I've been doing a bit of jet setting lately and recently ended up in a beautiful outdoor Atlanta city setting for David & Laura's wedding. The day prior to the wedding, Laura told me that she spoke on the phone to her future Father-in-law for the first time every! He had a ton of questions about ME and when I was shooting and where etc.... I knew from the beginning that David's father was a photographer. I didnt have a problem with the father of the groom toting around a rig and shooting all night, if that is what he wanted to do. However, laura informed me that he was forbidden to pick up a camera until the reception :) Wedding day, I meet Van White. Van tells me that his photography club in Virgina is anxiously waiting to see the photographs from his son's wedding... Initially, its a bit of pressure when you start to shoot for a man and woman to be wed and one of the fathers is a pro, standing right next to you on just about every frame. Every now and then, asking questions and getting answers from me... Hopefully he was able to have fun and not drool over the 85 1.2 and the 50 1.2 that I was using :) He also had his eye on my Radio Poppers.... I just wanted to say THANKS to Van and give a shout out to his photography club. Cheers Amigos! Bottom line to our style and approach... having fun. It also helps to keep the mindset to love your clients. If the love is equally shared, it always makes for a bigger improvement in your delivery. Cheers! Here was one of my favorite flashflavor images from the wedding: 1 off camera slave triggered by pocket wizard. ISO 400 F3.2 at 1/200 I really loved the illumination on the side of her face opposite to the strobe.....likely spill from his white collar. Oh, just so you know: I used and St-E2 with a pocket wizard velcrowed to the top for the entire wedding. NO on camera flash for ANY of my shots. My associate did use a bit of on camera bounce... Check out David & Laura's slideshow if you want to take a peek at the rest of the day! Cheers and thanks for taking the time to read FF. mateo

Well, I must say that I'm impressed by all of your creativity with ideas on how to light this setup. Everyone who commented has a great idea and we all have respect that there is no right answer on how do to this stuff... matter of fact, I'm a bumbling idiot at most of my weddings with last minute inspiration to do whatever it is that I do... I'm liking all the suggestions, even the one of attempting to light the ocean. I'd be curios to try this setup at an upcoming wedding. Possibly a blue gel? Climbing the tree probably isnt going to be an option but I like the idea of possibility focusing one light on the tree. I wish the palms were fuller and more mature. My ideas for this setup came to me at the very last second and I was very lucky to pull it off as I did. Its amazing how busy you can be walking around just after the light is PERFECT shooting the couple for the last 30 minutes and then realize that its time to focus some attention to the logistics of how you are about to light the next sequence of the night. In this case, we did have a serious dance floor setup. As I watched these guys test the lights, the colors were everywhere. DJ's in mexico believe that they louder they can make the colors, the better the party. Basically replicate a club environment. First, before you decide to add lights to this dance floor, its important to go to them and ask to see the first dance light setup. You will be amazed to watch them scratch their a$$ and pull something out of it as a preset for lights. I spent some time working in the technical theatre in my undergrad and when I see stage lights, I know what they are capable of and especially after watching some of the tests. I requested that two of the spot lights on one side be turned on and NOT move. The floor was also lit from underneath too, which made for a nice balance. The spot lights were crucial here as this would form my dramatic lighting. If you can go ambient, don't waste your time setting up slaves. Lets face it, when you are in a pressure environment, who the heck has the time to do anything? I wanted to keep this flash setup simple because I had no time. I only had 3 slave speedlights with me at the time and just like most of you, decided to light the palapas (mexican name for umbrellas) with the colorful fabrics. They were aimed to bounce the light, placed in some of the wood used in the construction of the top of the umbrella. No need to gel these because they are already gelled with the beautiful sheer fabric. They were all set to 1/32 power. I determined this number because it needed to be low, not to overpower or overexpose on the wide apertures were were going to be using to get the available light exposures. All I wanted to do was create some depth to this setting. To the untrained eye, the scene looks untouched. This is exactly as I wanted to keep it! Final note to say that we used the videographers video light set up on one stand as a source of more available light. The last speedlight was placed in the final palapa (umbrella) as the bride and groom were announced and actually already dancing before I took my first shot. Here are my results: Canon 35mm ISO 1250 1/125 1.4 Canon 85mm ISO 1250 1/125 1.4 This one was a happy accident for me. Sol was actually triggering the same slaves in under the umbrellas, so we were stealing each others slave recycle from time to time, here I missed it. But, I think a darker background with this spotlight just MAKES this moment.... Canon 85mm ISO 1250 1/100 1.2 And here is the same moment, 3 seconds later. I got my flash back... ***Update*** Sol just passed along a few of hers. She too had this happy accident happen when I stole her slave flash :) Don't ya just love it how accidents can be blessings and compliment the dynamic range of your portfolio! Sol has cooled down her images quite a bit from what I was going for.... 2 shooters, 2 different editing styles. I like her touch here! Thanks for all the comments... I hope I didnt let you down with my efforts. Cheers! mateo

What would you do for this scene to add some flavor? I'm going to write a follow up article about this photograph. But, before I do, I'd like to leave it open for a small amount of discussion... if you care to give an idea. When you see this setup, how do you rig the lights for it? What kind of flash setup would you have for this scene? 1 or 2 lights aimed at the stage on clamps? Any other setup for an approach to photograph this area some sexy scene setters? If you read this blog and have 2 minutes, give me a quick rundown on what you would *plan on* during your mental preparation to photograph this reception? Participation helps keep this thing going, so holla if ya got an idea! Cheers! mateo