HOW i SHOT THiS

  • celebration
  • Center Framed
  • Ceremony Exit
  • Dark
  • Evening
  • full body
  • Leading lines
  • night
  • Outdoor
  • Party
  • sparklers
  • Wide

The story behind the image

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With sparkler exits, we’ve always been a fan of switching off our flashes and using the ambient light as much as possible. Even if it means we have to really push our camera’s ISO up high; the end result can be incredibly atmospheric and beautiful. When this couple planned to walk through the sparklers, they mentioned to us how big the sparklers actually were and how long they last. So, instead of having them walk through just once – we encouraged them to go back and forth until there was no more sparkles. It was super good fun, for everyone involved too as the crowd got to cheer them on more than once, and the energy was super high.
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Composition

We shot this both landscape and in portrait and chose to stick with the portrait version since we liked how it kept just enough sparklers in the picture to make it exciting, but it also removes things taking the attention away from the couple. Having them down the center of the lines of people means we naturally framed them with leading lines. All the lines converge towards our couple and this naturally brings the attention straight to them.

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framing

Center Framed

Focusing

Describe how you spoke to your subject(s)

Focusing was a bit of a nightmare for this one. Since the sparklers were held quite high above our couple, we didn’t have too much light to work with, plus the fact that they were moving quite fast at the same time. So, we chose to use our single point to focus on the couple and refocus as fast as we could. For this shot, our couple, fortunately, stood still long enough for our cameras to find its lock.

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Focus Mode

Single Shot Autofocus

Focus POints

Single Point

Focused on

The Brides face

Equipment &
Exif

Camera
Canon 5D mark IV
Lens
Canon 35mm f/1.4 L II
Flash
None
Filter
None
1/320 @ f/2 ISO2000 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 only light we had to work with were the sparklers being held above our couple’s head. Fortunately, our couple stopped with still quite a few people in front of the, so the light from their sparklers lit up their face just enough for us to get a focus & an exposure.

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Light Type

Sparklers

Time of day

Night

Editing Workflow

How did you edit this image?

This image wasn’t the most straight forward to edit as there was quite a bit of noise that had to be reduced, plus it was quite underexposed to begin with. I added on the protea presets, increased the exposure and usual adjustments, and then took my time by going in and adding in some radial adjustments to create manual vignettes as well as to brighten our couple.

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Editing Software
Adobe Lightroom Classic
Preset Used

Challenges

There were quite a few challenges in this shot, but mainly the focus. We certainly came back with a few out of focus shots.

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Solutions

Fortunately for us we are always shooting as a team of 2. While one of us used the traditional viewfinder to focus, the other used the live view as a “backup”.

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Location

Location Name

Shustoke Barn

Location aDDRESS

Shustoke Barn, Coleshill Road, Shustoke, Coleshill B46 2BL, United Kingdom

Loation Type

Wedding / Event Venue

Country

United Kingdom

It’s never a bad idea to play things safe if you’re unsure on being able to capture a moment right. Especially if you’re alone and you don’t have someone around to get the “safe” shot for you. However, if you happen to be in a team and you know you are going to face a tricky situation – take a moment to talk to each other and even do a few test shots.

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