Bride To Be

S. has been a student of mine this entire semester at BATC. She started in my digital photography class, and is wrapping up my Photoshop Elements class right now. I've shot her youngest daughter and friend before and had a blast. So, when S. asked me to shoot bridals for her elder daughter, I was pretty excited about it. I knew it would be fun, and I knew that S. would like some fun and beautiful pictures.

Like many of my clients, K. didn't know what to do--didn't know how to stand or when to smile, etc. This is totally understandable, and I think it's a great portion of why people don't like to have their pictures taken. I know that I never have liked the way I looked in many pictures when I was younger. For my senior portrait, I just remember the photographer putting me in the most uncomfortable position he could think, taking three shots, and sending me on my way (he didn't even respond to my questions about photography as a career--no wonder it took me so long to get back on track!). I, however, do things differently: once I have them in the pose, I take lots of frames, from various angles and settings. This way, that uncomfortable pose is maximized!

Click through to view some more images from this shoot.

Anyway, once the lights and camera were set just right for K's complexion and build we got to work--me telling how to be uncomfortable, her doing her best not to bat me down with her bouquet. We had to move her curls around to get the right framing for this profile. I had to make sure that nothing was sticking out of the profile, like hair, or especially an eyelid. Her shoulders turned slightly toward the camera, however, give a little more depth and form to the profile image.

We did some of my favorite quick setups, and had good returns. But, how could I mess up? Look at those eyes!

I was impressed by the details in the gown and necklace, so I had to shoot a few close in shots of them.

In this image I am shooting her face from the broad view. this means that the side of her face that is lit is toward the camera. I normally prefer the short view, wherein the dark side of the face is toward the camera, but this was working pretty well. I think I like it because although it's a broad view of the face, the light is not coming from in front of her, but is from slightly behind her. In this image, the cheek casts a shadow toward the nose, not the nose toward the cheek.

We tried something a little different for this full length shot, too. Her face was disappearing into the background and needed a little separation light. This was done with an SB-600 flash bare headed and zoomed to 85mm. It's boomed up there by my V.A.L. team. We called it the Sha-BAM stick.

This is the only image that S. wanted specifically, with one caveat. S. really wants the flower to be in color and the rest monochrome. For me, though, this will detract form the eyes. And it's my blog, so S. will just have to wait and see it during her viewing.

Anyhow, we had a good time.

Nikon D90, 50mm f/1.4 lens, 70-200mm f/2.8 VR lens, 12-24mm f/4 lens, ~1/125s, ISO 320.