HOW i SHOT THiS

  • Beach
  • sand dunes
  • Wide
  • Warm
  • Sunset
  • Stormy
  • Soft Light
  • Sitting
  • Moody
  • Center Framed
  • intimate
  • holding each other
  • full body
  • dunes
  • Directional Light
  • Cloudy
  • windy

The story behind the image

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We often speak about how important location scouting is for a successful shoot, and we always bring it up for good reason. When we were planning this shoot, we spent the majority of the afternoon taking a walk through all possible locations where we could take our couple. Some looked better than others, and some were just too awesome to forget.

We made notes of where we wanted to go, and then on the day of shooting – we made sure to walk the route before the couple arrived. That way, we knew exactly how to get there and what to expect. For this shot, we found this awesome little sand dune hill amongst the dry grass that allowed us to have our couple in an elevated position.
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Directions

Describe how you spoke to your subject(s)

We had our bride sit on our groom’s lap, and while doing so, lean towards him. She had to sit with her legs inside his, and so we made sure to explain that as clearly as we could. Once we had them in position, we encouraged them to close their eyes and just listen to the wind, and totally get lost with each other at this moment.

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What did you say?

Guys, that looks amazing! Just make sure your legs are tucked in between his, and really cuddle into him. Close your eyes and listen to the wind. Listen to the waves. Listen to each other and just embrace this moment you share together.

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Composition

Since our couple were on this hill making them higher than the rest of the landscape, we chose to have them in the middle the image while we shot from a slightly lower angle. This allowed more space for the sky to play a role in the image. We also shot this wide enough to capture the whole motion of the dress floating with the wind. We didn’t want to cut it off.

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framing

Center Framed

Focusing

Describe how you spoke to your subject(s)

There was nothing too hard about the focusing in this image as we had plenty of light and contrasts to work with. We simply moved our single focus point over our couple, let it lock, and fired away.

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Focus Mode

Single Shot Autofocus

Focus POints

Single Point

Focused on

The Groom's Face

Equipment &
Exif

Camera
Canon 5D mark IV
Lens
Canon 50mm f/1.2 L
Flash
None
Filter
None
1/200 @ f/1.4 ISO1000 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

This was taken during the blue hour and so the light was incredibly soft and beautiful to work with. We were aware of where the sun had set, and so we positioned our couple in a such a way that their faces would be facing the sunset. This was important because even though the light was soft, it still had some direction to it. And we didn’t want to have any funky shadows on our couple when we could have easily solved it just by positioning them right.

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Light Type

Natural Light

Time of day

Sunset

Weather

Cloudy

Editing Workflow

How did you edit this image?

We edited this image with our protea Presets and found the right balance with the exposure adjustments and the tones with the white balance. We then added in a light-enhancing radial adjustment to the left of the image which just adds a bit more interest to the whole scene. Finally, we dodged and burned our couple slightly to give them some extra pop.

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Editing Software
Adobe Lightroom Classic
Preset Used

Challenges

The hardest part was the amount of time we had to shoot during the blue hour. It’s such a wonderful time to shoot (even though you have to push your camera’s ISO up) that we wanted to shoot as much as we could.

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Solutions

This is where having a shoot plan comes in handy so you know what shots you need to get and how much time you can allocate to trying to get each of them. Of course you may not always grab the whole list of shots but it’s a nice reminder of “got the shot? Great! Move on”.

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Location

Location Name

Sankt Peter-Ording

Location aDDRESS

Sankt Peter-Ording, Germany

Loation Type

Sand Dune

Country

Germany

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again. Don’t stop shooting until you can’t shoot anymore. As much as possible. Of course, if you’re at a wedding and you have to follow a schedule, then by all means respect it. But if you have time with your couple with no deadline – then really take advantage of it all. It’s worth coming back with 3000+ images.

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