Studio wedding shoot planning

Studio shoot planning

Next Saturday 4th Feb I will be photographing My niece Hannah in the college photography studio. I intend to pose hannah as a bride to be and she will be wearing a full wedding dress with all the trimmings. Hannah is not a model but is always willing to pose for me to help out with my photography. I have arranged with 2 of the tutors from the college's hair and beauty department to make up Hannah and style her hair for the shoot

We have an arrangement with this department where we provide the photography or images for students to use in their course work and portfolios and they make up our models. This is a great arrangement and works well for all of us

I have booked the college studio for a  whole 4 hour slot next week and my course Tutor Steve will be providing a lighting tutorial for the first session.I hope to use the session to enhance my knowledge of lighting and composition to take my skills to the next level 

I hope to complete a more professional shoot in a month or so time with a more professional model which I hope to hire from one of the photographic model agencies on the Internet. These include "Pure Storm or "Model Mayhem"

Shown here are various shots of different models posing as a bride,these were taken from the Internet which I have used to give me ideas and inspiration to produce similar types of images

This is another style I would like to emulate,I want to experiment with a soft focus added to my images. The lighting here is very subtle and localised to project lighting to a certain part of the face.Softening filters would have been applied to these images maybe on the front of the lens and most certainly added in post production using Photoshop

Adding motion blur,this is another idea I will be pursuing in the future

Wedding and portrait photography research

I recently visited a photography trade show of the SWPP (Society of Wedding and Portrait Photographers) down at the London Novotel  West Hammersmith. This is a trade show open to the general public which show cases all thats going on in this field of photography. I find it's very beneficial for any budding photographer to visit these locations and seminars to stay ahead with new, up and coming trends and technologies which enables you to keep ahead of your business competition


Shown here is the homepage from the societies's website's homepage advertising the show

http://www.swpp.co.uk/convention/

Shown here is a screen grab of the schedule for the day which shows some of the events that I attended during my visit to the show. I visited numerous lighting events during the morning to compound my knowledge and understanding of lighting a model with various lighting setups for wedding photography

Shown below was one of the lighting demonstrations from "Bowens" the lighting specialist's which gave a workshop of how to light your model using a 2 light setup which gave your model a 3D appearance. A light positioned from the rear of the model's head produced a rim light which created a distinct outline to the model's head. The 2nd light was positioned above the model's face from the front which was the main source light. A large reflecter was positioned in front of the model's face which eliminates shadows from under the model's face or eyes

Shown here are various photographs that I took doing my visit to the show

I find visiting this type of event gives you an insight into preparing to set up a business. You can see the competition and your competitors and see how marketing is put into action. You can compare up to date prices of most of the products in this branch of photography. Photography is an ever changing industry with new products and innovations happening daily so it's important to keep up with the trends if you are to go into business. This is the place to plan budgets and price up products you will need to help run your business. This is also the place and get to meet potential business partners that you may be buying from or selling to in the future. It's all about networking and communication without these tools your business will not survive

Location Photography techniques (Long Exposures)

I recently visited London to visit a photography trade show to keep me up to date with the latest tech and gadgets. After the visit to the show I incorporated a little night photography in and around London which has always been a passion of mine

Shown here are various images taken during the evening along with some of the techniques that I used to manipulate them. They were all taken without flash and using only existing available light. I used my existing skills and experience of taking this kind of photography to illuminate my images

Shown above is a photograph of a Ghostly apparition of a past London resident from medieval times draped in a dark cloak roaming the tunnels beneath the river Thames or so it seems

The shot was actually a shot of a classmate waking down a tunnel. Using Photoshop for image manipulation I transformed the image shown below into the ghostly image above. The Image contained the tunnel and a class colleague which was taken as a long exposure

I pre visualised the shot and wanted a ghostly apparition in the shot so I asked a class colleague who was dressed all in black to walk down the tunnel while I exposed exposed the shot for about 15 secs at F11. This gave me the blurred motion effect of the character but wasn't to bright to wash out the highlights

Next I added some motion blur to the tunnel using the motion blur tool in Photoshop, I used  dodge, burn and smudge tools to lighten and darken various areas and to elongate the dark figure of my class mate in the centre

This was another shot at the side of the Thames taken again with a long exposure of 10 seconds at F11. I used a wide Canon angled 17-55 Lens to record the shot which is essential to get the maximum amount of light entering into the lens when performing night photography 

This shot demonstrates all of the various elements of a photograph that I include or consider before the shutter is pressed. I have to balance all of these features before a reasonable photograph can be achieved


These are:


Composition
Lighting
Design
Shape and form
Colour
Pattern
Depth of Field
Focus
ISO
Aperture

Shown below here is the metadata taken for the above shot taken with my 7D Canon camera. I used the software "Bridge" to capture the screen grab

The shots below were all taken using long exposures with my camera mounted on a tripod. I use a radio remote trigger shutter release to fire the exposure. This enables me to stand up to 50 metres away from my camera when the shot is taken


I used a 17mm wide angled lens for the shots which caused converging verticals of the taller buildings. To rectify this problem I used the "perspective" tool in photoshop  which allowed me to straighten the taller building which reduced the leaning effect

The tall building shown above shows the development of the "shard" London's newest building which is nearly at it's completion stage. The Shot above shows the taller buildings which have been straightened after applying image manipulation in Photoshop

The shot above shows how image manipulation was applied to remove the converging verticals

Shown above is the technique and tools I used in Photoshop to eradicate this phenomenon

The image above shows the light trail of an incoming aircraft landing at London City airport. My shutter was left open for about 17 Seconds at F8 on the bulb setting which recorded the headlights of the plane coming in to land