- afternoon
- Movement
- sunny
- sun rays
- running
- Playful
- Natural Light
- Natural
- Middle Thirds
- Back lit
- Mid range
- Light Flare
- Holding Dress
- Harsh Light
- Energetic
- Center Framed
- Backlit
- Unposed
The story behind the image
But I digress. We got to this spot which we found simply by looking on Google Maps for their After wedding shoot and as we got there, we saw just how awesome the light was starting to become. We asked our bride if she was keen to start with some simple bridal portraits just to get the ball rolling and she totally jumped on it. As the sun was a little too high for us to move towards the cliffs & coastline, we chose to stick around just here in the fields and do some pretty neat backlit shots.
Directions
Describe how you spoke to your subject(s)
We simply asked our bride to walk up and down the road and while doing so, to hold and play with her dress. We asked her that when she swung her dress, to look down towards it. This helps her to forget about looking into our camera and can bring out some really beautiful, and flattering angles.
What did you say?
Alrighty [Bride], let’s have you walk up and down here and while you’re walking, I want you to play with your dress. Hold it up and let it catch some wind, let it swing side to side and all the while, try and look down towards it. You can look in either direction but just try not to look into our camera unless we ask you to.
Composition
As our bride neared us, we wanted to fill the frame with her as her movements were really graceful and we felt that a tighter composition would bring out more of this drama than one that was too wide. We let her walk right up close to us while we kept shooting, and we left just enough space around her so we could fine-tune the crop when editing. This compostion works not only because all points of interest are within one column, but her arms also create these leading lines that lead back towards her.
framing
Center Framed
Focusing
Describe how you spoke to your subject(s)
We lost a bit of focus on her face unfortunately and we think it was because of the flare from the sun. The camera seemed to then quickly jump to her dress for focus, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It just wasn’t our intention. That being said, it’s such a minor imperfection that it’ll only really matter to those who are pedantic about these things. Which, most importantly, our couple were not .
Focus Mode
Live View Continuous
Focus POints
Single Point
Focused on
The Dress
Equipment &
Exif
Camera
Lens
Flash
Filter
1/4000 @ f/1.8 ISO200 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
We purposely chose to backlight our bride in this shot as the sun was still a little too harsh for us to use it directionally. By backlighting our bride, we were able to make her dress and her hair really glow and stand out from the background. We also framed the image so a bit of the sun started to peek in from the top causing a flare. This can be quite challenging as it may throw your focus off (as it happened here).
Light Type
Natural Light
Time of day
Afternoon
Weather
Sunny
Editing Workflow
How did you edit this image?
We really wanted to bring out the warmth of the sun with this shot and so our edits were definitely made with this in mind. We applied our protea preset and then adjusted the usual white balance, exposure, contrasts, shadows, highlights, and the rest of the sliders in the Basic panel until we got the overall tone that we wanted. We added a slight vignette to darken the edges and added a radial filter to enhance the sun slightly.
Editing Software
Adobe Lightroom Classic
Preset Used
Challenges
The main challenge was the focus as with such a strong flare, the camera really struggled to find it’s lock.
Solutions
We let our camera lock on to a spot on our bride that wasn’t so affected by the flaring, which happened to be the dress of the bride. It wasn’t so much that we chose to do that, but rather that we saw it happen and let it do it’s thing.
Location
Location Name
Oasi Gelsomineto
Location aDDRESS
96012 Avola, Province of Syracuse, Italy
Loation Type
Garden / Field
Country
Italy
If you find yourself in a situation where the light isn’t super soft and easy to work with, really try use it as a backlight. It’s quite simple and can be really really beautiful. Just expose for the skin of your subject and accept that the background may very well blow out. You could also vary your angle and shooting height to see if you could frame it slightly differently.
