HOW i SHOT THiS

  • Africa
  • Mid range
  • Stormy
  • Soft Light
  • Sitting
  • Safari
  • Overcast
  • Open dress
  • Natural Light
  • Natural
  • Looking out
  • Back
  • holding hands
  • Free
  • Directional Light
  • Center Framed
  • Car
  • calm
  • broken rules
  • back of dress
  • Back lit
  • Sunset

The story behind the image

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There are many benefits to working with a partner or a second shooter, and one of them is that you can find different angles while the main shooter has the prime composition. Of course you can do this as a solo shooter too, you just have to be a bit more mobile.

In this case, while one of us was shooting our couple from the front, the other slipped to the side and wanted to capture the back of the dress of our bride. The whole composition turned out great and we loved the way the couple were “not” paying attention to us in this photo at all.
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Directions

Describe how you spoke to your subject(s)

We asked our groom to sit on the bonnet of the jeep while his bride stood next to him. They really wanted to have a shot like this, and while the other one of us was photographing from the front; the other slipped behind to get this frame.

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What did you say?

(Groom) Take a seat on the bonnet and totally relax. Keep your legs up and sit like you’re chilling. (Bride) Hang out at the front there and lean against the bars. Hold hands and look out in X direction

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Tone of Directions

Calm

Composition

Framing this shot in portrait and at a slightly higher angle meant we had a very flattering look on our brides’ shoulders. We wanted the first attention to go straight to the design of her dress and then follow their hands up to the rest of the image and what was happening.

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framing

Center Framed

Focusing

Describe how you spoke to your subject(s)

When focusing with a single point, sometimes you’ll have bad luck if you’re putting it over an even part of skin or a flat surface. The easiest way to solve this is to simply move it to a contrasty part of the subject, such as where the dress meets the skin.

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Focus Mode

Single Shot Autofocus

Focus POints

Single Point

Focused on

The back of the bride

Equipment &
Exif

Camera
Canon 5D Mark IV
Lens
Canon 50mm f/1.2 L
Flash
None
Filter
None
1/320 @ f/2.2 ISO125 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

The sun was covered by the storm clouds while we were taking these photos; and even while the light was soft, we still had some directional light coming. When shooting this image, we tried to hide the sun as it was still quite a bright spot in the sky and we felt it didn’t add to the image that we were going for.

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Light Type

Natural Light

Time of day

Sunset

Weather

Editing Workflow

How did you edit this image?

The edits are made to be warmer with a big focus on skin tones and light play with shadows and highlights. A few minor local adjustments were made (Gradient and Brush) as well as finishing off with a fine layer of grain. The whites are not blown out nor are the blacks 100% crunched.

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Editing Software
Adobe Lightroom Classic

Challenges

Our challenge here was actually finding a composition that worked nicely. It was a good play between going to far to an angle and too little.

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Solutions

When we switched to live view, we found that this helped us see just how far we needed to position ourselves to get a composition that felt balanced and right.

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Location

Location Name

Sasakwa Lodge

Location aDDRESS

Grumeti Game Reserve, Tanzania

Loation Type

Safari

Country

Tanzania

If you’re working with a second shooter, try have one of you move around your couple while the other is being the main photographer. Sometimes you find really beautiful angles and moments simply from seeing it from a different side.

Just be careful when moving around your couple when someone else is photographing – you need to have a good communication and to let the main photographer know when you may be crossing their line-of-sight.

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