They took a ride on the dodgems:
Had a stroll through the Tuileries:
Crossed the Seine on the footbridge:
Admired the amazing sunset from Pont des Arts:
Finally settling in a beautiful old bar in Saint-Germain, ordering what was surely the best, ice cold beer in Paris!
I'm so looking forward to covering the wedding in September!
]]>
I think perhaps I've created a future photographer. After watching me for a while he seemed to loose interest in playing games with his Nintendo DS and began using it's in built camera, putting it to much better use :-)
I thought I'd grab a snapshot and go through the contents with you:
The first bag (that's the one on the left) is a Think Tank Airport express. I've never heard anyone say a bad word about Think Tank bags. I'm not about to start. It's superb and takes all the daily abuse I dish out. Regularly gets hauled around the 'bag destroying' Paris metro system, has clocked up a few air miles (passes as hand luggage) and has so far never complained. It still rolls as smoothly as the day I bought it.
In this bag is my main camera body, Canons range topping 1DS MkIII. I know this camera so well, operating it has become almost as natural as breathing.
There are 3 lenses tucked away in there. Firstly my bread and butter lens, the Canon 24-70 2.8L. Canon's L class lenses are a little pricey however you're buying the finest optics that Canon produce. The 24-70 is probably my most used lens therefore well worth the initial investment.
Next up is the Canon 70-200 2.8L IS lens. The combination of the 24-70 and the 70-200 give me all the focal range I need to cover a wedding.
The third lens in the bag is the Sigma 105 macro lens. It's the only non Canon lens I own and I have to admit that I'm impressed. At a wedding I'll turn to this lens to capture the fine details. It also doubles as a beautiful portrait lens. The only negative point is that the auto focus is s-l-o-w (and noisy) compared to the Canon L lenses mentioned above.
Moving on from lenses, there's a Canon Speedlight 580EXII. The majority of time when I shoot weddings I work with natural light. However there are a couple of occasions during the day I may reach for the flash. If the bride and groom have time for some portraits I'll perhaps set up the flash on a lightstand with a diffuser of some kind. Also once the party begins and ISO3200 can no longer keep up I'll add a subtle splash of flash.
The twirly cord you can see is the cord for my Quantun Turbo battery pack. This means I can shoot all night with flash if needed, without the need to worry about carrying dozens of AAA battery's.
There are also a couple of Pocket Wizard remotes, the industry standard for triggering flashes off camera.
Buried somewhere is an umbrella adaptor as well as more than enough memory cards for a full days shooting.
Which takes us to the second bag. It's a Dakine Sequence backpack. It's the bag I'll pick up if I'm traveling light. For example on my engagement shoots you'll find me sporting this pack. It's big enough to carry what I need for simple shoots but light enough not to become an annoyance. I'll often charge across Paris on the bike with it fully loaded and it's stable and well balanced.
In this bag is my back-up body. My Canon 30D. Still a wonderful camera that I occasionally pick up when I don't feel like lugging the weight of the 1DS around with me.
There are a couple of lenses also hidden in the bag. First is an ultra-wide Canon 10-22. I often leave this lens attached to the 30D during a wedding, grabbing it for the occasional funky super-wide shot. It's a nice combination if used sparingly.
The Canon 50mm 1.4 is the second lens. Absolutely love it! Brilliant in lo-light. When paired with the full frame 1DS it gives an almost perfect focal length for a large number of shots at a wedding. The fact that it's small, light and a lot less obtrusive than say the 70-200 makes this lens a favorite of mine.
Laid on top of the bag there's what is probably my most used light modifier. The reflector. Never leave home without it. There's also a lightstand along with a 1 metre umbrella for portraits.
Now the stuff you can't see - but that's as equally important. Firstly my Macbook pro. The Macbook is hooked up to an external portable hard drive. If I've the luxury of an assistant the memory cards are backed-up onto the drive throughout the day as I'm shooting. If not my first job when I put down the camera is to back-up all the days images to the external drive. This ensures there are always 2 copies with a third (actually it's a fourth as my office drive is a raid system) made as soon as I'm back at base.
