A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege or working on a bridal portfolio shoot with a fantastic model, Helene, and her fiancée, Jo. We also had a brilliant and very talented MUA, Louise of Faceinate, on hand too.
We were to be shooting at Guildford Castle, early on a Saturday morning and although is was bitterly cold, thankfully we weren’t to be plagued by the rain or snow of recent weeks. It was very overcast too with nothing but cloud cover overhead making for very soft, diffused light and although it was quite a dull day there was still plenty of light to work with. This when combined with a typical grey January day meant for a reduced colour pallette: mainly very muted greys, greens and browns to work with.
The rest of the team arrived at 0930 on the dot (always a good sign :-)) and Louise had done an amazing job of the make-up as you can see from the images. I would have no hesitation in recommending her work to others. Helene was wearing a peach coloured dress and looked absolutely beautiful, every inch a lovely bride.
As always, it takes about 20-30 frames to get into the swing of things but the castle grounds offered up some great opportunities for the shoot. There is a huge variety of different settings in such a small place that for all intents and purposes it appears to be lots of different places. That’s one of the reasons I chose the location. We were very lucky too. Starting the shoot at that time of the day, we were the only ones around. That remained the case until about lunchtime when a few people started to appear. To their credit though everyone was very respectful and for the most part kept their distance, preferring to watch and observe from afar rather than get into the shot. Location-wise, Guildford castle proved to be a real success. Not sure what it would be like during the summer though as it can get very busy during the day.
All the images were shot full frame using for the most part the EF70-200 f2.8L lens. I also used the EF24-105 f4L and EF16-35 f2.8L for some of the wider shots. The 2.8’s both worked a charm but I was surprised at some of the results of the 24-105, particularly at the purple fringe surrounding the railings against the bright, white sky on some of the shots. This was easy enough to remove in post but a nuisance nevertheless. I also had a chance of trying out some strobist techniques using the grid I’d just bought for my flash.
For these I positioned the couple at the entrance to the short tunnel with the flash behind them, on a stand and pointing directly towards the camera with the grid attached. You can’t see the flash as its hidden by the couple but the rim light around Helene’s hair is very evident. To be honest I don’t really know if I like this effect for this shot. Its unnatural. There is no light source from within the tunnel and to me that makes the rim light look slightly odd. Setting this up was a little fiddly though so would I do this at a real wedding? Probably not unless I really had to. The light, the situation and the context would all have to call for it though.
I also tried out my new reflector too and I was very impressed with the sunfire side. It was a little difficult to angle it owing to the lack of direct light but it added just enough lift to help make some of the images. The question is, can you tell which ones?
So, what worked and what didn’t?
- What went well…
- We had a great team for the day and it showed. Punctual, talented and knew what they were doing
- The location worked really well. Very private for a public space and offered up a number of locations and settings
- Soft light made the entire shoot very easy although lacking in contrast and vibrancy.
- I managed to get all the images I had visualised for the day
- Time and opportunity to experiment with new techniques and equipment
- Images processed and delivered within a week
- Plenty of landscape images rather than just poirtrait
- What didn’t…
- Not enough direction from me – maybe it is because Helene was a very talented and experienced model and she simply didn’t need much in the way of direction from me. She naturaly settled into a wide range of poses.
- Leading eye not always sharp – need to watch this in future and moving the focus point will help to resolve this.
- Energy levels could have been higher, links back to the point about direction above although it was very cold that day
- Spent far too long at the bandstand when the location wasn’t working and offering the images. Should have given up and moved on earlier in the day
- Not enough detail of the dress
To sum up, this was a great shoot and many thanks to all parties concerned to make it possible.
