Using natural light

When I’m working on wedding commissions, people often ask me why I don’t shoot with flash. I tend to spend time trying to isolate relaxed, candid portraits using just room or outside light, regardless of how low the light level might be. I’m a firm believer that on-camera flash (the kind bolted on to the top of the body) is intrusive, unflattering and at best a hit/miss approach to photography. Some will disagree, which is fine, but I dislike it. From my point of view the only way to shoot flash is with properly controlled studio lighting, and if you can’t do that, why bother? I read all the time about how shooting outside at a winter wedding can be transformed by flash techniques… so you mean to tell me the bride will thank you for making her stand for 10 mins on a damp lawn in 5c? 

One reason I’m prattling on about this now is because Canon UK are preparing to send out the first wave of their 5D Mark 2 cameras, and this is a piece of kit that will change everything. The sensitivity of the new camera in low light is amazing. It breaks new ground in how low you allow your ambient light conditions to go while still shooting, it records a staggering 21.1 megapixel file (approx 60MB) and just for good measure they have built in the ability to shoot HD video. The video capability is very interesting because, given that we’re talking about basically a 35mm SLR camera, it allows the use of all the interchangeable Canon EF lenses which is a facility which pushes it ahead of a camcorder with a monster zoom. It really will be a market changing piece of hardware, it’ll be fun to watch all these photographers suddenly trying to be movie directors – quite fancy a bash at that myself if I’m honest! But for now back to shooting in low light. 

Shooting in ambient light lends a natural depth to a picture. It’s hard to put into words, but to me portraits and anything involving people seem more real if you don’t try too hard, just let the subject be what it is and the shots will come to you. Of course, as soon as you start shooting in low light you have a trade-off with film speed. The faster you go with film, the more grain appears in the detail. If you’re shooting with 100asa outside, then come inside and work with 800asa, the difference between them is 3 stops of light. There are other ways around compensating for that lack of light, you may be shooting at 125th at F11 outside, then coming inside and sticking with the 100asa would need your lens aperture to open up to F4 at the same shutter speed. But the 100asa wouldn’t cope well with the lower light, it would change in it’s feel and that means increasing your asa rating is the answer because higher speeds are designed to provide better quality in low light, that’s why they’re there. I’ve attached a couple of examples of how natural moments can be captured with high film speed, and they are also shots where a burst of flash would have spoilt the mood. I’ve written before about black and white and how it can really work better when shooting people. The other key point is that people don’t mind about the apparent grainy effect of a mono portrait, if anything it can add to the personal feeling of the result. As with all these things it just boils down to what you prefer…

Perks of the job (part 1)

The amazing sight of the ceremony in full flow

One of the elements I love about wedding photography is spending time in churches. Although I’m not really a religious person I’ve always loved the fact that they ooze atmosphere and historical significance. In the middle of last year I was lucky enough to be commissioned to shoot a wedding in Westminster Cathedral, in the heart of London. The site itself was formerly a prison in 1834 and when in the 1850’s the Diocese of Westminster was created the site was purchased with the intention to construct a place of Catholic worship. In 1894 John Francis Bentley was chosen as the architect and the first foundation stone was laid around a year later. By 1903 the building was well on the way to completion and to this day public mass is held 20-30 times a week. The eagle-eyed may also have spotted the side chappel was used as a double for Lisbon Cathedral on the recent movie “Elizabeth: The Golden Age“.

Due to the time it takes to find and shoot nice detail pics for something like a wedding, I’d decided to go on from a client meeting one day and make a start  obtaining some shots I didn’t think I’d have time to do on the wedding day itself. The building is brimming with lovely quiet corners, each no doubt with their own little stories to tell. You can’t help but be moved by the sheer scale of the place and there’s only so much of that you can capture in a photograph, but it was fun  trying. My brief at the wedding itself would be, as usual, to record the day’s events in a  non-obtrusive fashion. It’s the style I’m known for and a way of working I prefer because I’m largely left to shoot whatever I think looks good/relevant, and the guests and family don’t need to worry about being bossed around by some guy  most of them have never met! The couple in question, Maria and Paul Craven, were fantastic to work for and were happy to leave all the shots up to me, just adding a request for a few traditional group shots on the Cathedral steps.

Altar detail

Cathedral residents...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After shooting some relaxed pictures with Maria at the family home in Forest Hill,  I caught a cab to a pub near Victoria Station to see the Groom and Ushers who were having a quick drink ahead of the ceremony. I’d like to think the smiles as I entered the pub were because they were genuinely pleased to see me, but I think the fact that I was also delivering their button holes was the real reason for the  tangible sense of relief. After a short walk with them to the Cathedral and we were closing in pretty fast on the time for guests to arrive. It’s usually around  this time I wander off and shoot detail pics which will later work very well within the wedding art books we design for clients. The small, quiet moments captured  in the ‘before photos’ work very well in print juxtaposed with major parts of the day, so well worth the effort. Only at this point did the value of shooting Cathedral pics a few weeks earlier really present itself, because the boys were a little late sorting themselves out, plus it was raining, and worryingly the wedding before ours was running very late, so I had no significant access to the inside of the Cathedral. I can’t imagine how I would have felt for the rest of the day knowing I’d failed to obtain the vital background shots to the occasion, but as it was there were no worries.

