AA14022023 – How I shot This

Quick Links

Photographed by Anna Ascari

Before
the Shoot

Location Equipment

Gaia and Valentina are a couple who have lived in Venice for as long as they have been together; for them, the city is the symbol of their story and their love. The idea for their shoot was to take photographs on the day after their wedding, without anyone else, in the most iconic places in the city. Fun fact: it was July 2020, in the middle of Covid, and the city bare of tourists was a rare sight.

Location Name

Ponte dei Sospiri, Venezia

Location aDDRESS

Piazza San Marco, Venezia VE

Country

Italy

Location TYPE

City

Equipment

Camera

Canon 5D mk II

Flash

None

Lens

Canon 100mm f/2

Lens Filter

None

Other Equipment

No additional equipment was used.

During
the Shoot

Directions Composition Focus Light & Exposure

We started shooting from Piazza San Marco taking a few iconic shots, but then when the first rays of sun came out, the only photographs that looked good were those against the light. So I thought we should look for a more shady spot, but one that would allow us to see the enchanted setting of Venice with its canals and the pastel colours of the buildings. Then we walked towards the Ponte dei Sospiri. the place was so beautiful that I didn’t know how best to capture it. I started to shoot near the girls, with the background of the canals and the moon, but you couldn’t see the bridge. I then realised that there was another bridge, parallel, a little further away from where we were. I moved there and immediately realised that it was the winning perspective.

Tone of Directions

Quiet Calm

Action of Directions

Cuddling Kissing Laughing

Description

I asked them if they were afraid of heights and if they felt up to sitting on the edge of the deck. They didn’t make me ask twice. I first had them turn around with their backs to the lens, with their legs facing the centre of the bridge, that way they got familiar with it, then very slowly I asked them to turn around and stand dangling with their feet on the gap. The girls were having fun and cuddling even without me saying anything.

What was said

Girls, leave your legs loose and let the move naturally and keep cuddling as you are! Perfect, look into each other’s eyes and tell each other how much you love one another, and even go in for a kiss.

Why I composed the way I did

In this case it was pretty obvious for me to shoot putting the subject in the middle of the frame. That’s because I wanted both the sky and the canal to be in the shot. Also: with a wider angle it was possible to see the billboard behind them, over the wall of the big pink building, so I tried my best to cut it out the frame without removing so much of the landscape I was trying to catch. This composition also has a lot of leading lines which all point directly to the couple, naturally bringing attention to them.

Compositional Rules

Leading Lines Symmetry

Compositional Framing

Center Framed Wide Full Body Natural Frames

Focus

Focus mode

Autofocus

Focus Technology

Single Shot

Focused on

Their heads

Focus description

I always prefer to shoot with a single center focus point even if nobody does that way any more. I know that cameras are great with autofocus but I simply love to choose exactly where to put the focus, and I have when the camera chooses for me!

Shutter Speed

1/800

Aperture

f/2

ISO

100

White Balance

Auto

Other Light Sources

No additional light sources were used.

How the light was used

The soft light of dawn was what I was looking for in this shot. ideally, I would have liked to arrive at this spot a little earlier so as not to overexpose the sky, but I compensated by shooting slightly underexposed. I wanted a dim light so as to relax the soft colors of the buildings and the colorful shades in the girls’ dresses. Fortunately this spot was amongst the buildings which provided shade for me to shoot in.

Type of light

Natural Light

Time of Day

Sunrise

Quality of LIght

Soft

Weather

Clear Sunny

After
the Shoot

Editing & Presets

Editing &
Presets

Editing Software used

Adobe Lightroom CC

Preset Used

Personal Preset

How I edited this image

The first thing I wanted to do in post-production was to lower the highlights, trying to recover the sky tones, and raise the shadows. I then tried to tone the shadows in a pinky shade, with orange touches, in order to create harmony with the colours of the walls of the buildings in the background. I raised the contrast of the image and added some clarity to bring out the texture of the water ripples and the marble of the bridge

Conclusion

Challenges Solutions Advice

Challenges & Solutions

Events that were challenging during the shoot

The most difficult thing was to find the confidence to ask the girls to do something potentially dangerous

Solutions I found

I tried to ensure that it was not a dangerous situation, that there was the right space to lean on, and above all that no one was passing behind them who could accidentally push them

Advice

of course, i would never have asked if i had seen that the girls were not convinced and relaxed. i only asked them to come up because they were more than happy to do so and because it was a situation where i could keep everything under control. Certainly, shooting at such an early hour in the morning helped us! in this case we were also ‘helped’ by the covid-restrictions situation which did not allow any tourists to go into the city.
if you want to come to Venezia and shoot in this wonderful city i highly recommend getting up well before dawn and hiring a small taxi boat in order to speed up the time and be able to finish before the crowds arrive

Photographed by

Anna Ascari

italy Sony a7r3 24-70mm GM 2.8

Hi! I’m Anna from Italy. I’m a wedding photographer since I was 15, shooting as second shooter for local photographers in my home town. Now I’m 25 and i run the company i founded 5 years ago named Hakuna Matata. We are a group of photographers and videomakers really passionate about our work.

Menu