The Boat – Favourites of 2010
Well, It’s been a wonderful wedding season. We have photographed so many weddings that I have lost count!It’s not quite over yet though 😀 We still have 3 more weddings for this year.
I thought now it was a little quieter that I would create a series of blog posts sharing some of my favourite images of 2010 with you and explaining why I like the image so much. Also I thought it would be useful to share how each photograph was created (for those photographers out there).
The first couple of photographs come from the wedding of Gill & Peter which we travelled to the Lake District for. We were very fortunate with the weather that day as it had been raining for a lot of the day and Gill & Peter had planned for everyone to go on boat rides on Lake Windermere. The weather decided to take a turn for the better (we like to think that we had a hand in that 😉 ) and we were treated to beautiful sunlight whilst on the boats and well into the evening.
So on to the images :
The boat
Camera : Canon 5d Mkii Lens : Canon 45mm TS/E Iso :1000 Aperture: F/4.5 Shutter Speed : 1/250 second Light : Natural Light
After the boat rides that Gill and Peter had organised we were walking back to the hotel and I saw a little path which I decided to investigate. It was there that I saw this old boat and I wanted to create a photograph that had a boating theme for Gill and Peter to remember their boating experience by.
What drew my eye to this scene?
1) The light – the photograph was captured at around 7pm. The sun was low and the light had a beautiful quality to it as it faced Gill and Peter. The light caugh parts of the scene and not all of the scene (in particular it didn’t catch the trees to the left and high above)
2) I loved the rustic dilapidated look of the boat particularly the orange cover which really went well with the tones of the floor in the woods. The blue thing (not sure of the name) I could have changed the colour in post but I liked the contrast it gave to the scene even though the colours almost seem out of place in the photograph.
3) The greenery behind the boat really caught my attention. Im not sure what kind of bush/tree it was but it wasn’t something that we see everyday here and so this made it more interesting to me. How the greens of the leaves and the browns of the stems really caught the light. I really l
Why I used these particular settings and camera gear
1) The 5d mk 2 is the camera I always use for wedding photography. The 45mm Tilt Shift Lens as well as being a very sharp lens has the ability to draw focus and again make the image more intense. Do you see the top and bottom of the photograph? You can see the bokeh (the blurred out of focus part of the image) how it blurs the floor of the woods and the leaves of the trees. I like the Tilt Shift lens effect when its done mildly and its not too drastic.
2) Why f/4.5? The Tilt shift foes f2.8? – I wanted the background to retain detail and not go out of focus too much. The greenery in the background was one of those things that caught my eye. If I had used f2.8 the legs of Peter and Gill, the floor and the top of the photograph would have been more blurred and the tilt shift effect may have been too drastic. Iso 1000 was used because I wanted to keep the shutter speed fast enough to ensure that the image was sharp.
3) No flash was used for this shot as it simply wasn’t necessary and wouldn’t have added anything to the shot.
Its funny now I look at the photographs and process why I was drawn to take it, that you don’t realise how much thought process goes into the taking of one photograph in a matter of seconds.
The second image was taken just moments later with the same level of light but has a completely different look…
The Woods
Camera : Canon 5d Mkii Lens : Canon 135mm f2 Iso :320 Aperture: F/18 Shutter Speed : 1/200 second Light : Canon 580 ex ii
What drew my eye to this scene?
It was Laura that suggested this shot. She saw the shape of the trees and she suggested that we light it only from behind to give a silhouette.
This photo was to have a different feel to the last photo although a similar pose was used. It would be almost anonymous and at the same time romantic. The lack of detail on the front of Peter and Gill keeps it quite anonymous and the light from behind highlighting that they are about to kiss keeps it romantic. Its the sort of photograph that you wouldn’t feel vain for having large as a canvas on your wall.
Why I used these particular settings and camera gear?
The lens and camera were not such an issue hear however the 135L is one of my favourtie lenses and by using a long lens instead of a wider lens it compressed the scene somewhat here.
The flash we positioned behind Peter & Gill to give the Silhouette. This is a technique we often use and can be used in many locations. It was on full power.
The aperture of f18 wasn’t really neccessary here. We wanted to make the surrounding scene very dark so that the photo would have been nearly pitch black (apart from the sky behind Peter and Gill) and so the combination of a low iso and a high aperture meant that this kept things dark and only the flash was lighting the scene.
The shutter speed was 1/200th of a second as this is the maximum shutter speed for using off camera flash at its strongest power with the 5d mk2.
A different look from the same photo
To make this photograph lighter I could have increased the Iso and increased the aperture size say to f4.5 I may then have had to reduce the power of the flash. It is very quick to do this and create a new photograph with more detail on the front as you can see below.
Camera : Canon 5d Mkii Lens : Canon 135mm f2 Iso :640 Aperture: F/4.5 Shutter Speed : 1/200 second Light : Natural Light & Canon 580 ex ii
I hope that you enjoyed seeing the process behind a couple of our photographs and we look forward to sharing more soon.
Tobiah & Laura.
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