On Tour with the SWPP !
Well, I’m back from my latest tour with the SWPP. This time I visited Reading, Bristol and Exeter running training for the delegates on Wedding Photography. The main focus of the training was using available light and working at high ISO settings (typically ISO3200 or above). In addition to this I covered post processing in Lightroom and my wedding workflow; to be honest Lightroom is a whole training course on its own so we only touched on a few on its many features 🙂
The first day we were in Reading. The brief I had given Terrie at HQ was that we would be looking at working in “challenging” venues and I think it is fair to say we certainly had them ! In the UK we don’t always have beautiful summer days; quite often it is grey, overcast and raining. Typically we also don’t get a lot of time to work with the bride and groom ( I work on having 10 minutes with them) so planning and using the available light really is key to working fast 🙂 On each day I also showed the delegates how I would use a video light at a wedding.
The following three photographs are from our day in Reading. Both of the shots of the model were taken using available light only 🙂 both were taken at ISO3200 f4.0 and a slight change on the shutter speed between shots, one was 1/160s the other was 1/250s.. The third shot shows the delegates using the light from a window.
From Reading we moved on to Bristol… our next venue was a Premier Inn !
Again I showed people how to look for, and use, available light… In addition to this and the video light we went outside (in between the rain…) to use some off camera flash in daylight…
This photo was taken using window light against a tiny corner of the room (luckily it had a fairly plain wall !)
This photo (and the next one) were taken using the light from a downlighter in a hotel corridor opposite some vending machines (the third photo in the sequence shows the location !) These were both taken on a 16-35 mm lens so I could get a full length shot with my back to the vending machines 🙂
This is a shot to show the setup (in the car park) for the next shot…. This was using off camera flash.
Yes, we really were in a Premier Inn !
Our final venue for the week was Exeter….. This venue had a mirror we could use as well as a sofa in the bar and some plain wall space. The mirror photographs were lit using a video light, the sequence shows how by moving your camera position and orientation you can get variety in your photography quite quickly. The Photograph on the sofa also had light from the video light so that we could control the light falling on to Loretta, our lovely model.
So, after a day using their cameras in manual mode and with some tips on speeding up editing everyone has gone away realising that no matter where your wedding is and no matter what the weather with some imagination you can work pretty much anywhere 🙂