I got another killer shot from Dave & Quin Cheung of DQ studios to show you. I really love how they approach making beautiful portraits during a wedding. I am a firm believer that they are one of the best studios in the entire continent of North America… They raise the bar by challenging the ordinary portrait… a spoonful of flava Or shovels full, when DQ is in charge…

Quin describes her shot:

Jess and Rob wanted to take some portraits at a historic burnt out church, just outside of beautiful Banff, Alberta. Well, we couldn’t find the church, but the ruins of a small building would do. It was cold and windy this fall day, so we had to work fast to prevent everyone from freezing.

One of the difficulties of using multiple lights during the portrait time is engaging the couple in the experience, and capturing true emotion. This shot is one of my favorites from our time together because of Jessica’s easy smile and the capture of that magic moment-before-the-kiss.

How it was taken. Here’s a shot of us taking this shot (courtesy of a cool pro race-car-driver groomsman. Thanks Choi!).

A 580EX II was placed on the ground behind the dress and Dave was holding a Quantum T5d extended from high above on a light stand. The T5d was set to give roughly the same light output as the 580EX II and the frosted diffuser was removed to create a harder, more directional light. White Balance was set to shade to add a touch of warmth under the daylight balanced flashes while the exposure was set to overpower ambient by about 2 stops to add drama and darken the blue skies that are peaking through the broken walls of the ruins.

I love how this pose accentuates Jess’s figure. All we needed was to capture Rob coming in for the kiss, and the natural smile of Jess’s face makes the image all the more powerful.

Here’s the geek-speak:

Camera: Canon 30D
Lens: 16-35mm at 16mm
White Balance: Shade
Mode: Manual
ISO: 800
Shutter: 1/250

Aperture: f13
* Light 1 (from behind the dress): 580EX II at 1/16th power
* Light 2 (from above): Quantum T5d at 1/8th power (with frosted diffuser removed)

* Both lights triggered via Pocketwizards.

Double lighting takes more work and time to setup, but we love the results we achieve when we put the extra effort in. Don’t forget to have fun with your clients and make the experience a great one for all involved

Quin Cheung
DQ Studios
www.dqquikeys.com

I’m totally inspired by this!!!!!! If you are a photographer looking for a source of creative juices, make sure you spend the next hour or so digging though the DQ Studios Website. Dave & Quin are one seriously dynamic duo. They submitted a few other killer shots to FF in the past…

Check out This FF image that Quin shot with some definite added flava. Dave was flying HIGH with this killer idea.

Anybody have any comments for DQ? Are you as inspired by them as I am? Please, let them know!

Cheers!
matt

While I am here in the Riviera Maya this week sweating big time I want to reflect on the cold weather days…geeze, today its 95 and feels like nearly 100% humidity! ouch!

Often, we are left kept inside with our photographic duties due to outrageous weather conditions. It could be too hot and or too cold to snag a few photographic portraits outside. The off camera flash is your best friend if you need to be inside. I recommend that you program your mind to start thinking about accenting the image with a little added flash flavor. For this post, my friends Dave & Quin at DQ Studios were shooting in Canada and it was just -4F… that is just out of control cold…. Quin rocked out this high fashion image with a few tricks up her sleeve.

Quin writes:

On a cold winter wedding (-4 degrees F!), we had just finished taking a few shots outdoors and went inside to warm up. The high-fashion image below was taken in a cramped warming vestibule (20 bonus points for anyone who doesn’t have to look “vestibule” up) .

Here’s the how and why ….

My goal was to create a high-fashion image which accentuated the curves of our bride. I also wanted to somehow convey the coolness of the winter light flooding through the window. To cool down the outdoor light, we setup our QFlash with a full CTO gel applied. I set my camera’s white balance to tungsten to blue the sunlight streaming in the window. We positioned the flash to both rim-light the bride and fill the right side of the groom’s face and I posed the bride on the ledge of the window. I set my exposure to blow out the mess outdoors and captured the image above. I love how the shadow of the necklace adds another element of interest to this high-fashion image.

