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Wedding day portraits.

Now we've already talked about portraits and our

approach to posing quite a bit throughout this

course but we're just going to review a

few of the things that are really specific

to wedding day portraits and that we really

want to emphasize.

I'll start with at that point generally by

that point of the day it's like it's

been go go go all day long right

we're anticipating we're getting ready we're building up

and then it's the climax and then there's

the ceremony and then there's the you know

they're they're in the state of euphoria after

the ceremony right and and then you get

to portraits and it's easy to get caught

up in in locked into that high ramped

up state of mind right yeah and so

it's really important to take the time to

just slow things down for you and for

them it's like set the tone okay that's

often the time where it's like the first

time where it's been just the four of

us right or if you're a photographer just

the three of you so take that moment

to recognize it all often that's usually my

first opportunity to congratulate them like and I

haven't really seen the bride all morning so

it's like you know you look incredible and

that was you know just such a beautiful

ceremony and have a hug have a moment

right just just appreciate it together and then

set that tone of let's go out and

let's let's find nice light and let's make

some portraits together yeah and and just breathe

okay and slow it down and it's going

to help you find your way to better

portraits than if you're you're all still staying

up on this ramped up state oh yeah

and remember that they're in they're still in

this they're in a state of euphoria right

they just got married you don't have to

feel the pressure of always telling them exactly

what to do right they just got married

they're fine to just hang out and hold

each other and have moments while you look

around and try to find the compositions and

the light yeah and one of the ways

we really that really helps us sort of

bring that anxiety level down because we're ramped

up too because it's been go go go

go for us especially with family funnels and

bridal party and all that sort of stuff

is we just and this is review but

it's important to repeat I think is we

just focus on getting three really good photos

and inevitably we get more but if we

just focus on these three it brings the

anxiety level down and it shifts the focus

onto quality over quantity yes right so the

first one is the one for grandma's mantelpiece

and this is we try to do this

one right off the bat because we often

forget and it's it's just smiling looking at

the camera full length full length smiling looking

at the camera it's the one that grandma

puts on her mantelpiece we never hardly ever

blog this photo but it's it's important super

important check check okay number two number two

would be up close and personal this is

us this is what we look like this

is our connection we've already shared some great

cues with you from the superfield guides on

how to get this connection between your couple

and if it's been a while maybe you

know have a review go back and watch

that posing for poser posing for posers section

because that's where we really dive into how

we bring out those emotional moments and and

capture that connection but that's the second one

is in close this is what we look

like and this is our connection yeah and

then the third one would be the environmental

portrait right this is us in the environment

of where we got married yeah whether it's

in a ballroom or grandma's backyard or in

the wedding we're showing you it's in a

park right it's a big scene little people

right this is what we'd i say unfortunately

but unfortunately it's quite often this is what

we're drawn to a lot is these big

environmental scenes and we kind of get pigeonholed

into them a little bit and we think

but we really only need one or two

of these and sometimes you have to search

out and try a few different locations to

find one that you're happy with right and

that's the focus on on quantity and not

settling until you've done a good job but

it's really one they only need one that

shows them in the environment and that where

the landscape becomes the character itself in the

photo yeah so if you focus on those

three photos and just those three photos you'll

be able to get to through that portrait

session with a little less rush and a

little less anxiety and generally generally speaking like

we have about half an hour to an

hour for portraits with just a couple on

a wedding sometimes we only have five minutes

right sometimes we think we're gonna have 15

and we end up having five or whatever

and and we've also had like three hours

and i would take i would take five

minutes over three hours almost always especially if

it's you know not in great light because

there's only there's only so much you can

do and sometimes when we have that time

pressure it focuses us in on those three

shots boom boom boom yeah right another thing

to keep in mind is we often do

portraits outside of the portrait time okay so

we'll grab the couple you know in the

middle of the dance or we'll grab the

couple between the soup and the salad course

if there's nice light outside so we'll often

take them out of the wedding if we

feel like it's not an important moment or

if we feel like it's an opportune time

to do so to grab some portraits and

quick variety elsewhere yeah because that's typical right

just when the light starts to get nice

everybody goes inside for for dinner so a

lot of our favorite portraits have come from

outside of the portrait time itself the other

the other great tip to keep in mind

for portraits is often once you've found a

location for them to be and pose and

stand and do their thing is you can

often come up with several different angles perspectives

from there so rather than just always moving

them consider that 360 degree right walk right

around them and find all the different angles

that you can get without necessarily having to

move them yep lenses that we're using during

the portrait session tend to be our more

telephoto lenses right that doesn't mean we only

use our telephotos but that's the time of

the day where we rely on them a

little bit more heavily so our 85 1

2 our 50 1 2 our 135 1

8 that's when we're really using that compression

to our advantage that compression and those focal

lengths really have no purpose when we're documenting

but they're they really shine when we're taking

these portraits yeah because we can isolate them

we can make them pop we use the

compression and we've got that time to check

focus right and that's not to say we

don't use the wide lenses too with portraits

but yeah let's go look at it now

we are going to try something in here

later like i thought maybe over so here

we are at chen yin's portrait session and

full disclosure this took place the day after

the wedding we just did it on the

property where they got married not yet and

what would have drew lanny down here is

