As I said, the bride knew the bride from the wedding party shot I had done like a month prior to this. So she had seen that photo. I told them what I wanted to do and they were willing to try it out. I always try to let my couples know that shots like this may not work out in the end, but if it does it will definitely be worth the effort.
First, I had them stand still for the middle/clear image. We also tried to stick to that same area and keep track of where they were standing so that the PS was a bit easier for me to do.
Second, I had them chase and zoom around in a giant circle around where they had been standing. While taking those photos I used a slow shutter to get the blur.
It all worked really well. They had fun running around and letting off some energy, and I actually like all of the photos from that as stand alone images.
“Maddie stand here and try to keep your face/hands relaxed. Gatlin, stand right behind her but to the side a little. Thumbs in pockets.”
“Start chasing each other in a circle that gets bigger and bigger. Have fun with it!”
Calm
I really like centered images. They’re balanced and always look good in slideshows or social media. I don’t necessarily believe that there’s anything special about this composition. It’s just a centered, pulled back shot. If I was doing this over I probably would have swapped the ghost images to make it a little more balanced instead of making a triangle with them.
Center Framed
I have always used a single center focus point. It’s just always been easier for me to be able to focus and then readjust for composition if needed, instead of relying on multiple focus points to hopefully focus on what I need. For the centered part of the image I obviously wanted both of them to be in focus. For the ghost images it didn’t necessarily matter. I was using a slow shutter so wasn’t trying to have any part of those be in focus.
Single Shot Autofocus
Single Point
The Bride
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.
It was nearly twilight. The sun was almost completely below the horizon a bit behind and to their right. I love shooting in that type of light and I feel like that made the photo even better than it would have been had it been bright out. I wanted the image to be cool and a little spooky so the light worked out great.
Natural Light
Blue Hour
I use my own presets to edit. I normally use a preset named Diana from my Moon pack. If you have those presets or look at my other work you’ll know that this preset was HEAVILY modified for this particular photo. The original image is pretty bright but the sun was almost below the horizon by the time we started on this. It definitely was not that bright out at the time.
I mainly wanted to create a cooler toned image for this. I wanted it to look more like twilight out in the final image so I had to adjust a lot for the colors to make it look decent. I also pulled gradients down to darken the sky + added stars to the top from a star shot I took around 30 minutes after his.
After images are exported and completed I do add a finisher preset to them in Alien Skin Exposure as well (which I don’t sell).
I don’t really think I faced any challenges with this photo. I knew what I wanted and executed it nearly perfectly.
Fortunately, there wasn’t much I needed to do. Having this idea in mind and with enough practice before hand, I was able to pull it off without any trouble.
Joshua Tree National Park
Joshua Tree National Park
Desert
United States
I would do nothing different when it comes to this photo. I love the way it turned out and it’s almost exactly what I envisioned. Any time I do creative shots I just want to be able to have fun with it, and that’s the advice I would give to others. Just have fun making art and if it doesn’t work out – try again at a different shoot.
I definitely have other variations of this photo I want to do in the future.
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