Rings in Bridal Bouquet

I'm still trying to get the hang of shots like this one. I'm looking for

lighting tips and other ways to help images like this "pop!" Any positives

you see would be great to point out as well. Thanks!

 

--Ryan

Well, I'm not a wedding photographer so you can take my critique in stride. Its a great idea, I just think there are a few things that could be done to really make this work next time. Firstly, I'm not 100% certain about the composition, the flower the rings are sitting on is opening to the right and yet its on the right hand side of the frame which cuts the flower almost in half. This does two things for me, it removes any shape or detail the flower petals have and it gives undue attention to the flower in the background (left). The flower to the left doesn't really add anything special to the photo and in my mind should almost be cropped right out. On that note, the petal just behind the rings looks a little sickly and has a ragged sort of edge on it, because you want to create a perfect photo for this sort of thing, finding a perfect flower is pretty important. I really like the placement of the rings in the center of the flower and the way they're stacked adds to the delicate nature of the shot. I'd suggest that next time you find a window and try to sidelight the photo as opposed to blasting it with the on camera flash (imho on camera flash is never a flattering light source). That would also help remove the yellowish caste that the entire scene has. That's about it. So, my advice would be to recompose the shot so that the flower is a stronger background for the rings and try to light it with natural light (if possible). I hope you don't take any of this the wrong way, I'm honestly trying to help as much as possible even if it comes across as being a little brutal. Its just a bunch of little things that add up.

Ryan,

 

No offense taken. Just to fill you in with some details. Window light would have been impossible...this shot was taken around 7:00 PM in early March...sun was long gone. Also, this was shot outside, so bounce flash was pretty much out of the question. I had to pick a direction to crop because the original shot is center composed. I'll retry with a different crop. Unfortunately, the entire bouquet was pretty sickly looking, but the bride wanted this shot, so I gave it a go.

 

As for on-camera flash...for this wedding last month, we had a D60 and a D40x and SB-600 and SB-400 flashes. Not sure if you shoot Nikon, but if you don't, it means no options for off camera lighting, at least not with what we have. However, we now have a D90 in our arsenal. That means built-in commander mode. Now I can have the SB-600 off camera, controlled wirelessly as a slave. There is also a 50mm f/1.4 AF-S coming within a month or two, which will help such low light shots.

 

Again, no offense taken, it wasn't brutal at all. Thank you for honest feedback!

 

--Ryan

I looked at a histogram of your image and it appears underexposed. It is hard to get jewelry to show its luster in that condition. If you are photographing in camera RAW mode you can easily make corrections after the fact. I took your jpeg and played with it in Photoshop and got it to look a little better. Trouble is that the flowers look bad no matter what.

 

Regards,

 

 

Jerry