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Posted on April 10, 2011
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Great to spend an hour this morning with one of this year’s wedding couples for their pre-wedding photo shoot in Faversham, Kent. For technical info please see further down the post and if you’d like to come to the next Camera Skills Workshop on April 16th in Canterbury, you need to book now! http://cameraskills.eventbrite.com/
Shooting after 10am, the sun was climbing steadily and so the shadows were escaping fast. The first scene by the large warehouse doors near Creek Creative off Abbey Street required making our own shadows because the sun was behind the building. Light stands, radio triggers, both lights at full power and using their distance to set the ratios (it’s faster when you’re dodging the traffic because one of your stands is in the road!). ISO 100-200 and F4-F5.6 at at least 1/125th for the 24-105L, 1/250th for the 70-200L lens. UV filters off because I was shooting partially into the sun. The remaining scenes were without flash, looking for backlighting where possible and at 90 degrees to the prevailing light. If you’re interested in shooting urban street-based portraiture, please do get in touch for a training session.
Posted on February 16, 2011
Sarah & Dave booked me as their wedding photographer for part of their wedding in Broadstairs near Ramsgate. It was freezing cold day (-wind chill factor) but that didn’t spoil their enjoyment. We managed to in quick walk near the seafront before the cold become too much. The overcast conditions were great for skin tones and I worked with the available light (for once!) rather than introducing directional light from off-camera flash. I shoot a selective number of weddings per year in both Kent and across the UK – so do please get in touch if you’re planning a wedding in 2011 or 2012.
Posted on October 24, 2010
We had a great day of winter wedding photography training (ok it’s actually autumn) at Mount Ephraim near Faversham – five newcomers to the training programme plus four from Jason Dodd’s camera club. Jason and I split the groups into two and exposed the photographers to our different techniques and shared experiences. Strong sunshine and shadow meant selective use of off-camera flash plus high ISO for the interiors of the church and main house.
Mount Ephraim is a venue that I’m proud to recommend and am delighted to be working with them. If you’re interested in joining us on the next course please do get in touch photo@timstubbings.co.uk.
Posted on September 28, 2010
Had a great day at Winters Barns wedding fayre in Canterbury on Sunday. It's a unique venue run by some great people. Here's a quick slideshow of some of the pictures that went down a storm: Posted on September 20, 2010 Teokath is a fantastic bridal wear boutique that opened this summer in the historic Cathedral City of Canterbury, Kent, showcasing a stunning collection of designer bridal gowns.I was shooting some interior pictures for use on their website and other promotional material. The fit-out is amazing, but from a photographer’s point of view contains a few challenges. It’s large, it contains lots of mirrors and has contrasts sitting at the far ends of the spectrum – deep, dark greys and blacks and whites and creams of the wedding dresses. Wedding silk and other fabrics are reflective and can easily burn out. The lighting in the shop is fantastic for creating mood which means that it is low in places and must not be overpowered by pumping flash everywhere. I had just under two hours and have 2 speedlites. In an ideal world I would have used gels to balance the lighting – but we’ve got florescent and tungsten bouncing around and I’m relying on the fact that the mixture of colours actually might work in my favour if I can create pools or shafts of white / daylight balanced light to make things look as 3D as possible. The bottom line is not to kill the ambient to death and not to blow the highlights on the dresses – but I must use shafts of light where I can to create lines / definition. I put a brolly on one light stand to make a larger light source and also a second light (no brolly but with a Stofen) on another stand. The brolly light is positioned to make large corridor shapes in lieu of a window or doorway, placed behind walls. The Stofen is used for directional light because I can’t use bounce flash (it will pick up colours from the walls or be absorbed into the grey/black furnishings). I think most of the time I’,m at between ISO 200 and 400, F8 and shutter speeds no longer than 1/25. Tripod, mirror lock up and timer. At ISO 200-400 we’re in control of the noise which can creep in on longer exposures. I think lower ISO produces better contrast but that’s just my opinion. Now at these settings and with speedlites we’re not going to light the whole room – but we don’t want to. There are times when with portable lights to completely relight a scene, with ratios and areas of shadow just like you would a film set – but not today! Problems? Well, the 5D Mk1 still drives me mad with the limited 9 focus points, the outer points always struggling in less than perfect light. That’s my fault for selling my 1Ds to have something lighter in weight. It’s the only reason I haven’t bought a 5D Mkii because the autofocus system is the same as the Mki. The only other thing was reflection of the lights in the mirrors or myself or the tripod. There were a couple of places where I just could not light the scene I wanted. There were a few times I overlit a dress or two but we got there. I also did some close-ups and had a finished set of 60 pictures to give to the client. Lenses – 17-40L with come correction in PS; 24-105L. Posted on September 13, 2010 James & Ela has