michaelmowery

<p>Well first off why is not the photographer here asking the questions? LOL. Anyways the sample you showed is not good and certainly not dramatic looking. It looks like it was shot by an amateur as well. All the elements look good but the lighting which creates the mood or feel is lost and cold looking. On the flip side it is better than having no strobes at all. Just have your guy rent two strobes with two soft boxes and move the lights around to see what looks best. With out knowing the conditions of the barn its hard to give specific advice.</p>

<p>Very boring. The first few minutes I felt like I had a macro vision as everything was all detail shots. You have to have wide shots to establish where your at and what the story is about then have a few macro shots sprinkled in but not every shot as this video started off with. The freeze frames was old school looking. If I wanted freeze frames I would have rather watched a slide show. This is a video so I want to see movement always. Who ever shot this needs to watch his focus. Very low budget feel to the whole thing and the music is disconnected to the whole thing. I would be upset If I got this for my wedding. I don't understand the flying birds at the end, very tacky. In short it it terrible. I assume this is the recap video. Also all the beginning shots did not make sense chronologically as they were mostly from the reception part. The video guy is no pro and the editor did not do justice with his choice of footage.</p>

<p>You splitting hairs over nothing. Work on your lighting and composition. Who cares if you can see the ribs of the umbrella or if the white is an off white when you have an amazing lit portrait. I used photogenic years ago and had problems with them with heavy use on location. Ribless umbrellas is just a gimmick to get you to buy them. I now use photek umbrellas when i use umbrellas. </p>

<p>I need new glasses. lol. </p>

<p>To answer your question... Thats what we call scouting out a location before the shoot. here is an example of a shot similar to what you are describing without additional lights or reflector. The open sky acts as a reflector to the back sunlit subjects. I did open up shadows in post. I do have shots with flash but you don't need as much flash as you think unless you are going for more of a commercial look as Ralph has demonstrated quite nicely.</p><div></div>

<p>The light is too forward directional to be strictly bounced. The paper hanging to his right also show a reflection of a forward light source and the people behind him are also lit with the same forward light. The light is very soft which indicates a white soft box at a fairly close distance and by looking at the reflection of his sunglasses I would say it was a round light source. There is no reflection in the glasses of a bright illumination of the tents celling to indicate it was bounced.</p>

<p>I assume you have no 2.8 lens so set your ISO to 3200 and your camera to TV with shutter speed at the closes shutter speed that matches your focal length of your lens.</p>

<p>Use longer lenses when doing portraits as to separate subject from background. This avoids busy distracting and competing backgrounds. Watch the direction of light and make sure it illuminates the face. If image 3 is your best shot of the bride to show us then you need to really work on your portraits. The flowers are too close to her face and she looks scrunched with no neck and not enough light hitting her face. compare that with the one with her father and you see the difference. The first dance photo is nicely exposed but getting a good candid takes practice. The groom does look disinterested. It would have been better if you waiting for them to just look at each other.</p>

<p>Noooo do not use a rim light as that will effect your image that you are extracting. Unless you want a rim lit subject in your new background. All you have to do is illuminate your first background evenly so there is separation from the subject. </p>