Wedding Course 18/19th August

Don't forget the new date for the next wedding course is the 18/19th August. Believe it or not, since adding it a few weeks ago it is filling so be quick to be sure of your place.

Contemporary Wedding Course July 09

Wedding Course Part 1:

Yet another very successful course held in the great National Trust Village of Lacock in Wiltshire.

With 11 delegates we were able to shoot on location with 8 separate sets, using an combination of speedlites and the Elinchrom Ranger Quadra lights. Day one was promising to be wet so some changes were made to the itinery, with all the shooting done on the second day.

The course is designed to provide people with the required skills to go and do a wedding shoot successfully, from planning to execution and post production, however the shooting opportunities and use of flash is the one element that people find both challenging and constructive. The delegates came away feeling that they understood their flash units and were now able to use them more creatively.

So on the first shoot, after demonstrating the control of the ambient light when using the speedlite, we went outside and started producing some creative images. Sarah, the model was extremely patient and willing to sit in the same position for ages while I whittled on about the benefits of taking the flash off camera.

The first shot was designed to show how the lighting can be improved considerably when taking the flash of the hot shoe and placing it on a stand using the Kaiser Hot Shoe adapter, shooting with the Elinchrom Skyport universal receiver and radio trigger.

With the speedlite placed to the right hand side and elevated I have used it as the main source of light, with the ambient as fill. It's an OK shot but can be improved as seen in the second image. The speedlite has been used without any light modifying, however later on we did use a shoot through umbrella to soften the light considerably.

With a change in composition and control of the shutter ( ambient light control) I produced and image that any bride would be proud to have in their album, by the way I use Queensberry Albums.

When everyone had the chance to shoot this set, using triggers supplied by the Flash Centre, we moved on to another "grunge" location, however that is for a later blog.

Before lunch we all moved on to the local Church, St Cyriacs, in Lacock where I demonstrated the control needed to used on camera flash in what is difficult lighting conditions. What we want to do is create beauty lighting using just our speedlite and a Micro - Mini Californian Sunbounce.

This above shot was taken with just ambient light and is just about acceptable but not brilliant. The use of on camera flash at this stage would produce a flatly lit image with the possibility of a harsh shadow behind the bride if suitable control of the flash was not exercised.

However taking the flash off camera and using the Micro - mini as a reflector with the speedlite from the left hand side I was able to create a more balanced light, working with the ambient light from the right hand window, a characteristic of this church at this time of day (12:30pm).

I have changed from my 24-70mm L series lens tomy lens to the 15mm L series fisheye because when shooting these sets in the church I will take as many shots as I can from different viewpoints and lens choice.

Watch out for the later series of images from this course in my next blog, to ensure you do not miss out just subscribe and you will be automatically updated with new entries.

Watch out for the images produced with the New Elinchrom Ranger Quadra

Also watch out for the article in Digital Photographer where I have an article on outdoor portraits and my Creative Lighting courses.

Terry