Continuing along the theme that seems to have developed over the course of this week’s posts – namely photographs taken at and around Fiona and John’s wedding last Saturday in Kerry, I’m going to finish the week with another image from the wedding, this time from the church. It also rounds off a week which is a first for the blog, in that all photos posted this week were taken no more than a few days before being posted, which bodes well for the long term prospects for the blog.
The photography for the church part of a wedding can be challenging, particularly when you’re a guest (but even for the official photographer on occasion). Often times the building is unfamiliar, the light levels are very low, the space is restricted, and your seat may not be optimally positioned. To compound matters using flash is not a runner during the ceremony itself.
When I’m a guest at a wedding I will always seek to get myself an aisle seat, not too close to the front, but not too far back either. That usually affords me a reasonable position for shots of the bridal party walking up the aisle, the newly-weds leaving, and also gives me a good view of the bride and groom during the ceremony for key moments like exchanging rings or lighting the candles.
To overcome the low light restrictions without using flash, I shoot with fast lenses – all of which can go to f/2.8 throughout their range, and one of which will go a couple of stops faster. Of course wide apertures are great, but they lead to shallow depths of field and so focus needs to be spot on. Taking photographs, as a guest, during the church ceremony can, therefore, be hit and miss.
Over time I’ve started taking a few key shots at every wedding that I usually can rely on, and one of those recently has been this “fisheye up the aisle” look.
I usually take it after the bride and groom have sat down, and it works best where they sit directly in front of the altar as Fiona and John were. The fisheye will of course introduce distortion, but I frame to keep the bride and groom close to the centre, and they are usually small in the frame anyway, so it’s not usually a big issue. I place the camera out on the ground in the centre of the aisle, having pre-focused (the fisheye’s near infinite depth of field is very forgiving), and with the two second self-timer enabled, so that I have time to frame, but don’t need to press the shutter with the camera sitting on the ground, which can sometimes be a stretch. I’ll sometimes bracket exposures to be safe, but know that shooting in RAW gives me some leeway in post production anyway.
The shot posted above was after going through exactly that process, took about 10 seconds to set up and take, and I can be pretty sure, will be like no photo that any other guests took.
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