May 9, 2014

A DIY Pre-Wedding Photography

Third of May, two thousand fourteen. That was the date I got married. It’s been crazy times for the past 5 months preparing for the wedding in the run up to the big day. Even crazier was the fact that I attempted to do my own pre-wedding photography! This “strenuous” exercise took place during 3 separate occasions in 3 different locations starting early December 2013.

Our first pre-wedding photo shoot was at Fraser’s Hill. I supposed it can’t get any better than this, in terms of having an outdoor pre-wedding photo shoot in a chilly environment without all the fuss of unavoidable sweating in a hot tropical climate. It was a really comfortable experience, except for the year-end frequent drizzle which posed quite a nuisance to my bride’s hair styling, make up and my sensitive electronic equipment.

We started off with a row of white fence just outside the horse-riding park. Basically, I took all the individual shots of my wife myself. Once I was happy with the free-hand results, I locked the camera on a tripod and began shooting a couple more frames, while consciously keeping in mind to make way for me to be in the frame later. Once the lighting and angle were all set with the shots perfectly exposed, I would step in and do our thing, while my sister triggered the shutter.

This ritualistic dance of going back and forth between my shooting pose and the camera’s position to check for expressions and framing was performed throughout the pre-wedding photo shoot! It was especially difficult at most times because 1. I can’t see my own expressions and that of my wife without being behind the camera, hence I can’t ascertain the right moment to anticipate exposure. As a result, I’d often get unacceptable expressions that required a retake. 2. I can’t see our final position in the framing and the dynamics of the angle once I stepped into the frame. Consequently, I may either have a portion of my limbs cut off due to a misjudgement in height and width or not enough white breathing space to hold the frame. These two reasons were enough to drive me and my wife up the wall.

Another challenge of doing it this way was the inability to get more fluid/dynamic/tilted shots with close crop to emphasise a certain moment to convey a strong compositional message. As the camera was fixed in a locked-down position, most of the shots were pretty straight forward standard straight on shots. I guess I have to just accept this.

Due to the above-mentioned limitations, we ended up having a pretty small number of photographs of us both together. Instead, there were more of my wife’s individual shots as I was taking them. Running between the camera and my shooting position was taking up too much time and immensely tiring and stressful. These realisations were what drove me to abandon this method and subsequently got someone to shoot for me at my studio instead of locking down the camera in a fixed position. Even then, the entire shoot was done in accordance to my direction and suggested angles and lighting setup.

I found a pretty unique-looking tree just outside one of the many cottage-like inns in Fraser’s Hill. I went with a VAL boomed key speed light on a shoot-thru umbrella to camera left and another bare headed speed light to camera right rear to light up the woods behind.

By then, it was already getting really dark and I was averaging at 1/8 sec, f/5 at ISO 400 on a tripod. I’d have to say the lighting wasn’t too perfect and a little overblown as I was rushing to get the shot before the light disappeared. Consequently, I didn’t have time to dial down the speed lights. One can see the darkish foreground shrubs due to a fast encroaching dusk.

We continued the following day’s pre-wedding photo shoot at the Fraser’s Hill town centre.

As lunch drew near, we thought of killing two birds with one stone. We decided to have a meal at the famous Smokehouse Hotel & Restaurant, after which we had a photo shoot in its vicinity. We thought it was easier to have our way around if we were a paying customer.

Next up, we were at Pulau Pangkor two weeks later for our second outdoor pre-wedding photo shoot. We were still going with the “tripod” method. The late afternoon sun raking in low on the horizon and through the backlit trees was a natural one to start with.

We started pretty late and did not intend to do a second day, so we had to rush it.

The low-hanging trees at the Pangkor beach served as a great backdrop for a low angle shot like this.

After having secured satisfactory number of shots inland, we moved out to the beach when the sun was glowing fiery and warm, as the skies prepared itself for a dramatic sun set. Shooting into the sun was the way forward. This was balanced with a shoot-thru umbrella to camera left.

We continued long after the sun has dipped into the horizon, when the skies took on a far richer hue.

Finally, the indoor shots were taken in mid April 2014 at my photography studio; just two weeks before our wedding. I got a trusted friend over at my studio to hand hold the camera for me instead of relying on a tripod. With this setup, any subject’s in-frame movement can be addressed by the smooth counter adjustment of a fluid human hand, thereby saving much time and trouble. Naturally, there were more shots of me and my wife this round. However, I was very much in control of the lighting and angles.

We started off the shoot at the primary shooting space with a simple white backdrop. Of course, I wasn’t about to miss any opportunities of photographing my wife by myself as and when opportunities presented themselves.

We switched to a patterned and graduated black backdrop to conclude the first phase of the shoot.

After completing the white backdrop, we moved on to the secondary shooting area. Here was where it got a little trickier to craft the light against a gloomy surrounding.

A camera left soft box served as my main key light, while a second zoomed bare headed speed light offered a shaft of textured light across the background. A third bare headed but feathered speed light just skimmed passed my wife’s face to provide fill in an otherwise darkened area due to her looking downwards.

After the above setup was tested fine, I just moved in for a group shot and a subsequent one showing us reading some books and magazines. I wanted to convey one of my wife’s past time and the close association and love we have with content and books.

One of the final shots involved a high top down angle of us lying on the timber-decked court yard. A single soft box was laid low and feathered upwards to camera right which provided my main key light. A second soft box again feathered to camera left (unseen in the pic below) provided fill.

We finished off the indoor studio pre-wedding shoot with one frame set against a backdrop of some of my pictures. A single bare headed speed light set to wide zoom blasted through the window blinds to camera right (at 1/2 power). A flagged soft box was at camera left as my key light. This has to be flagged to prevent light spillage to the background to maintain the shadowy lines scraping across my pictures at the rear.

We completed the studio shoot in 6 long hours! It was tiring and brutal, especially for my wife who found it difficult to maintain a natural and relaxing smile. It was truly a fulfilling experience having accomplished something that I never imagined possible.

These DIY pre-wedding photography sessions may not be the cliched overly processed images most typical wedding photography are known for; a genre that is suffering from over-hyped and sensationalism. They may not be unrealistically dramatic and “majestic” or even manipulated beyond recognition.

These basic pre-wedding photographs are just simply a portrayal of an intimate and relaxed representation of us, our interests, who we are and what we do. That is how I want us to be remembered. That is how we want to be perceived.