Wedding Critique of the Week 4/5/10

[picturesque]

<p>This week's image was taken by Steve Arnett.<br>

This is Part 2 of Wedding Photo of the Week. You can see all submissions in the thread with that title.In your critiques - include what you would do to improve the shot or why the shot is perfect as it is.<br>

Remember that this is not a contest. Sometimes an image will be a winning image and sometimes an image that needs some help. Try not to just say "great shot" but explain why it works. Or - "Doesn't do it for me" without explaining why.<br>

The photographer up for critique for this week should remember that the comments expressed each week are simply "opinions" and the effort and focus of these threads are to learn and to take images to another level. There will be times where the critique is simply members pointing out why the shot works which is also a way for others to learn about what aspects contribute to a good wedding photo. In reading all critiques -- you may agree or disagree with some points of view - but remember that there are varying approaches and often no right or wrong answer.<br>

Steve's Notes: Taken at a park in Walnut Creek. Nikon D90 with Nikon 85mm f/1.8 @ 1/200 f/6.3 100iso. Camera left: SB-600 zoomed to 50mm @ 1/2 power. Fired by PocketWizard MultiMax's.</p><div></div>

[richardsnow]

<p>There are some things I really like about this photo, but something keeps throwing me on it...</p>

<p>I think it's the fact that the groom looks like he's trying not to laugh, which makes the kiss look a bit forced...</p>

<p>Otherwise, great exposure, great DOF, great smile on the bride's face, excellent!</p>

[john_deerfield]

<p>Besides the grooms half laugh, very nice. In this composition, I want to see the full dress. Otherwise, step forward and frame from the waist up to get a shallower DoF and still maintain flash sync speed. A better approach would have been to use a reflector instead of a flash (and then sync speed isn't relevant!). In terms of <em>critical</em> critique, a print judge isn't going to like sunlight coming in from camera right with the flash creating it's own shadows (look at the bride's nose) from camera left. The groom's pocket silk is a bit large/distracting. And finally, the image seems a bit over-sharpened to me. This could be a in camera JPEG setting or perhaps from post-processing the raw file. All in all though, I am sure it is a shot the bride will be very happy with and rightfully so.</p>

[david_schilling___chicago_]

<p>Granted, it's really difficult getting just the right blend of fill and balance with the ambient light when the scene is as bright as it is here. Part of the gown near the train is blown-out. I agree the groom's face appears mushed or he's mid-giggle. Thanks for sharing. </p><div></div>

[steve_arnett1]

<p>Hey guys, excellent critique so far, keep the ideas and thoughts coming! The groom was mid-laugh, which is why he's smooched and the bride's face lit up so much (in terms of the smile). It was a wonderful moment!</p>

[bobcossar]

<p>Such a shot <strong>demands</strong> the full dress be shown.....the whole image is just a little off-vertical ...my eye is bothered by that.....The grooms mouth is less than complimentary, even granted the mood shown.........</p>

<p>Good exposure......needs just a bit of post, but the dress can look great........Pleasing image indeed....once the crop is fixed so we can see ALL the dress.....Robert</p>

[steve_arnett1]

<p>Thanks Robert, the fence line bothered me too but it was on a slight hill. I agree that the whole dress should be shown. I was shooting my 85mm prime and walking towards them as this happened. Thank you for your advice though!!!</p>

<p>A shot showing the full dress is here: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4013/4453906013_c95dd80d6c_o.jpg</p>

[bobcossar]

<p>Very nice Steve.....make a nice 20x24 imo......Robert</p>

[markonestudios]

Here's my take. Slightly cropped and rotated. I then tried to bring up some more detail in the shadows and highlights.<div></div>

[rayt]

<p>I like the colors, I like the exposure. The background does not bother me. Only issue I have is the cropped dress. But as was indicated, it just happened. You sometimes take what you can get. I am sure the couple will be well pleased with your image. The couple will not notice, or even care, about the slight crop. I did look at the full image from the link that was posted but I like this image better. Well done.</p>