booked me after we met at the Abbots Barton wedding fayre earlier in the year and it was a self-contained ceremony – although that didn’t stop me getting a few shots of James in his dressing gown at his flat. If you have time, it’s always good to make sure the groom is out of bed. The ceremony room at the Abbots Barton has no windows, so it was a few speedlites dotted around and Pocketwizards in case the ST-E2 / ETTL was not up to the job. At ISO 800 and shooting at say 1/60 @ F4 you’re still going to have some ambient light traces. If your shutter speed is higher, the background will go dark. The bridal room was lit by natural light at one end, with shaft of light cutting through a window. I therefore had to place both myself and Ela carefully to avoid burnt out highlights but I still wanted the outside light to be slightly overexposed to add some punch. The light levels away from the window fell dramatically, so I’m at ISO 800 already. A bit of fill flash here and there. As we come out after the ceremony the suns dies and we have overcast skies threatening rain – so we switch things to do the guest shots first, leaving the bride and groom shots until later. With dark grey skies you can get some nice skin tones but a fall off on contrast. Shooting at ISO 800 at 2pm in August with no directional light and I couldn’t resist reaching for the Pocketwizards and 580EXIIs to create some contrast and put the sun where we didn’t have it. It meant that I could also kill off the ambient to hide any unsightly architecture. Keeping to time so as to not disrupt the catering, we went inside for the speeches which required ISO 800-1000 with fill in from both off and on(bounce) camera flash. We finished with some slow-sync first dance pictures to round the day off. The next wedding course is in Canterbury on October 24th – please so to the TRAINING section of timstubbings.co.uk or drop me a line at photo@timstubbings.co.uk! Posted on September 10, 2010 I shot a wedding in July in Canterbury that again utilised a lot of off-camera flash because of the changing weather, so here are some brief notes about how the day unfolded at the Dog Inn in Wingham near Canterbury. Kate & Lee are a great couple who I knew would let me try out a few things to make their pictures special, We had already discussed at the final consultation meeting at the venue (I say meeting – it was a nice chat over a pint!) that if time and weather allowed they would like a funny picture in their couple shots. The weather forecast was a mixture of showers and dry spells. Now for the record, overcast is fine because you get great skin tones and you can fix your metering. Not so good is you want skies in the shots somewhere. Sunlight is ok as long as you place people in the shade and use fill light or shoot into the sun so that it becomes a powerful backlight (avoiding lens flare along the way). When you have a mixture of sunshine and showers you have to constantly change (potentially) the exposure settings. This is most obvious when the sun is behind them out of the clouds every minute or so. Sometimes a quick way around this when doing say groups or portraits is to fix your aperture and shutter speed but change the ISO 1 stop as the clouds come and go. The bride’s prep room was very dark but I wanted some natural light pictures – so the available window light becomes my softbox and I “embrace the ISO” at 800 and get out the monopod for the slow shutter speeds. Some harsh directional light appeared as the clouds passed so the ratio between light and dark areas outside went beyond a nice 2:1. In this situation you’re either torn between exposing for highlights or shadows, filling the shadows or waiting for your subject to get out of the sun. The sun didn’t last long so we look the couple across the road and had two speedlights on stands so that the ushers would hold them like poles. The available light was flat in the shade so the speedlights created the contrast, triggers by pocketwizards as I was some distance away across the busy road. We finished with some fun and relaxed family groups pictures in the car park! For more information about Kent weddings photography please see www.timstubbings.co.uk The next wedding course is in Canterbury on October 24th – please so to the TRAINING section of timstubbings.co.uk or drop me a line at photo@timstubbings.co.uk! Posted on August 31, 2010 wedding photographers Canterbury www.timstubbings.co.uk
This was my last August wedding and yes, you’re going to hear me mention the weather. It’s so important to shoot with confidence whatever the weather is doing. A bride will thank you forever if in her mind the weather was a disaster but the pictures were a wonderful record of her friends, family and special day.
I wanted to take a bit more time than usual to write some training notes from a wedding I shot before I went on holiday, simply because it’s a useful illustration of what has to be overcome and responded to at a wedding where you can’t be in control of everything. Before I talk about specific pictures (they’re later on in the post), here is some background.
The weather forecast was truly awful. I had been tracking it for 48 hours on Accuweather so I knew within a margin of 2 hour when the downpours would come.
I had attended the rehearsal at the church a few days before and although churches tends to have low lighting anyway, this one was particularly dark and would require shooting on ISO 1600 or higher in order to use a 70-200mm lens with a working aperture of F4 and an acceptable shutter speed with or without image stabilisation. Why F4 rather than F2.8? When shooting a couple at and angle with a zoom you’re more likely to get both eyes in focus at f4 even though over a distance depth of field becomes less of an issue.