the backlit leaves and the backlight on the

couple yeah it's kind of like almost touch

noses now and he's getting low he's often

trying to get the couple on the sky

that's good which you could see he did

here and getting the couple on the sky

often requires getting really low okay we got

it good stuff guys yeah

2a i'll try this first okay so hard

light this shot didn't work out really as

great as i would have liked it to

which is the case with a lot of

our portraits but um what i'm trying to

do here is i saw the texture of

these leaves i loved it i want to

fill the frame with it obviously the leaves

are in sunlight and if there was a

patch of sunlight down here i could have

put the couple in the patch of sunlight

and they would have matched the exposure of

the leaves but there was no sunlight for

them to stand in down there um so

i am using the b10 on them to

bring them up to the same exposure as

the leaves out and then in okay now

and then in like this yes but when

you go in i want you to like

really sort of snickle yeah which snickle is

like a snuggle and a tickle at the

same time okay okay put a little bit

more towards me there ian okay that's perfect

you're savoring the moment so this is going

to be tricky for me to back up

i guess i'm in the darkness though right

here i'm trying to back flash them so

i saw i started with a side light

tried that didn't love it now i'm trying

to back flash them see if i like

that can you see the flash i don't

think i love that either but we got

a lot of time um to try some

stuff that fails we always do this with

our destination weddings try and organize a portrait

session the day after now can you get

them on the sky ian how how far

into the corner can you go before you

uh let me just see what you're looking

for you can see exactly where lanny's trying

to get them right here he sees a

spot where he can get them up on

the sky right so he can use that

bright spot to draw the eye to the

couple and silhouette them and fill the frame

with the leaves because he's shooting from such

a low perspective compared to the couple they're

going to have to lean quite drastically over

the camera to account for the fact that

he's lower than they are just your front

shoulder down shannon and lean slightly over our

camera tilt over my yes perfect uh which

way did mango grow well should we uh

go that way erica awesome and just keep

that front shoulder just using a little shard

of light i see coming into the forest

here all right you can see it on

the couple there so i have to position

them so that light is hitting them and

i'm trying to eliminate everything else from the

frame so i'm using a fairly big lens

i don't want the ground i don't want

the sky i just want the couple okay

got it okay we're good okay

so what we'll have you guys do here

is a side light though so what drifts

to this area is the light and shadow

like it's it's really neat sort of texture

of light and shadow on the ground here

so we're thinking we can use it the

tricky part is is that we if we

have them walking along this corridor which seems

like the obvious thing to do the light's

coming in from the side which means one

of them is likely going to be casting

a shadow on the other person much more

bohemian with the bare feet yes so we're

noticing that contrast of the light and shadow

and sort of waiting for them to walk

through those highlights and focus on those highlights

a little more hop in your step okay

a drunk run drunk run movement in the

dress laughing looking at each other laughing feel

the sun in your face move that dress

that's good guys that's great pause there i'm

probably gonna do we're probably gonna do some

movement yeah but so i really liked the

highlight of the dress against the shady background

and i just decided to try slow shutter

so we could get some movement in the

dress i'm focused on our feet here and

then lani's doing a fast shutter can you

grab a b10 i mean they're having a

little disagreement here i want to use the

natural light before it disappears on the couple

or if he wants to use the natural

light before it disappears on these backlit leaves

okay erica get a backflash in there turn

it all the way up well if you

kind of like a little bit of swagger

there yeah yes a little little quicker with

the like like this yeah you're gonna come

towards me here i'm just gonna do some

nice safe shots have them walking towards me

i got nice safe light heck

you know this is a few times three

times okay shannon look over here but not

at me and then we

knew we wanted to use this tennis court

right when we got to the location because

it was just so quintessential to this ranch

that they were getting married on i wonder

if they could lay down their life the

border of palm trees around it was really

neat we waited till the end of the

session to do this on purpose because if

we'd done this midday when the sun was

out or even just an hour earlier all

the these palm tree trunks would be bright

and blown out and we wanted them we

wanted it to feel more like a dusk

light shot and we just created a bright

spot on the wall behind them to make

them pop uh this is definitely more of

an environmental shot than a you know close

-up portrait cool yeah okay perfect so that

is the day after portrait session that we

did with them what a blast yeah awesome

guys a little post-portrait tennis actually left

here okay so now yeah what you will

see next is actually the evening of the

wedding after the dance party there's a room

down here a couple wanted to go out

and do a star shot we were exhausted

um but we sort of just sucked it

up pulled our pants up and we went

out to the beach to do this star

shot oh good all good can you

shine it on you so that i can

focus so there wasn't actually that many stars

when in doubt turn it on towards the

oceans because there was cloud coverage but if

we faced the other way there was like

it's a 15 second exposure so like even

hold your breath yep for 15 seconds like

as still as statues same thing i'll just

i'll just manually pop it oh right yeah

you don't need a transmitter do you want

two uh yeah one behind each i'll just

go lowest power right so just trying out

a few different things here because but not

not what are you doing i'm going to

try and back flash them here first i

think yeah but that's a that's a video

light and he's not thinking straight here he's

thinking we'll do a star shot with a

video light when we need a flash so

do you want me to just using the

video light here to get focused basically and

see how the light's gonna fall that would

not work you're tired too you're gonna have

to flush it you have to pop the

flash yeah it looks great okay guys let's

open for 15 seconds lani pops the flash

within that 15 seconds and you can see

the rim light there around the couple and

then this really crazy thing happened where we

had the couple go out of the frame

and when we had them go out of

the frame we got this really sort of

transparent effect on their silhouettes which we also

kind of liked and it was completely unexpected

but we worked with it