Wedding Lessons Learned - Part 1 (Pre-Wedding)

August 03, 2013 / Zach Egolf

Now that my first wedding has come and gone, and my wonderful clients have been given their photos, I wanted to take a few moments to reflect on the experience. From just a single wedding, I've learned more lessons than I ever thought possible, and wanted to give my readers some insight into what went through my mind before, during and after shooting my first wedding. I will say this to start: Weddings are a blast, and I look forward to shooting more in the future (which is good, considering I'm booked for 2 more already in the next year). That being said, weddings are also a ten-hour blur of emotions, actions, and reactions and will present the average photographer with stresses the likes of which they might have never dreamed of experiencing. So for Part 1 of my "Wedding Lessons Learned" series, we'll take a look at the Pre-Wedding Festivities, up until the Ceremony.

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categories / Learning Photography
tags / Wedding, Maryland Wedding, Maryland Photographer, Instructional, Lessons

Going Toward The Light

August 02, 2012 / Zach Egolf

f/4.5, 1/60, ISO100  Flash at -1/4 — f/4.5, 1/60, ISO100 Flash at -1/4

One of the bigger mysteries that I've encountered on my journey through photography has been the exclusive club that belongs to the strobists. Flash photography has always, to me, been whatever happens when I put my 580EX II on top of my camera, point it at the sky, and hope for the best. But that's the fascinating thing about flash photography: it's so much more than just on-camera flash.

Today I decided to play around with some of the equipment that I've picked up over the past year or so, and post the results in a small blog here. Today's "toy" was an off-camera flash mounted behind a 24" umbrella sitting camera left. For those of you that can't figure that one out, what it basically means is that I had the flash off of the camera (triggered remotely) behind a 24" white umbrella. This allows the light to be softly defused and spread out a lot more easily over the subject. The light was then placed to the right of the camera. I did this for a couple of reasons: My subject was lit from camera left, and I wanted to light his better looking side with the flash.

From there, it was all a matter of camera setup. For most of these shots, I shot around f/4.5, kept my shutter speed a bit low and my flash stepped down 1/4. This kept the photos from blowing out from the flash. I also exposed on the window that you can see in the background, especially seeing as how my subject was so dark. The rest of the small shoot will follow at the end. If you have any questions, or want to know more about settings, setup, or anything else, feel free to comment below

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categories / Learning Photography
tags / Learning, Flash, Lighting, Stobist, Instructional, Photography

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Wedding Lessons Learned - Part 1 (Pre-Wedding)

Going Toward The Light