For this composition, we purposely chose to leave quite a bit of breathing room above the table to show more of the space the table setting was in, as well as the wallpaper that was meaningful to the owners of the venue. We lowered ourselves until just above candle height and tried to find compositions where we could shoot through things to add a bit more depth to the scene.
Lower Thirds
Since we were aiming to shoot through something, we had to be in complete control over what was being focused on. Therefore, we used our single point focus mode and placed it over the candles. Since the rest of the table was simply below the candles, they too fell in focus.
Single Shot Autofocus
Single Point
Candles
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.
The main light source was coming just off to the left of the frame from a big, open window. The room itself was quite dark and fortunately, this table was placed right where it caught the light. This lowly lit room also worked to our advantage as having the candles on meant we could capture a much prettier scene.
Candles
Indoor
We had to pay careful attention to the editing of this shot as the blues were very easily affected by our preset. We chose to use our Marula presets since they aren’t very harsh and could handle this situation a bit easier. That being said, once applied and tweaked to get the exposure right, we used a gradient adjustment on the top half to fix the discoloration of the blues as well as a manual vignette with a radial adjustment.
The main challenge we faced here was keeping the blues closer to reality than to art. Our presets do shift the blue quite a bit and since we wanted to create an image that our couple would love but also the venue, we had to pay attention to the tones.
It helps to spend a little bit more time than usual on things that you know are going to be worth it. Especially if it’s shots of places that you won’t shoot at again – giving them your images to market with is invaluable so long as they tag/reference you as the photographer.
Schloss Freudenstein
Castel Freudenstein Str. Masaccio, 39057 Appiano sulla strada del vino BZ, Italy
Castle
Italy
Capturing the details of the wedding day is not only important for the couple since they very likely spent a lot of time choosing, planning, and building them, but it’s important for vendors too. Being able to share some of your images of their work with them means they basically do free advertising for you. Just make sure that they agree to tag you / reference you as the photographer.
If you can, try and time photographing the dinner set up when the sun has dropped to keep the light levels relatively low. Then, light the candles. It really makes for a much more interesting image and the bokeh alone can even elevate the shot.
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