A Flair for the Unusual in Vernon

This week, we brought it up a notch.

I was showing this photo to my class. If you’ll remember, I teach 6 classes a week on photography. Everything from beginner to advanced. I was showing this to my students, as an example as to when to use colored gels on an off camera TTL flash. She said, “This photo looks very complicated. I can’t decode the composition.”

Well, spoiler alert, it is.

I’m typing this in my room in Vegas. I’m sketching up all my concept shots for tomorrow and thought to myself, “What better way to break this up than a blog post?” Here we are.

So the off camera flash is behind the couple in the above shot. The idea is, you’d like it to just graze your model’s cheek – just enough so that you know it’s there, but not so much you light her up.

Grey days are a mixed blessing. I used to love cloudy days because I wouldn’t have to worry about diffusing my light. In the same stroke, without hot or cold light, my photos would look bland. I set out to fix this.

What you’re seeing is an off camera flash with a CTO (color temperature orange) firing towards me. I know there’s a ton of pollen in the air in the spring, and I also knew if I used a fixed aperture setting (f3.0/f4.0) I could capture it. But what about the balance of the image?

That’s where Tara’s hair comes in. I knew I could have a lot of grey, or a little bit of black. Her hair was black, and so it gave the image that hint of seriousness I needed. The bright colors gave the photos a fairytale look. The pollen gives this shoot a dash of the unexpected. The tattoos add badassery.

And this couple?

Let’s just say you haven’t seen anything yet. The timeline I’ve got figured out for the wedding is a game changer.