- Background
- Melli & Shayne
- Wall
- sunny
- South Tirol
- Soft Light
- simple
- Shaded
- Shade
- Rustic
- Rule of thirds
- Roots Presets
- Looking out
- Bridal Portrait
- Leading lines
- Italy
- gentle
- full body
- Free
- Directional Light
- Courtyard
- Castle
- Canon 5D mark IV
- calm
- Wide
The story behind the image
Directions
Describe how you spoke to your subject(s)
We wanted to go for a very simple pose for this shot as sometimes thats all you need. We simply asked our bride to stand facing us while holding her flowers up, and then to look out over her right shoulder. We threw in a good few genuine compliments here and there as this really helps being out a true smile in your subject.
What did you say?
Stand facing us with your flowers up slightly and look over your right shoulder. There you go! You’re absolutely gorgeous!
Tone of Directions
Calm
Composition
We chose to shoot this wide since we had a stunning location to work with that wasn’t over-the-top with details. We positioned our bride in between the door and the pillar while also stepping far enough back to capture a small amount of the bush that was just behind us. This use of framing can be really helpful if you want to bring attention to your subject and hide elements from a scene that may take away from the overall image.
Focusing
Describe how you spoke to your subject(s)
Because we shot this really wide, we didn’t have any problems with our focusing. We lined up our composition and moved our single point over our bride and ensured we had a sharp focus.
Focus Mode
Single Shot Autofocus
Focus POints
Single Point
Focused on
The brides body
Equipment &
Exif
Camera
Lens
Flash
Filter
1/800 @ f/2 ISO160 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
During the time we had to photograph our bride, the sun was out and incredibly harsh and hot. We found this spot in the courtyard that created a small area of shade and chose to work there. Not only was the light much easier to work with, it was also a lot more comfortable for our bride to hang out there for some time without getting too warm.
Light Type
Natural Light
Weather
Sunny
Editing Workflow
How did you edit this image?
Our main focus of this edit was to keep the colors a little on the warm side without affecting too much of the whites of the dress. We also, as always, want to have beautiful skin tones. We added an experimental preset and tweaked a whole bunch of settings like the HSL, tone curve and saturation/vibrances as well as the white balance. What really helped was to not use any color grading as we wanted the whites to stay as pure as possible. We also added in some grain, a few radial filters to enhance the direction of the light and also to create a very subtle vignette leading towards the bride.
Editing Software
Adobe Lightroom Classic
Preset Used
Challenges
The main challenge we had here was working within the short amount of time we had left for the portraits
Solutions
Fortunately, our bride was super keen on simple poses and not going overboard with anything – so we took this to our advantage and had her stand still and only direct her slightly for a few different poses.
Location
Location Name
Schloss Freudenstein
Location aDDRESS
Castel Freudenstein Str. Masaccio, 39057 Appiano sulla strada del vino BZ, Italy
Loation Type
Courtyard
Country
Italy
Try using natural elements to help with your framing. Sometimes shooting through something, or taking just a part of it can add a lot to the final image.
It’s always a good idea to start your sessions with something simple in terms of posing – just so everyone warms up to the camera and gets used to the idea of being in front of it.