I didn’t want everything at 1600 ISO + so I installed an old 550EX at the back of the church (where you’d expect light to come from) on full power, and an 580EX at the top of the church pointing towards the back wall, again at full power. The flash gun at the back would have a long way to travel down the full length of the church so the fall off would mean that the value would balance ok with the flash gun at the top of the church (which would lose power from bouncing off the wall). Both lights were connected to Pocketwziards and I had another 580EX on the camera hot shoe just in case.
In case the full guests shot had to be inside because of the weather, I also tested 2 x 400W heads bounced off the top wall of the church and fill flashes from 3 speedlights. The speedlights were connected to Pocketwizards and the monoblocks on slaves. The speedlights were positioned at intervals so that the burst from the last one was enough to set off the monoblock slave. No brollies or modifiers – just bounce because it’s quick and flexible when wedding guests just want to get on with it.
I’m skipping the bridal prep except to say that in a typical domestic interior in low light (it was raining outside and dark grey skies) it’s going to ISO 800 F4 @ 1/60 for quite a lot with a speedlight or two place on top of wardrobes, fireplaces or shelves to balance out the shadows. I had just enough time to get to the church to set up the lights (a lot of churches are locked until a hour before a wedding) and get cracking – it’s still pouring with rain. Guests start to arrive and I decide to shoot the groom and best man both outside and inside. When the bride arrives I stick to 1600 ISO for most of the shots but then switch to the flash guns off- camera for parts of the vows.
At the reception – after a drive through torrential rain – I know that I have an interesting challenge and driving time is thinking time! Because of the weather we’ve had to drop the bride and groom portraits down at the beach. At the reception venue – the Three Tuns at Staple, Canterbury – all of the guests will now be crammed inside because of the weather. Upon arrival Steve the venue owner is already offering to have the food and speeches brought forward as I know from my Accuweather forecast that from 4pm things will start to clear up (and some late afternoon sunshine could be fun to play with). There’s no room to swing a camera in the main venue room so with a break in rain I take the bride and groom out for 5 minutes in a country lane near by. Check out the grey skies!
During the reception I make a conscious decision to dump the 70-200 and use a 50mm 1.8. It’s a small venue so range is not an issue and I don’t want the pictures to all look the same from using the zoom. Although the available light is ok by the windows, for the speeches I place two flashguns on the bar – one towards the speakers in the dark corner and the other towards the background guests.
I knew that the session in the country lane with the bride and groom was not enough – so after the meal and speeches we make use of a pergola outside the guest accommodation block of the country pub. It’s 7pm in the middle of summer and I’m at between ISO 1600 / 800 ISO f2.5 1/80 / 1/60 outside! I decide to stick with the 50mm to keep me close to the couple. I normally shoot with the zoom so the 50mm will keep me fresh. With no sunshine at this point I’m burning out the background light with some overexposure but that can reduce contrast. Then, at last there’s a break in the clouds, so we turn the camera into the sun so that the couple are backlit by the low sunshine and we use flash x 2 as fill : one pressed into some foliage camera left and other held by a willing best man! ISO 400 / f6.3 at 1/60; f5 @ 1/50, the camera in the shade so we can use the Canon ST-E2 commander, camera set to manual. We now have directional light at three points – the sun and the two flash guns – and the contrast is much higher. The ST-E2 held up outside (normally I find the infra-red not very consistent outdoors)
As weddings go, it contained the usual challenges of lighting due to weather, venue, changing circumstances etc. It’s for that reason that professional wedding photographers will include in their pricing the time it takes to properly research a venue and also the extra equipment and expertise that is required when things change on the day. For me, the greatest surprise was to be shooting outside on such high ISO settings in the middle of August – but then again, this is England!
Posted on July 14, 2010
Calum & Carien were married at the petite Seasalter old church and then had a drinks reception on the beach. There was no cover on the beach so I used some off-camera flash. I also used flash guns on light stands to illuminate the group picture. This was so that the guests didn’t have to look into the sun (which became the backlight). This is the first time I have photographed in a shirt, cotton trousers and sandals rather than a suit. It was just too hot…
Posted on July 14, 2010
Well, we had a bit of heatwave last weekend and I had two weddings with no cover / natural shade to run to so I resorted to off camera flash for both. The first one, Nat & Dan, the sun was unbearably hot in the open, so we used a shelter end effectively making softboxes out of the windows! If you would like more information about my work as a wedding photographer in Kent please see www.timstubbings.co.uk
