Theatre Wedding = Improvisation

Jul

18

2010

I am pretty happy with how this photo turned out, since:

it was raining outside earlier (there goes Plan A)
everything ran late and there was only 20 minutes left for cocktails before dinner was served
the house lights were at maximum but the theatre was still very dark (I’m at ISO 800 here)
I needed to get about 70 people in one shot
I had a brick wall behind me, this was as far back as I could stand
my second Nikon flash could only be triggered at 33 feet (I didn’t have PocketWizards this time)

I considered shooting from the stands and putting everyone on stage, but I wouldn’t be able to stagger people the same way. This perspective is much more what I had in mind because the house lights are backlighting the people on stage and I like the front shadows. There’s more “drama” in the layers of people, if you know what I mean, and drama was what I was going for.

A few more photos from yesterday and then I’m hitting the hay for four hours or so of sleep before an early morning at The Firm…

The bride’s mother was a riot — she doesn’t just make a mean cupcake, she burns up the dance floor, too!

It started to rain, so I had to find a place to shoot the portraits! Yikes! (My original Rain Plan B was the theatre, but I was convinced it was way too dark.) I found a brick wall in the rear access behind the stage, which was glassed in with natural light. It saved me, that’s for sure — it took some shuffling and rearranging but I managed to get all the pre-ceremony portraits done in that narrow space. Jan was my second-shooter for this wedding, he was a big help!

Heather’s friends spiced up the elegant affair, literally, with fuschia chair covers, fuschia roses (I was given a vase of them to take home), fuschia outfits and that Indian food I mentioned in a previous post. With the aroma of chicken makhani (butter chicken) in the air, a Big Band playing, and taking photos of happy people, I could think of much worse ways to be working on a Saturday night.