Much learned from my first wedding

As you may know I photographed my first wedding.  I had a great time and ready to do it again. I learned many things.

1. Make a shot list. (and take it with you)
1. Talk with your client to establish imtportan shots for them
2. Establish a time with the wedding party to take formal pictures
3. Use a low aperture to cut down clutter in the background and aid in low light conditions.
4. Know the limitations of your flash.
1. Shooting in low light is a challenge and in a later blog I will discuss how to deal with it.
5. Don't get to caught up on one thing, you may miss something important.
1. I think I foucused to much on details and forgot the wedding party. 
6. It is would offer better coverage with two photographers
1. This would aid in not taking away from the actual ceremony. An easy division of work would allow for better coverage.
7. Try not to be so obvious
1. I think I may have taken away from the actual ceremony with my movements in trying to get good shots. 

I did learn some things before the wedding that proved invaluable. A flash deflector proved invaluable and it was cheap and easy to make.  Check out the link here flash bounce .  This was a great tool that only cost two dollars.  It really even outs the skin tones and makes for a more professional lighting effect.  And saves a lot of work in photoshop later.

Stay tuned next week when I discus in depth some solutions for low light photography.

Playing with lighting

Tonight I took some time to play with the lighting kit before I break it out on Sunday for the wedding I am covering.  Everything seems to be working fine.  I really need to get a more attractive model.

These are examples of a using a gel on a white background

This is what the gels look like on the darker background.

Now, let me explain what the gels are and how they are used.  A gel is simply a heat resistant piece of  transparent plastic, that has translucent color added to it.  The gel will be placed over your light source to create a coloring effect to your image.  To create the effect like the one I have done, the light and gel is placed behind the subject pointed directly at the background.  I chose to slightly angle the light up, which allowed more coverage over the background.  This does not have to be done with an expensive light kit. This can be done with a colored flood lamp.  It is also important to note that I placed another key light at nearly a 45 degree angle about 5 feet in front of the subject (yes, that would be me).

Now, I want to just throw out some images that I took tonight using some other lighting techniques.  I am not sure what I will have more my next post.  Hopefully, I will be able to successfully pull off this wedding and have some photos of that up here next week.

Been a while

I know it has been a while since my last post.  I have been trying to get settled in to my new place in Bremerton.  As you may have seen, I finally launched my website with its own domain name,  Tim Barron Photo.  My projects for the next couple weeks will be stock photography.  I have my photo studio set up in my new place and am looking for some suggestions for still life photography.  So, if any of you have suggestions on what still life photograph would be interesting  let me know and I will try to shoot it and post it up here for everyone to check out.