Photoshop Insider

About the images in the slideshow above: the only light source I had for both the wedding and the reception was that one Nikon SB-800 (there are no shots there with just natural light).

Most of the time the flash was mounted on the camera (although I did handhold some wireless off camera flash shots) and I used either bounce flash (bouncing off any white ceiling that wasn’t too high), or I would turn the flash head completely sideways (aiming directly to my left) just to let a little of the light from the flash spill onto my subject, so that way the shot was mostly the ambient room light with just a little bit of flash on the subject. I dragged the shutter quite a bit (using a slow shutter speed like 1/10 to 1/20 of a sec.) to get more ambient room light (the slower the shutter speed the more background room light you get).

We basically shot in three locations: (1) A hotel suite where the bridal party was getting ready (2) a beautiful and historic Hilton Hotel in downtown Cincinatti where the reception was held, and (3) an absolutely beautiful synagogue where the wedding ceremony took place.

And yes; the violin and sheet music shot was totally set-up (the violinist was very kind to help me out like that, considering her violin was from the 1700s). Also, if you’re wondering how I got that light behind the couple dancing; I cheated. There was a video crew there taping the event, and they had a light attached to the top of their video camera. I positioned myself so the video crew was behind the couple and when the couple danced directly in front of their video light, I was ready for it and got the shot!