“I have shot four weddings, I have shot four weddings.”  As I sat down to type up this blog that you may or may not be reading, I kept telling myself that.  Me, a “photographer” with just two and a half years of experience under my belt has provided four couples with photos that they will keep for a lifetime…or until the divorce.  You too can provide couples with lasting memories!  All for one special low price, we have prepared the premiere  wedding photography course for you, the novice photographer!

All joking aside, this stuff is hard.  Damn hard.

I shoot with another photographer, Carl, who has gotten us our clients with his connections to the military.  The old adage of who you know definitely rings true here.  We’re not professionals, don’t have the best equipment, but we have enough wherewithal to work with what we have and manage to get some good shots.  Sometimes great ones.

But that’s not what I want to talk about today.  I want to discuss the flops.  The misses.  The ones you pull up in Lightroom and scream, “Oh shit!  I screwed this up!”

Group Shots – I shoot with off camera flash 90% of the time when I do group formals.  I’ve seen way too many photographers use on camera flash which casts shadows on the wall behind all the subjects.  It simply does not look good.  If you’re into shadow puppets and that’s your thing, it might appeal to you.  Most of us are slightly normal and are appalled to see shadows.

Having said that, if you don’t already know aperture controls how much light comes into the camera.  If you shoot at f/22 you’re letting in a minimal amount of light.  If you’re shooting at f/1.8 you’re letting in a ton of light.  Now imagine you have an off camera flash and it is set at 1/2 power.  If you shoot at f/22 then your exposure will be dark.  Very dark.  A simple off camera flash will not produce enough light at 1/2 power to give you an adequate exposure at f/22 (there are exceptions based on the type of flash, but for my purposes just consider the flash I’m talking about your normal flash that you could attach to the hotshoe of your camera).  At the opposite end, if you shoot at f/1.8 then your exposure will be heavily overexposed.  Too much light is coming in.

Making sense so far?  Confused?  Hopefully not.

Imagine this scenario.  It’s my first real wedding.  I set up my flash and umbrella.  (When you shoot through an umbrella you lose light.  So you either have to increase the power of the flash or change your aperture.)  I’m getting people situated into a group shoot and I start banging out photos.  And damn it all to hell.  Needing as much light as I can eke out I am shooting at f/2.8.  The exposure on the back of the LED screen looks great!  Woot!

Then I get home.

I plug the CF card into the computer.

I see the group shoots that in which I used f/2.8.

I have a panic attack.

Depth of field…..depth of field.  When you shoot at such a wide open aperture your depth of field decreases.  So these few group shots have everyone at the front of the group in focus with the people behind them looking all blurry.

Lesson learned.  Shoot at a higher aperture.  f/5.6- f/8.

Missed Shots – Since I shoot with another photographer, the chances we will miss a crucial photo lessens.  But it can happen.  You’re pressed for time, you’re trying to get formal group shots and the families are being slow, and the preacher suddenly announces it’s fifteen minutes until the ceremony!  You wrap up the shots and move on to the ceremony.  You take a few more group shots afterward and then off to the reception.

Guess what.  You forgot to get pics of the bride alone at the front of the church.  In all your haste, with people running around in a daze, tand he bride in a frenzy, you forgot.

The next thing you know a deputy shows up at your front door with a summons and a complaint.

I bet next time you’ll make a list and consult it.

Fortunately this has never happened to me.  I always carry a list.  I consult with my fellow photographer to make sure if I didn’t get certain pics that he did and vice versa.

You only get one chance to get it right.

Equipment - If it can go wrong it will.  Imagine having only one camera at the wedding.  You drop it.  It breaks.  You get sued.  Or the hell beat out of you by a drunken groomsman.

Make damn sure you have at least two camera bodies, various lenses, a sufficient amount of memory cards, and charged up batteries.

At my last wedding I filled up a memory card, pulled it out and plugged in another.  The camera wouldn’t read it.  I took it out, plugged it back in, and it failed again.  Imagine if that had been my only other card.  I keep several memory cards with me.  They can break.  If it can go wrong it will.

