One of my favorite parts of wedding photography is nailing a really cool and fun photo-journalistic in the moment shot. In order to get shots like this your photographer needs to not only blend in with the crowd but also get to the right place at the right time. It takes years of experience to easily walk through a wedding reception and determine where the pockets of action and excitement are taking place. It's part hustle, part blending in and part having complete command of your camera and lighting settings. Because I have been a South Florida photographer for many years and have photographed so many weddings and events, I know how to take a perfectly exposed shot in any lighting and any moment. The less you need to think about your settings the more discrete and in control of your photography you can be. I can look at a scene or lighting situation and just know what f-stop and shutter speed I need to get the shot.
A shot like this could be taken anyplace. It doesn't need to be at an expensive luxury hotel like to Eau Palm Beach or the Eden Roc in Miami Beach. It's just myself and my camera and the groomsmen having fun. Many years ago when I first started shooting weddings I hoped that one day I would book the photographers dream wedding. The wedding with the most attractive couple and the one with be largest budget for flowers and decor. After a while I learned that for me to create a great portfolio I needs to learn to create unique images with the weddings I had. One of my weddings ceremonies took place in Studio City at The Little Brown Church. Click the link and check out this rustic little church. As a new photographer I needed every great photo I could get. I had to make the most of my Little Brown Church wedding. I had to think creatively and produce unique images that got attention. What I learned is that once I was able to produce image that were unique and beautiful without all the fancy stuff I was in a better position to book better jobs.
If you are reading this and if you are a photographer you may be interested in some info on how I shot this. I shot this using a Nikon D3s. At the time the Nikon D3s was my favorite camera. The camera was later replaced with a Nikon D810. The Nikon worked will for this shot because it's fast and the focus with a infrared sensor is super fast and accurate. Even when shooting in a dark room the D3s with a sensor focused super fast. I wanted to light falling on the guys to be soft and even. There is a rule in lighting that goes like this. The larger the light source the softer and more even the lighting. In order to achieve this soft lighting I spun my flash so that it was firing at the wall behind me. When the flash fired, the light from the flash had to reach to wall behind me and then bounce off the wall and cover the guys with soft lighting. Here is a good want to think about this. Lets say you are going to cover someone with a garden hose, which would cover the person more evenly. Would it be better if you aimed the hose directly at the person or would it be more even if you shot the hose into a flat surface like a wall and let the person get covered with a fine mist of water? As a South Florida photographer, I get to shoot outdoors in all kinds of natural lighting conditions. When taking pictures on a sunny day the lighting is very directional and harsh because it's coming from a very small light source. The result is harsh light on a persons face. This could be fixed with flash or a reflector or a soft scrim. Check out this video. Using a scrim on a sunny day. By using a scrim you would think its soft because the light from the sun is being blocked. That true but the light is actually soft because by adding a scrim the light source is larger. There are days in South Florida when I find myself shooting on a cloudy day. Because it's so cloudy the light source is large which produces soft lighting. The lens I used for this was the Nikon 24-70, 2.8 I shot this at 2.8 with the iso set to 2000. The shutter speed was 1/80th sec. This shutter speed was fast enough to freeze the action and allow for enough light in a low light bounce flash situation.
Location: 4441 Collins Ave, Miami Beach, FL 33140.
