks to look like that, and yes i still flashed so their backs would be lit up)

FlyNavy · November 6, 2009

Very nice!

lindaj448 · November 6, 2009

Where do they want the photos done? Garden, building, city scape? My advice bring tons of lights, and maybe go the night before to scout the location for ideas and play around with the lighting before hand.

Good Luck!!

Linda

sherijohnson · November 10, 2009

okay, the background was not something I wanted to have show up, so I let it go dark, but maybe you will have something more interesting in the background where you will be.

Blurmore · November 10, 2009

emeraldrose · November 11, 2009

jrmyrnsm wrote:

Hey I'm doing a wedding at the beginning of December and the ceremony is at 6:00pm so we will be doing the bride and grooms portraits around 6:45 or 7:00 and it will be pitch black outside and I'm in need of some inspiration. Every wedding I've done I've had at least a little light after the ceremony to get some pics of the couple so I'm looking for ideas and I'd love to see any shots of couples after dark. Thanks!

I was just about to ask something like this lol

Jeff_Milo · November 12, 2009

A few from my last two weddings:

1. Well this one it technically not night but sunset is close isn't it.

2. The San Diego Skyline makes a great backdrop.

3.

4. I love shooting B&W at night.

5. Similar shot but in color

sweet caroline · November 12, 2009

Not as amazing as other shots here, but here's mine:

emeraldrose · November 13, 2009

Jeff_Milo wrote:

A few from my last two weddings:
5. Similar shot but in color

very nice what was your set up and info about the shot?

Jeff_Milo · November 13, 2009

There is actually a funny story behind this and the b&w shot. They had hired a horse drawn carriage to meet them down at Shoreline Pier in Long Beach, we had been walking around down there doing "candid formals" and could not find the carriage guy. After many phone calls back and forth we finally hooked up with the carriage and just as they were about to go for a ride the christmas lights on the carriage went out, the battery had died. The groom really wanted the lights on so he called the brides brothers and had them run down to the local autozone and pick up a car battery so the lights would work. We ended up hanging out in front of a PF Changs for almost an hour waiting. Most couples would have flipped out but they were so cool about it. While we were waiting and between some different shots around the carriage I noticed them talking with him leaning up against the lantern pole. The light looked great so i yelled over to her to lean into him and then we just had some fun from there with different poses. If not for the dead battery they would have never happened.

These shots were taken handheld with a 5D Mark II, 24-70 @ 43mm, f2.8, iso 1250, Av mode, 1/60 with a 580 EXII on camera diffused. Added Totally RAD highlight separator and pro retouch actions to give it a bit more pop in PP

jrmyrnsm · November 14, 2009

Thanks you all for your pics and advice! I think this is a good start for my inspiration for the wedding. We are doing the wedding in Atlanta(I believe it will be downtown) so I should be able to get some interesting shots with the city in the background and play off some of the streetlights. I liked the shots with the video light, I may have to look into that a little... Anyways thank you all for your help. I love dgrin!

Lets see your bride and groom portraits at night!

Comments