The Holy Shit, Hail Mary Moments – Without a doubt, the last wedding I shot was the hardest.  The setting was an Episcopal church with draconian rules about when and where you could shoot.  No shooting at all 45 minutes prior to the ceremony, no flash at all during the ceremony (which isn’t that uncommon),  and the photographers have to stand at the rear of the sanctuary.

A football field sized sanctuary.  One in which not even a 200mm would help.  And it’s dark.  The walls are of a dark wood that eat up light like a kid with milk and cookies.

I’m panicking.   How can I get a shot?  I don’t have enough light even at f/2.  I’m too far away to get a decent composition.  What to do, what to do.

And it hits me.  Lay down.  On the floor.  Give ‘em something different, ’cause buddy you’re screwed as far as the conditions you’re working with.

So ignoring everyone I get down, I put the camera to my eye and click.  I get the shot.

What you see isn’t what they see – My last piece of advice is don’t be overly hard on yourself.  You’ll see flaws in all of your photos if you allow yourself.  You’ll nitpick over compositions, over lighting, poses, etc.

Remember you’re capturing memories.  Years from now the bride isn’t going to fret over whether you used the rule of thirds, or whether Aunt Sally is well lit as Uncle Bob.  She’s looking at those pics as a record of what happened that day.  A recollection of memories, of dreams and hopes.  You might be capturing the last images of a family all together in one place before someone passes away.  It happens.  When I was married in 2002, the photographer took a family shot of my entire family, mom, dad, brother and my sisters.  We hadn’t been in one place together in years.  Six months later my dad died.  It’s the last shot we have of us all together.

So keep in mind your clients are looking for memories, not rules and technical know how.   Those shots that you think suck may be cherished by someone else.

So if you shoot a wedding, be prepared, be diligent, but be calm.  Think outside the box.  And remember, have fun.

As trite as it may sound you’re not just a photographer on that special day, you’re also a collector of memories.

I get a few emails every week asking me about strobist stuff.  What to buy, what equipment do I use, how to trigger off camera flashes, etc.  I can answer those questions.  The thing is, I have no idea how I get the light I get sometimes.  It’s tricky.  You’re dealing with f-stops (aperture), shutter speed, EV values, ambient light, fill light, and plagues sent by God.  But the three biggies are aperture, shutter speed, and distance.  I’ve only been doing work with flash for a little less than two years, so in my eyes I’m still learning, still making mistakes, but always having fun.

The thing is I usually just wing it with the little bit of knowledge I have.  If I want a very shallow depth of field, I set my aperture to 2.8 with my Sigma 24-60 or if I’m using the nifty fifty, I can open all the way up to 1.8.  Aperture controls how bright the strobe light will affect your exposure.  So with the aperture opened up (the lower the aperture number, the more light enters the lens), the flash doesn’t have to put out as much light.  For example, if your aperture is at f/2.8 and your flash power is at 1/4 then that setting will make your exposure a lot brighter than a setting of f/8 and your flash power is at 1/4.  Remember, the aperture controls the amount of light coming into the camera.  Making sense yet? I usually set the flash at 1/4 as a starting point.  I use a Sunpak 383 and a Vivitar 285HV.  1/16 is the lowest power setting on these flashes, although with some other flashes you can drop as low as 1/128.

If I want all of my face to be in focus I can go from anywhere to f/8 to f/16.  Of course, using the information from above, you can tell the flash power must increase.  And that flash power isn’t just dependent on the aperture, but also whether the light from the flash is being bounced off the ceiling, being used as a bare strobe, being projected through a shoot through umbrella or maybe even being reflected from a silver lined umbrella. Depending on what I’m using, the flash power will need to be at an adequate setting. For example, when I use the shoot through umbrella I’ll set my aperture between f/8-f/10 with the strobe power at 1/4 or 1/2.  A shoot through will “eat” up a bit of your light so you’ll need to bump up the flash power or either open up your aperture.  Depending on how close the subject is to the umbrella also plays a factor.

Confused yet?

And then we have shutter speed.  Shutter speed generally controls the ambient light; the light already in the room, or outside, or wherever your location may be. I usually want my flash to be the only light that lights the subject, so I set my shutter speed at 1/250, which is my highest sync speed for my camera.  Sync speed is simply the fastest shutter speed you can use with a flash.  If it’s set any higher you would see a black line appear in the photo.  If you want to know why that happens, look it up on Google.  It’s not relevant here. If I wanted the ambient light to come in then the shutter speed would be lowered.  The amount of ambient light will greatly affect your shutter speed setting if you’re blending it with light provided by your flash.

