I love this image. It’s a last look at the bride and groom on their wedding day, before they leave their reception to start their lives together as husband and wife.
People often ask about this shot – where I took it and how I created it. I took it at the Brazilian Room in the Berkeley Hills. It’s one of a series of romantic, fashion-oriented images I did with just the bride and groom near the end of their reception. It was pitch black outside. Here’s how I created this shot, which highlights one technique that can be used when creating a fashion-style wedding portrait in the dark.
We had been shooting outside near the reception hall using architectural details for a backdrop and I turned around and noticed the black open space with no lighting behind it. I thought it would make an ideal frame for the couple sharing an embrace. But, I needed some sort of backlight to define the couple’s outline. I decided to use a strobe as a backlight.
My assistant had a video light he was using to light the couple. In order to get separation and light up their faces, I placed one of my strobes on the ground behind the bride and groom. The bride’s dress hides the strobe. I used a radio trigger to fire the strobe when I pressed the camera shutter.
When positioning a flash for backlight at night, it’s important to have an eye for how the flash will hit the couple’s faces and how reflections of the flash from one of the couple can be used to light the other. Notice how the flash lights up the front of the groom’s face, providing separation between him and the dark night. The strobe light also reflects off the groom, and that reflection lights the front of the bride’s face. If it weren’t for the flash, the front of the bride’s face would not be lit and would be lost in the darkness because the video light, which is aimed over the bride’s left shoulder, only lights half of the bride’s face. Using the main video light and reflections of the backlight strobe together gives the full lighting needed for this image.
The strobe light is blue because I had my camera set to a tungsten color balance to match the video light I used to light up the couple from the front. Daylight, or flash, turns blue when the color temperature is set for tungsten. I could have put a CTO gel on my flash to match the video light, and then the backlight would appear white – because the gel would make the flash light the same color as the video light. But I wanted the flash to turn blue here, to give some color separation and to create an illusion of cool-tone moonlight behind the bride and groom and the illusion of warm-toned light from the reception celebration lighting the front of the couple.
The key to shooting in pitch black is to remember to backlight your subject. A strobe firing remotely using a radio transmitter is a great way to get backlight when there is no natural light.
Camera Settings:
f/2.8
1/80 sec
ISO 2500
35-70mm lens @ 40mm
Equipment:
Nikon D700 camera body
Nikon 35-70mm lens
Lowel i-Light video light
Bescor video light battery
Pocket Wizards – 1 transmit, 1 receive
Nikon SB80DX speedlight
Nikon speedlight stand