[kel_madics]

<p>I love the expression of the couple! Although there are things I don't prefer like the cut dress and background which you could have blasted with bokeh but that just me. I assume you also shot multiple frames with different angles and cropped the view in camera right?</p>

[richardsnow]

<p>OK, here's a bit of Photoshop work, cropped to 8x10 aspect, but more along the lines of what I think we're looking for.</p>

<p>Applied a Soft focus filer to it as well to soften out the background</p><div></div>

[steve_arnett1]

<p>Awesome thoughts and ideas. Thanks guys!<br>

<br /> I wanted to throw this out there: The idea of a reflector would have been great allowing me a faster shutter speed and wider aperture, but this was where I setup to photograph all the family groups as well. The largest of these was approx 20 people. An off-camera light, for me, was easier to use to light the whole group. I had to setup and get all the groups through quickly. If I had more time with the bride and groom, I would have loved to taken them a few other places in the park and worked with more natural light, but I worked with the time I had before the reception. Oh to live in an ideal world!</p>

[StuartMoxham]

<p>Here an alternative for the framing. I feel that when framed tighter there is a better balance between the couple and the space on the left.</p><div></div>

[steve_arnett1]

<p>Very nice, I like it!</p>

[karl_knographer]

The shot feels very oversaturated to me. And while I think there are scenes that work very well with heavy saturation, I fund the fuscia grass and hyper orange in the background distracting and mildly unpleasant. I made adjustments in RAW processor to desaturate and move some of the values around to bring the couple off the background a bit. Also,

I softened the backgrouond a bit more and extended it into the edges of the couple to reduce the cut and paste feel. Everything is in comparison and along side the original and even more saturated versions this may look a bit dull, but it feels natural to me with better separation.<div></div>

[david_schilling___chicago_]

<p><em>"The idea of a reflector would have been great allowing me a faster shutter speed and wider aperture, but this was where I setup to photograph all the family groups as well. The largest of these was approx 20 people. An off-camera light, for me, was easier......" -Steve</em><br /><em></em><br />Steve, There's no reason to regret using the off-camera flash, it was an excellent choice and given the bright conditions you did a better than average job. I would have liked to seen you use more power with the flash which could have knocked down the ambient light just a bit. A quick look at your histogram could have alerted you to the blown highlites (have you tried to recover the highlights from the original image?). To be effective, you would have needed a very large reflector in this situation and the reflector would likely need to be positioned very close to the couple. Rather than cropping the shot to include the dress it might have been a good idea to fold the train so that it fell behind the couple or re-composed the image with the train spread towards the camera in front of the bride. As mentioned above, coming in closer to the couple, such as a 2/3rds shot may have been the best solution and provided a fuller frame of the most interesting elements in the image.</p>

[david_schilling___chicago_]

<p>Here's another closer crop along the same lines as Stuart and Karl illustrtaed above.</p><div></div>

[john_deerfield]

<p>I still stand by comment on using a reflector! I would always rather use a reflector than flash (OK, maybe not always) and I daresay you could grab anyone in the wedding party to hold it making it just as quick as the flash on a stick. Reflector aside, in this case the flash is a key light and as such, I want to see the flash positioned camera right, the same side as the sun. It wouldn't take any more time to position the flash camera right than camera left. This keeps the shadows concurrent. For the most part, this is a trifle thing and this is a fun, fabulous image no matter. But again, in terms of a critical critique, in pushing the art to the next level, you generally don't want to have conflicting shadows. Using the reflector also "solves" this since the reflector, by nature, would be soft fill. In this case though (since the reflector would still be the primary light source, I think I would have tried to have reflected the light back in from camera right. For the same pop, you could use a silver reflector. </p>

[david_schilling___chicago_]

<p>Seems to me that you have two light sources in this image which means the sunlight is acting as the key light while the flash is serving to provide some fill. In my experience the reflector would need to be camera left to bounce some light back into the couple and the reflector would need to both large and placed pretty close to the subjects to provide enough fill. Some direct flash off a bracket should produce enough flat light for fill with minimal shadows.......... </p>