Still confused.  I know it’s a lot to digest.  So here’s a name to remember

Dave Hobby.

Dave’s considered the guru on off camera lighting when it comes to using small flashes.  His website, Strobist, is the eminent website to go to to learn about off camera lighting and it’s use.  The great thing is, he’s compiled a wealth of information for beginners with his Strobist 101 series.  So after you’ve read my post and you’re there in front of the monitor scratching your head, go pay Dave a visit and read the Lighting 101 series.  Once you start strobing, you’ll open new doors in your photography.

If you’re independently wealthy and money is no object then please, feel free to skip this article. If you’re more like the 99% of us chasing the dream read on.

You start taking pictures with your point and shoot and find something about it so appealing that you eventually want to buy a better camera. You save your pennies and eventually plunk down the cash on one of them fancy cameras, yeah the kind that you can put those big, long lenses on. You fight this beast of a camera into submission and somewhere along the way get the hang of it, taking pictures that look halfway decent but you want more…

A little time researching on the internet will eventually lead you to off camera lighting. There are a few ways to get that beautiful light, you can go with big studio lights or smaller battery operated lights. Then there are ways to shape that light with umbrellas, softboxes, snoots, reflectors, and the list goes on. All this information and technique can be rolled up into a single word, “strobist”. You’ll hear my friends here, like Brad, talk strobist this, and strobist that, but I can sum it all up in one little word, money. When you chase the light down that rabbit hole you’ll also be running your bank account and credit cards into the ground with you.

A simple setup will involve a battery operated flash, a light stand, an umbrella and somehow to trigger that flash from your camera. There’s some cheap, good gear that you can pick up and the starting point for a simple rig will put you somewhere near $250. Once you start talking multiple lights and remote triggers you’ll quickly find yourself spending thousands of dollars. I can guarantee you two things, a) you will end up frustrated and confused; b) the people selling you the stuff will be extremely excited, because you’ll be back for more.

Whenever possible I like to find the cheapest way of doing something. I’m what you might call a do it yourself-er and love DIY photography. When I needed a longer sync cable I spliced the one I had using some network cable.  I’ve made my own ring flash out of a pot and some duct tape, tie-dyed cloth to make backdrops, turned PVC pipe and a bed sheet into a giant reflector.  I’ve also found some ways to light a portrait on the cheap.

My mantra, something you’ll hear me say over and over is,  “KEEP IT SIMPLE!“

This week, I though I’d share one of my techniques for black and white portraits with you. This isn’t anything ultra technical,  nothing I’d call professional, but it works well for me and it may work for you. You can pickup most of the stuff down at the hardware store or find it online and best of all, it’ll get you running for well under $100.

I’ve been using a clamp light with a fluorescent bulb, a standard two bulb shop light, and a make shift reflector. The key element is using a dark background, I’ve putting my subject in front of some black seamless paper but any background would do. I hang the clamp light above my subject about a foot in front of them, this puts a lot of nice light from above highlighting the hair and shoulders with some spill onto the face. I place the shop light to either side of the subject, just out of the cameras view at a 45° angle from the face. I stick my reflector opposite the shop light, this can be white foam, a bed sheet or even a white t-shirt. If you have some light stands perfect, if not then a doorway is a great spot to try this out.

Depending on the bulbs, you’re going to get different temperatures which could screw with your white balance. This is why I typically use this for black and white portraits. If you pay attention when you’re buying the bulbs, look for the temperature rating on the package. If you purchase bulbs with the same rating then set your camera to a custom white balance for that temperature rating, you’ll be shooting perfect color portraits.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with using two clamp lights or two shop lights instead of using one of each. You can mix and match, add a third or fourth light, or toss in a desk lamp and just play. Experimenting is exciting, you just may learn a little something about your camera, and who knows, you could end up with some pretty cool images.

Oh, and this is constant light so it can be used with both digital and analog cameras… BONUS!