- building
- Cloudy
- Dark
- Evening
- Landscape
- Location
- lower thirds
- Natural Light
- Rule of thirds
- Stormy
- Sunset
- Wide
The story behind the image
Guests also tend to not like being photogrpahed in the middle of eating too. But despite being on a break, it’s always nice to walk around and just stretch the legs a bit after they’ve calmed and seized a bit. And had I not taken a walk down towards the pool area of this Tuscan villa, I would not have noticed this spectacular site. The clouds had covered the sunset and a the light on the dinner just looked so darn cool.
We spent a bit more time on this photo while editing as we really wanted to bring a bit more empahsis to the crowd at the table as well as the light hitting the building. We wanted to create a feelign of space, a bit of grandeur but also a warm sense of comfort.
Composition
Composing this shot was all about leaving room for everything. We shot this wide enough to keep as much of the sky in the frame as we wanted while also allowing the building and the table party to play a role. We positioned the dinner party in the lower thirds of the image which left the other 2 thirds free for the sky to dominate.
framing
Lower Thirds
Focusing
Describe how you spoke to your subject(s)
This was a fairly straight forward shot to focus as we didn’t face any challenges. We simply moved our single focus point over the crowd at the table and because we were shooting quite a distance away, the focal plane was really large & forgiving, even if we shot with a wide aperture.
Focus Mode
Single Shot Autofocus
Focus POints
Single Point
Focused on
The Crowd
Equipment &
Exif
Camera
Lens
Flash
Filter
1/4000 @ f/1.6 ISO1600 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 light in this photo was coming directly from the sun just behind the group of guests and it was completely covered by the overcast sky. However, the clouds were not thickest which meant that this awesome spot of light shone through (though diffused). We didn’t really have much choice as to where or how we could position ourselves for the light as we focused more on the composition in this shot.
Light Type
Natural Light
Time of day
Sunset
Editing Workflow
How did you edit this image?
To edit this shot, I applied the Protea preset as a base and then reduced the exposure quite a lot to bring out more details from the sun in the sky as well as to pick up how the light was hitting the building. I adjusted the exposure sliders, contrast sliders and the usuals until i got the tones I really liked. I then went in with some radial filters to enahnce the sunset light while also creating a manual vigenette to darken the surrounding areas. I did a slight bit of dodging and burning to help some details stick out more and finally cleaned up the image with the spot heal tool.
Editing Software
Adobe Lightroom Classic
Preset Used
Challenges
Our biggest challenge was deciding what route to go with the edit. Since the original shot was still relatively bright, we had to make a choice whether we keep it bright or move more into a darker tone.
Solutions
We chose the latter as we wanted to give a transition into the evening and it was a perfect, wide shot to do that. It showed enough of the environement to let our viewers know what was happening as well as keep a lot of the elements that made up the evening festivities.
Location
Location Name
The Lazy Olive
Location aDDRESS
The Lazy Olive, Loc. Finerri, 7, 53041 Asciano SI, Italy
Loation Type
Garden / Field
Country
Italy
Don’t forget to look after yourself on the wedding day. Make sure you have a moment during the dinner to get some food, drinks and rest as there’s no point in you exhausting yourself and performing poorly. Besides, most guests don’t want to be photographed with food in their mouths. Just always keep an eye open for speeches and ideally have the bridesmaids/groomsmen come up and let you know when something is going to happen.
