Well I’m not on the cover, but my photograph is! The American Homebrewers Association is locted here in Boulder, and I was contracted to shoot the cover for the March/April 2009 edition of the magazine. The issue is about brewing ‘green’ beer, and I don’t think they are talking about St. Patricks Day green-food-coloring-in-the-beer beer. It was a pretty fun shoot, although deceptively difficult. It isn’t easy to find any grass or sprouting plants in Colorado in the middle of January!
I recently utilized a warm winter afternoon to shoot some senior pictures for Marielle and Stephanie. We headed out to an old factory in Longmont for some edgy, urban photos that would be as distinctive and fun!
I’ve had some people ask me if these photos are natural light . . . and the answer is actually, no! Every one of these shots was taken using a flash. If you look at the above photo, you will notice a very subtle shadow to the right side of Stephanie’s necklace.
A lot of times people think that they want ‘natural light’, because it is soft and ‘natural’. But the reality is, most of the time the available light we have to work with is not all that pretty. It can be too flat, to harsh, and leave dark circles and highlight blemishes. In the right hands, extra strobes can be used to create light that is BETTER than available light. In the above two shots I used a beauty dish as a light modifier to make the light soft and ‘natural’ looking.
In this next shot above I used a bare flash, for a more dramatic and fashion-like lighting effect. For this shot I wanted to go for a harder, edgier, punk rock feel. You can see the pronounced difference between light and dark between the front and back of her jeans.
All of these shots were taken on an overcast day, and the available light was pretty murky. If this shot had been taken without any strobes, then Marielle’s eyes would have been quite dark. But a very subtle addition of a strobe can bring out the eyes, smooth the wrinkles, and no one will even know a flash was used.
And for the camera nerds out there, another thing that was interesting about this shoot was that this was the first time I’ve used the Nikon CLS flash triggering system. I usually use Pocket Wizards with the strobes set on manual. But the problem with that is that I can’t shoot wide open because of the synch speed. With CLS I can shoot TTL with high speed synch and shoot at any shutter speed I want. The downside is a loss of power. It worked fine on this cloudy day, but I’ll have to see how well it works in bright sun, I’ll probably still need an ND filter. The CLS worked pretty well, but that is just a temporary step, because my Radio Poppers arive today! So there will be more TTL off camera lighting in my near future!
On the way home I remembered that there was this cool fence on the outskirts of Boulder, so I made sure to get one shot out there as well! Here the strobe was at camera left. The beauty dish robbed too much power at this distance, so I shot it bare flash, as you can see the strong shadow of Marielle’s foot on the fence. Thanks for reading, I hope the photographers out there enjoy my techie explanations.
There are many things that I love being a wedding photographer in Boulder Colorado. And one of them is that I see a wide variety of nontraditional weddings. Erin and Duncan are new to Colorado, but they bring a free spirited San Fransisco flair that fits right in. In his speach Duncan told the tale of the intensive process of obtaining authentic Scottish garments from the region of his ancestors. I think the effort was well worth it.
The wedding ceremony and reception were both held at the Greenbriar Inn in Boulder, Colorado. I have shot here a few times in the past, but this was the first winter wedding, so we had to have the ceremony inside. First we shot some nice bridal portraits and detail shots in the upstairs dining room to show off Erin’s epic dress.
She didn’t have a big train, but a wide angle lens can make that dress look like it went on for miles.
Here are some highlights of a few photojournalist captures during the ceremony.
When it came time to set up the formals, I asked the Father of the Bride to pose for me while I took some test shots. Nice work!
After persevering through 20 minutes of outdoor formals on an overcast and cold winter day, Erin toughed it out for some couples portraits in the field. I edited this wedding with some vintage tones, which I feel are appropriate for the time of year.
Erin really liked the jumping shot that I did in this same location last year. Well, these guys weren’t blessed with the vertical leap of Matt and his triathlete and Marine buddies. So we added a little humorous twist!
That is all from this mild mannered photographer for another blog post. I have February off from weddings, so look for some portrait and engagement shoots to be posted here over the next month until the weddings return in March. Thanks for reading.
A special thanks goes out to my affiliate vendors at this wedding!
Videography.:. Michael Richman .:. BlueBee Creative Media
Venue .:. Liz Daniels .:. The Greenbriar Inn
Dress Boutique .:. Felice Bridal
Florist .:. Sturtz and Copeland
Band .:. The Fever
Design and image copyright 2010 Steve Z Photography .:. Please don't steal images, it isn't nice ProPhoto Photographer Blog by NetRivet Sites
