HOW i SHOT THiS

  • 24-70mm f2.8
  • Natural Light
  • Sunrise
  • sunny
  • Sony Alpa 7r III
  • soft
  • Single Focus Point
  • running
  • Personal Preset
  • Other
  • Movement
  • Adobe Lightroom CC
  • Leading lines
  • Italy
  • Historical City Center
  • Dancing
  • Continuous
  • Center Framed
  • calm
  • Autofocus
  • symmetry

The story behind the image

The original idea together with Federica (the bride) was to take some shots in the most iconic places in Rome, the eternal city. She has always lived in Rome, but she confessed to me that since it is perpetually crowded with tourists, she never visited the most well-known places. That made these places almost undiscovered to her. So we thought we would wake up at dawn (which being May was around 4:30 a.m.) and go to the historic center of Rome. The light at that hour was unreal, magical and timeless. The crowds of tourists absent, on our walk to this spot we passed only a few morning local passersby
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Directions

Describe how you spoke to your subject(s)

I asked her to move forward while staying as centered as possible, I knew it was difficult during the run to keep a straight line so I kept directing her further to the right or further to the left throughout the shot, always trying to repeat how good she was and how well the photos were coming out

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What did you say?

I told the bride to walk quickly, without running, moving the flaps of her skirt to the right and left of her body. The walk had to be fast, but romantic. I told her to move as a princess would: composedly and elegantly

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Tone of Directions

Calm, Other

Composition

My idea was to maintain symmetry by having the subject stand in the center of the photo, but at the same time to contrast the motionless majesty of the building with the volatility of the fabric and the movement of the bride. So I tried to keep the bride as much in the center as possible and to shoot at the moment when her head would not overlap with other elements of the image

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Compositional Rules

Leading LinesSymmetry

framing

Center Framed

Focusing

Describe how you spoke to your subject(s)

The subject of the photo is obviously the tulle of the skirt, so I tried to keep the focus there. Since this is a photo taken during a run, I set the continuous shot mode because I knew I would want to choose between the different movements of the fabric during the run, to look for a shot in which there was balance and symmetry

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Focus Mode

Continuous

Focus POints

Single Focus Point

Focused on

Her Skirt

Equipment &
Exif

Camera
Sony Alpa 7r III
Lens
24-70mm f2.8
Flash
None
Filter
None
1/250 @ f/2.8 ISO200 WB-Auto

The way the EXIF is written out follows the common photographic method (with the inclusion of White Balance at the end). Here it is broken down:

Shutter Speed @ Aperture ISO White Balance.

Light & Weather

In the most natural way possibile. I love to use the direct light during a silhouette photo, but in this case I preferred the soft light generated by the sunrise.

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Light Type

Natural Light

Light Quality

Soft

Time of day

Sunrise

Weather

Sunny

Editing Workflow

How did you edit this image?

When I shoot at sunrise I like my photos to portray the magical atmosphere of the morning light. To make sure that this is perceived, I turn the lights on the tones of blue and the shadows on orange. This is because the contrast between these two complementary colors makes the figures stand out a lot, giving a very interesting perspective effect. In addition, the cold atmosphere of the lights is balanced by the warm atmosphere of the shadows, giving an ‘enchanted’ looking image. My editing style also depends a lot on the way I shoot: I don’t like to shoot overexposed, on the contrary, I always underexpose by at least 1/3. I find that, in this way, the color of the sky is always recovered in post (as opposed to situations where by overexposing the sky remains white even in post production, and it is difficult to pull out some interesting tones)

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Editing Software
Adobe Lightroom CC
Preset Used
Personal Preset

Challenges

It was difficult for me to shoot having so little time. The sun rises very quickly in the morning, and the perfect light lasts very little. So the risk is to miss the right light by taking photos that you are not 100% satisfied with. Also when the sun rises more people start to circulate and it is complicated to take such photos when the place is busy

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Solutions

Personally, in these cases I shoot as much as possible by changing positions and moving subjects very quickly. Obviously I arrive on location with a clear idea of what I would like to take home, but once there it is easy to change my mind and be inspired in doing different things.

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Location

Location Name

Rome, Pantheon

Location aDDRESS

Piazza della Rotonda, Roma, RM 00186 Italy

Loation Type

Historical City Center

Country

Italy

The advice I can give, although I am aware it does not apply to everyone, is to continually challenge yourself. In situations like this where you have a timeless spectacle in front of you and the light changes very quickly, you run the risk of wasting a lot of time creating a picture idea in your mind and then by the time you shoot find a light situation that is already different. So my suggestion is to try to create as many images as possible and always very different from each other. I personally like to give the client a wide choice of very different photographs taken in a short amount of time. I find it useless to deliver hundreds of photographs that are all very similar. I prefer to take risks and take many shots, all different from each others, giving lots of direction to the subject and moving around a lot myself. I am always amazed when I get home by the amount of beautiful shots I can create in this way: letting the creativity flow

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