Sometimes a wedding venue doesn’t gift you an abundance of inspirational locations to shoot someone’s wedding photos. Maybe they booked a place for its great food, or how convenient the location is and as wedding photographers, we still want to make the best of every venue.
This can stretch your skillset and require you to think creatively in order to make the best of what you are working with. I always think that having some additional tools in your repertoire helps at times like this. This is very much the case with this gorgeous autumnal frame from Ollie Gyte.
Because he has learnt Off Camera Flash, Ollie constructed a shot that was greatly improved by his skilful use of flashguns. In this case three of them so that the foreground, background and subjects are all lit and filling the frame.
It’s amusing to think that the tree isn’t real and yet this shot couldn’t be more autumn. For Chinese people, the colour red symbolises luck, joy and happiness as well as celebration so by using the red gel, he has created a shot which could be considered fortuitous for the couple. Getting a shot this good isn’t sheer luck though, it’s very much about skill and experience. Impressive stuff!
Sony a7IV| Sigma Art 35mm | f/5 | 1/125| ISO 125
Own Preset
What Ollie Said…
“This couple had lots of Chinese traditions at their wedding and it was stunning. I wanted to bring in their culture and colours into a photo. The hotel wasn’t very inspiring to shoot at so I had to get creative. There were autumn-themed decorations at the entrance which had a big plastic tree with orange leaves. My creative juices started flowing and I tried to see if I could frame the couple within the leaves of the tree knowing I could then do some cool stuff with off-camera flash. I used a three flash setup, behind the couple, on the couple and then a red gel light pointing up at the tree to light the leaves.”