Exchanging the rings
I shot my cousin Jessyca’s wedding last Saturday, and had a grand old time doing it. Weddings are always a fun affair, and coming out with potentially embarrassing photographs of family members just makes it all the more amusing. I got to shoot the wedding with a new 5D Mark II and a 24-70mm f/2.8L to play with. I put the 24-70 on the 5D, which got me some amazing wide shots, and then put a 70-200 on my 20D for longer range stuff. All said and done, both the event and the photos turned out great.
Jessyca and Vinnie together after the ceremony
Things got off to a little bit of a late start, with preparations taking longer than expected, but the ceremony went on perfectly. They held the ceremony in front of the gazebo at the Palma Sola Botanical Gardens, which made for a beautiful location. And thankfully, they did the ceremony in front of the gazebo, rather than under it, so I was able to shoot from behind them in the gazebo itself. There were chairs set up on the lawn in front of it, so I would have been pretty much stuck otherwise. And with the close proximity, I was able to get some pretty-darn-close shots of the hands and other little details. After the ceremony, we went out onto the lawn to do formals and bride/groom portraits.
Jessyca and her bridesmaids
Formals took a while, with all the family combinations to put together, but turned out pretty well. I only had a single on-camera strobe to work with, but I got it in balance with the ambient and managed to get some pretty good, even light on all the group shots. We did a couple of silly shots (bridesmaids fawning over the groom and groomsmen picking up the bride), and then made the shot to the left with Jessyca and her bridesmaids (this one was her idea). After a little retouching (the light out on that lawn was just awful), it’s turned out to be one of my favorite images from the wedding. With the formals taken care of, I did some shots of just the bride and groom together before the reception. I got an umbrella and lightstand out for that one, so I was able to get some better light going on.
A guest photographing some family members
I put the bride and groom under the gazebo in the shade, so I was able to control the background and foreground separately. Once that was done, we had the reception inside one of the buildings at the gardens, and everyone danced and drank and had a generally great time. I had some time to play around with some different shots, like shooting the screen on the back of someone’s point and shoot doing live view. I got all the typical reception shots, and then I got to go home and take on the truly monumental task of post-processing all the images.
Jessyca and Vinnie left for California today, and I managed to get all the images ready for them before they left. Made a couple of big prints from the wedding, and they turned out great. Altogether, I couldn’t be happier with the photographs I got out of the event.