[steve_arnett1]

<p>Sunlight was coming from camera right and behind the couple, acting more as rim light. Key light, flash, was coming from camera left creating a cross lighting pattern. Some on camera fill probably would have killed the nose shadow, I'll have to try that next time!</p>

[david_schilling___chicago_]

<p><em>Sunlight was coming from camera right and behind the couple, acting more as rim light. </em><br>

<em> </em><br>

While the sunlight is providing some rim light on the couple, it's the primary source of light in this image: <a href="http://www.3drender.com/light/3point.html">http://www.3drender.com/light/3point.html</a></p>

[john_deerfield]

<p>David?!</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p><strong>2. Add your Key Light.</strong> The <em>Key Light</em> creates the subject's main illumination</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The flash is the key light in the image. Without the flash, the couple would be under-exposed. A quick look at the nose shadow will reveal how dark the couple would be without flash (since this is where no light is getting). I suppose we could say the the sun is the primary light source since it lights a greater area within the frame (?), but it isn't the key light.</p>

[david_schilling___chicago_]

<p>If this image had been taken at night in the dark then I would agree with you. The sun is producing strong directional lighting on the subjects and the background while there is also an abundance of ambient light......also produced by the sun. The flash is merely providing some fill on the shadow side of the primary light source. Had the flash been a key light there would be some details on the front of the groom's tux. While the flash is in a position that is commonly associated with the key light the power is dialed down and it is not the main illumination. I'm more than happy to learn more about lighting and the related light ratios if my understanding is not correct..</p>

[picturesque]

<p>Just a quick observation. When I was being trained to shoot weddings, I understood that the bride always got the 'good light'. This means, in this shot, the key light should have been to camera right. Given that the bride's 'place' is usually on the left, as seen from the camera, the key light is almost always placed to camera right. Thinking about this further, I would say that there are good reasons for this placement. In the typical couple shot, the bride's face would be short lighted, which is the most slimming, and her face and the gown are nicely lit, avoiding shadows, showing some modeling. Men look better than women broad lighted (a generalization of course), and his boutonierre shows. Plus, the white gown is kept further from the light, and the dark tux gets a bit more light, which is a good thing.</p>

<p>Unless there are other, more pressing reasons, I generally stick to this set up of the key light, although the best thing a left key light does is hide the bouquet shadow in the groom's usually dark tux. One could turn the bride's face back toward the left placed light as well.</p>

<p>Another thing that always mystified me is that when a bride has an asymmetrical gown, the point of focus or extra decoration (a broach or some other) is always on her left hip or left side, meaning that in the typical couple shot, all of that is hidden. Of course, particularly if the wedding didn't occur in a church, I sometimes switch the placement, so the decorated side of the gown shows, meaning the key light goes to camera left unless I also turn the bride's head (for a camera right position).</p>

<p>Re the reflector--I am kind of doubtful a reflector could have given enough light to act as key against the background EV shown here. It is only 1 2/3 stops overexposing the background, plus you'd need a pretty big reflector to get the full length, probably one of those 4x6 ones. You'd have to stand pretty close too, for it to be beneficially soft. And, I hate that reflectors, particularly silver ones in sunlight, make the subjects squint. Perhaps if you overexposed the background more, but then, the orange leaves would begin to fade out. But I could be wrong--John, any comments?</p>

<p>Also, while I have, on occasion, asked wedding party members to hold lights, etc., I try to avoid that. Didn't happen to me, but I heard of a situation where the couple complained that the photographer shouldn't be using wedding party members as photo assistants--it wasn't their job. :^)</p>

<p>I also understand that if one is getting ready to do a whole bunch of formals, one may not have even the few minutes it takes to differentiate the light specfically for a couple shot. One may not even have the time to slap a ND filter on for more background blur. And, one also shoots when one sees a good op, as happened here.</p>