Technical Data:

Camera: Canon 20D
Lens: Canon 10-22mm at 20mm
Shutter: 1/80
Aperture: f6.3
Flash: Quantum QFlash T5d with full CTO gel (triggered via Pocketwizards)

Be blessed ….
q

DQ Studios
Yin Yang Workshop

Sweetness Quin, love that shot! Total Vogue! I’m diggin the slight accent on the groom in the background…NICE usage of gels! I’ve been having fun with this CTO as well! Cheers & looking forward to seeing some more amazing stuff from your video lights

Cheers!
matt

Up to this point, we have featured techniques and ideas on how to add a flavor to the ordinary wedding photograph. Today, we are going to leave the wedding scene and photograph a bride and groom “to be”.

This week’s post comes from a fantastic duo from Calgary Canada. My friends Dave & Quin Cheung have been delivering amazing imagery setting the bar for photographers around the world. Take a look at their approach to making connections with clients. I’m willing to bet if you took this same inspiration to every wedding / photo session, you will walk away with some imagery that will touch the SOULS of your subjects!

Dave writes:

Our goal when shooting people is always to make the images “of” them. This recent shoot was unique in that the groom-to-be is a pilot and wanted to somehow capture his passion for planes in their engagement session. We decided to try to capture some shots under the airplane landing path at our local international airport. Quin and I are always up for a challenge and what a challenge it turned out to be. A couple of issues which had to be overcome included …

(a) choosing our position and focal lengths to balance the size of our couple and airplanes overhead. Too far away from the planes shooting wide would make the airplanes look puny. Choosing a long lens to compress the couple and plane could limit our compositional choices.

(b) The speed of the incoming airplanes. After witnessing the first few planes come in, we realized it would be difficult to compose the plane in the desired position while simultaneously ensuring the couple was doing their “thang” at the exact moment the plane was above them. Shooting with SLR’s also meant we were blind as to when the planes would appear in our viewfinder, leaving only fractions of a second to frame, compose and get “the” shot.

(c) Bright noon sun. High contrast and top-down light helped our decision to add some light to the scene to balance our couple, sky and plane.

Here’s one of my favorite images from the shoot which came out exactly as I had envisioned.

And here’s how we did it:

I knew I wanted to shoot the couple kissing above me with the plane and sun overhead, so I put a 10-22mm on my 20D and moved ourselves to a spot directly under the landing path as close to the landing strip as allowed. Knowing the path of the incoming planes and location of the sun, we put the couple where we wanted then and setup a Quantum QFlash hard-left of them. To deepen the blue of the sky, a ½ CTO gel was added and the QFlash was fired at full power.

I also knew I wanted to shoot my 10-22mm lens at f18 or higher to add its characteristic star-like lens-flare only seen when stopped down. My final exposure was 1/200 and f18 which gave the balance of deep sky and balanced flash I was looking for.

After the planning, all we had to do was wait for a plane and pray. When we saw a plane approaching from afar, we all took our positions and I had Quin countdown the second to when the plane would be directly above us while I framed the shot through my viewfinder. Just before it arrived, I asked the couple to kiss and fired off several shots. With careful planning and help from the Big Guy in the Sky, I captured the image shown above.
Elements including the composition, light and “just before the kiss” moment captured in this frame makes it my favorite from the take.

Be blessed ….
d
Dave Cheung
DQ Studios . Fine Art Photography
www.dqstudios.com

WOW, Dave…i love the concept of shooting images “of” them…very inspiring! Your passion definitely shows in your work.

I am a firm believer of following photographers whose passion has put them at the top of the game. DQ studios is for SURE, at the tip top! Dave & Quin are teaching a killer workshop where they have teamed up with one of the best wedding photojournalists on the planet, Huy Nguyen, 2005 WPJA POY winner. Huy, Dave, and Quin’s workshop is dedicated to developing your artistic flavor… I personally attended one of Huy’s workshops in 2004 and it changed my world. Their Yin Yang workshop is looking pretty tasty!

Cheers!
matt