There's also a swiss army knife somewhere, an abundance of AAA batteries just in case, a few business cards and some masking-tape.
I'm sure I've forgotten to mention something but that gives you a little insight into what I take along to a wedding. Professional quality gear I can rely on as well as know inside out. Also backs-ups, not only for the equipment but file storage if for any reason something decides not to play ball.
]]>Jennie and Stephen where over in Europe from the USA taking a break in London and Paris. It was Jennies birthday during the trip so one of the things Stephen decided to treat her to was a surprise photo shoot. He liked the style of my engagement photography and was looking for something similar, although he asked for the full series to be in black and white.
Jennie, Stephen and I met at the Ritz in Place Vendome to kick things off with a pre-shoot drink. The shoot was actually a surprise for Jennie who had only found out about it earlier that day.
After the Ritz we had a wonderful time walking around Paris, including an extremely entertaining drink in a rather cute little Parisian bar, complete with the most amazing character of a landlord. He was very taken with Jennie and insisted we stay and share his bottle of wine with him.
They were shooting in a Jazz club in central Paris. When I arrived I was greeted by Larry and his great stylist Michael. They informed me they were running a little behind schedule and I would have about 20 minutes to get the portrait shot. That included set-up time. I also noticed the location was far from ideal for the clean portrait shot I had in mind. A mix of cables, some tie-dyed 1980's style curtain in the background mixed with terrible ambient light.
I had 3 light modifiers with me. Reflective umbrella, shoot through umbrella and soft box. First thought was kill the ambient, completely. Larry was dressed in a classy black suit, the piano was black. There were a couple of nice details in white, the piano keys, the musical score and an interesting silver microphone. The mic's important as Larry's not only a great pianist but also a wonderful singer. I was beginning to see the image in my head. Larry etched out of the darkness with some details to tell a little about who Larry is and what he does.
So which modifier? The softbox. I wanted to control the spill of light and the softbox is ideal for that. I positioned it as close to Larry as I could, paying attention not only to the light falling on Larry's face but also the details I wanted in the shot. I moved Larry into position at the piano and told him to make himself comfortable whilst I tweak the lighting. Larry naturally positioned himself almost perfectly. I tweaked the position of the softbox to get a nice Rembrandt style triangle of light on the right side of his face and positioned his hands so the light was hitting them nicely.
Once I was happy I rattled off a handful of frames. I tried adding a reflector to the right side of Larry to add some fill but it sort of killed the ambience I wanted. If I had a little more time I'd probably have added a snooted light behind to add a little separation between subject and background as I did with this shot of Alexandre. Still we managed to get the shot I had in my head in spite of the challenges, and more importantly Larry is very happy with the result.
As soon as Larry's new site is up and running I'll update this post with the address. If you get chance to see him performing I highly recommend it!
Some of the 'Larry in Action' shots whilst they were shooting the video:
We took a wonderful, early evening stroll in the city, captured the sunset in the courtyards of Le Louvre before finally heading onto the quayside of the Seine. Anna & Michael are a dream couple to photograph. Completely natural and an awful lot of fun.
And finally some photographer guy in the middle lowering the tone somewhat apres photoshoot.
A great wedding in every way, set in the most stunning location.
Congratulations to a great couple and thanks again for choosing me as the photographer to cover your big day!
She came over wanting some headshots, arriving with 3 simple outfits, some very light make-up and great red hair! On seeing her hair I instantly knew my backdrop. I decided on an old red velvet curtain that's been living in my van to protect the bikes when traveling - why spend money on those horrible 1980's style studio backdrops when you've probably something way better laid around the house - or the back of the van.
Lighting on the first photo was a softbox with a red gelled light directly behind Gemma pointing into her hair. Apart from my main lights generally sporting a 25% orange gel to warm the skin a little I don't usually work with coloured gels. This was a little experimental for me and I rather liked the result.
Lighting on this one was as per the above photo with the back light turned to fire directly into the curtain.
Expect to see some more of Gemma in the future. We're planning an urban shoot somewhere in the city this summer.
]]>