Dinner on a barge

Having sent Elaine and Derek the slideshow of photos from their December 18th wedding, and as I put the finishing touches to the remaining few images, I was reminded of this shot which I intended to post a few weeks ago but which was pushed off the top of the pile by the snow scenes.  It was the very last photograph I took as part of their wedding coverage as I headed off to a Christmas party, and before they made their way from their drinks reception to dinner.

They were having their meal in La Peniche, a barge on the canal which has been converted into a restaurant and which makes for a lovely intimate venue for a special occasion such as a small wedding.  With about 45 guests, I imagine it was cosy but still comfortable.

This shot was taken just moments after I took an exterior shot of the same barge, and they both make up a nice ending to the wedding album.  It was dusk outside, heading for the early darkness that December brings, and so much like the exterior shot, to get a decent exposure of this low-light venue I had to push everything to the limit.  So I found myself bracing myself against the frame of the little doorway from which steps run down into the restaurant area so that I could keep the camera steady for the 0.05 seconds that the shutter was open for.  The interior exposure was a half a stop under the exterior exposure which meant going from 1/30s to 1/20s with the shutter speed.  The effect of this is to lose the deep dusky blue of the sky that the exterior shot has, because I am now effectively over-exposing that sky by a half a stop.  There’s still a nice blue tint through the windows though because the inside is tungsten lit and so the white balance is naturally much warmer, and I’m glad that is the case because I like the colour contrast in the image.

Even at these exposure settings I had to pull back the shadows quite a lot to get some detail in there, and still there are areas which go black.  In an ideal world I would have thought about lighting this artificially and closing down the aperture to give me depth of field.  However that would have taken a bit of time that I sensed the staff, who were busy preparing for the arrival of the bride and groom before I interrupted, probably didn’t have.

I’d like to say I left the cake in the bottom right hand corner deliberately, but I actually didn’t see it there until I started processing the images.  I’m glad it is there though – it adds context to the shot, and makes it unique to Elaine and Derek’s wedding day.