Following the bride’s arrival (under a brolley) the day unfolded nicely and there  was plenty of time to savour the atmosphere of the Cathedral because the ceremony itself was a full Catholic mass and lasted about 90 minutes. The available light in photographic terms was typically poor, but that’s a given with churches – massive buildings and tiny windows – but today’s modern cameras handle this aspect of a wedding shoot remarkably well. After some formal shots in the plaza just in front of the Cathedral we all hopped onto a couple of hired  Routemaster buses and took a mini tour around central London on the way to the reception venue, The Oval cricket ground. For any family members attending the wedding who didn’t know London well, the efforts made by the family to create a whole day out was really impressive. Of course, I thought I’d be smart and get onto the first bus with a view to shooting some pictures of the other bus in motion as we ventured over Westminster bridge and past Parliament. So imagine my frustration when at the first set of traffic lights one bus overtook the other and I found myself pointing a lens at a van owned by a plumber from Peckham…

Roll of honour

Candles during mass

Suddenly, everyone’s taking pictures!

A friend of mine said the other day that compact digital cameras have done for photography what Harry Potter did for reading… meaning, everybody is doing it! It’s true, the simple ‘pick up and play’ concept of today’s budget cameras make them must-have accessories on a night out, at a wedding or when just with friends. Capturing moments and memories has never been as convenient or cost-effective. 

I thought I’d post something on this because I found myself looking at scores of these little gadgets in a shop the other day while my wife, Suzie, decided which to buy – and the main problem was whether to get the pink, silver or green one! Not a problem I’ve ever come across when buying a camera. However, when you look a little closer at this subject there are some interesting things to note, so I hope this helps a touch if you’re in the market for a camera for Christmas…

Digital zoom or optical zoom?  This is a really confusing thing for most people and I’m sure the manufacturers know this, but it’s vital to understand the difference. Because the kind of camera we’re talking about here doesn’t allow interchangeable lenses, you are stuck with what you buy within the camera body itself. I would suggest optical zoom is the best bet because this means the subject is getting bigger in your viewfinder because the optics within the lens are physically moving to create the magnification. This is just a smaller version of how a professional zoom lens works, albeit with much lower quality optical glass. In the case of the digital zoom the magnification you see in your finished photo is the result of camera’s software artificially increasing the original image and, in layman’s terms, stretching the existing data to give you something more, with (in my opinion) an inferior result compared to the optical option. 

Pixel count. Another very misleading headline grabber. A single megapixel is basically one million pixels, and is commonly used in reference to the resolution capability of the camera. A pixel is a tiny square on a computerized display that is so small it appears as a dot. The display screen is a solid grid of these squares (or dots), which can be easily seen with a magnifying glass. The more pixels or dots that make up the display screen, the clearer and therefore better the final image will be. But that’s not the whole story. Any photographer will tell you that your final shot is only a good as the quality of your lens, so no matter how much of a unique selling point a manufacturer makes of a high pixel count, the final result will always be held back by the quality of the lens, and you won’t get much of a lens within a £150-£200 overall purchase price, you must be aware of this.

Storage. This side of photography is amazing, and possibly the biggest factor in digital largely taking over from film. Looking back I can’t believe how I managed in some cases when restricted to a set film speed and number of frames within a roll of film. These days I’m changing film speed ratings almost shot to shot on some jobs, and the ability to shoot a few hundred photos within downloading is such a great advance. The smaller, cheaper cameras tend to use SD (secure digital) cards to record images. Higher spec bodies mostly utilise CF (compact flash) versions, although there are some professional cameras which can take both at the same time. I’m not really aware of any advantage between one or the other, maybe CF has the edge simply because it’s more substantial and a little harder to damage, but that’s down to the user. The main point here is the purchase price, and it’s well worth shopping around for a deal. The High Street stores will sting you for any kind of memory card, so try Amazon or one of the specialist stores like Picstop for a much better unit price. Maybe also stick to a decent brand, like Sandisk, Lexar or Fuji.

Conclusion. What is it you want from the camera? If you have a clear answer to this then your choice is easier. If you want hundreds of snaps and will view them mainly on a computer or via a TV slide show, then a cheaper model with a digital zoom will be ideal. If you’re after an entry level camera to get used to shooting pics with a view to doing it more seriously, then you’ll probably be printing some of your stuff and an optical zoom based model will yield better results. Factor in your budget and you’ll pretty soon narrow down to a few relevant examples which then acts as a base to trawl the web for the best deal. Happy hunting!