Wedding Pre-Nuptial Photography

With the advent of digital technology, alot of people found so many ways of making use of digital photography. If we take a look at weddings these days, we have prenups, wedding day and even post nuptial photography! With HD Video on DSLR's it's another dimension added as well! 

I was lucky enough to have "tried" pre-nup photography for a friend. Now, it is not really my cup of tea but if you have a DSLR, you would always get proposals to shoot: birthdays, weddings, prenups, parties, etc. etc. Anyway here are my thoughts of about prenups.

(1) Ask for the concept, what they want to shoot. I find it hard to create my own vision yet. It helps that the couple already have a "theme" in mind. For this first prenup that I did a "movie theater" theme since the couple are soo much into movies.

"Popcorn"
f/5.6, 1/250 sec., ISO 400,
flash (canon 580ex II) on manual

(2) Be sure to know the exact time of the pre-nup shoot (especially for outdoor). And be there, recce/scout the location before hand. So that you will have an idea what to shoot, where to shoot, what is the quality of light during the time of the shoot. I was quite familiar with the venue so the recce was purely a way of looking at possible areas to shoot. My mistake was not bringing my cam with me which leads to...

(3) It would also help to bring a cam during the recce + a strobe if you think you will be using one. It would also help to have a stand in. So you can try some test shots. Record all your notes, create diagrams. I did diagrams and notes, without a cam and strobe in hand, I used my mobile phone to take pictures of the area. Using the pictures I did some rough sketches/diagrams of how things could be done.

(4) List down the equipment. Having done your recce is (3) you would know what lens you would be needing for a certain scene. It also helps to get people who will assist you in the shoot. Bring extra batteries! You'll never know what will go wrong. Rent/borrow equipment that you don't have in advance. I needed a 70-200 for a certain scene, I asked for the lens in advance (1 week) unfortunately it was already reserved and with the relatively poor availability of lens rentals in the philippines, I wasn't able to get one. :( I also asked for a step ladder a week before but couldn't get one also. It was murphy's law at its finest. Still you have to do with what you have...

f/4, 1/250 sec., ISO 200,
flash (canon 580ex II) on manual

(5) Making it happen. On the day itself be early, keep in mind that setup takes time. It would again be better if you have stand ins to try your final setup before placing your subjects.
It also helps to know your equipment & its limits to make things happen. I was limited to a 17-50 f/2.8 lens during this shoot (that and a 50mm 1.8 are the only lenses that I own). So I had to look for ways to compensate to do some shots.

During a photo shoot whether paid or not, it seems like a pressure cooker. Things could go awry with equipment or anything else. During this shoot it was a torture test for canon 7d's popup flash as commander. I was triggering an off-camera 580exii and after 20-30 or so continuous but not burst shots the popup flash sends a "busy" signal rendering the 7d inutile. It just simply lead me to think about purchasing wireless triggers.

I am not a good director of poses, so I need the company of people who knows how to pose people. Good thing one of my friend used to model so she provided valuable poses to the couple. Which leads me to think that I should develop my "directing people" skills.

"Heart"
f/22, 15 sec., ISO 100,
flash (canon 580ex II) on manual

(6) Lastly, have fun! Photography is about having fun and lots of it, that's why it would be great to have a rapport with the subjects (quite easy since the couple are my friends). Make sure that the shoot wouldn't be as tight ass as you want to be! :)

"Popcorn"
f/4, 1/250 sec., ISO 100,
flash (canon 580ex II) on manual

(7) Be prepared for post processing. I really am not into alot of post processing, though I want to learn to. If you shoot prenups you'll be forced to do post, if you have a colleague who can do it for you then well and good. Basically, I have to do post processing because the pictures from the prenup will be used for the wedding as well.

Guests Signature Sheet

Alot of more things are left unsaid but I will be adding more or update my learnings as soon as I am in another "prenup" shoot!

Cheers! 

posts for the weekend

Here are some things to look forward to during the weekend.

(1) Bridal Pre-Nup Shoots
(2) Wedding Shoots

I already have prepared the drafts and will be uploading them over the weekend so stay tuned readers!

Learnings from the Run

My first post on this page was about the Knowledge Channel KaRUNungan 2010. Aside from the pre-photo planning, I was reviewing my shots this week and I have noticed a lot of things that sparked areas of improvement on my photography.

(1) When shooting running people using panning technique look at first how the runners run. There are runners that bounce while running, when you pan your shots, you get distorted faces. Even with a flash! The only way to beat this is probably proper timing and shoot runners that are not bouncing! Or it could be because of the fact that I was nearly shooting the subject straight on. Or I was shooting too slow (1/30 sec.) But that is something I need to try out next time as to which is which is the culprit. Atleast I have a list of things to look into if I'll be shooting moving people.

"The Ring" Effect?!
f/5.6, 1/30 sec., ISO 400,
flash (canon 580ex II) on E-TTL 2nd curtain sync

(2) Hotshoe Flash. Use second curtain. Bring extra batteries especially if you have night shots, why? At night you'll most likely be asking your flash to shoot at full power. I was lucky enough that there was ambient light creeping in already that afforded me to discard the flash, but if the race started as planned? I would have missed alot of shots!

(3) Bring food or EAT before the event starts. We went to the venue at 2AM, briefing 2:30AM, the run started 5:30AM. I had a subway sandwich in the backpack, I thought, "Hey, I can eat while shooting." Alas, I was carrying a backpack, and a tripod on my back, My hand on camera which is also heavy (Canon EOS 7D with a 580EXII). Goodbye sandwich. An energy bar would have been great!

(4) Shoot Light. I mentioned in (3) what I was carrying. Inside my backpack are two extra shirts, card reader, some papers (race briefing), a notebook, a pen, a 50mm f/1.8, camera and lens covers. I should have left these stuff on the car. It hindered a bit of my movement, I was having a hard time jumping thru the concrete barrier to cross from one side of the road to another. I guess all the gear you own have to be planned for the right shooting purposes. I would have gone on the shooting day with a waist pack, housing a water bottle, a garbage bag (in case it rains pretty hard), an energy bar, CF cards, tripod and cam.

So far those are things that I think would have been essential on that day. I'm hoping that the next time that I'll be shooting a run/marathon I won't commit the same mistakes again.