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From the Blog

Anatomy of a Bridal Portrait

OK, here’s the portrait Sarah selected and the scene I was working with.  I moved the poinsettias at the base of the stairs and placed Sarah where she could comfortably rest her elbow on the bottom of the banister.  She was lit by three Nikon SB-800 flashes.  One was directly behind her, pointed at her back to give her that glow, also known as a rim light.  One was placed above and to camera- left on the stairs to give depth and dimension to the staircase, and also act as a bit of a hair light on Sarah.  The last one is on camera right shooting through a 43” Westcott umbrella for a nice soft main light, in a loop lighting pattern.  The image was shot with a Nikon D3 with the 70-200 f2.8 lens.  I wanted to compress the background, so I actually opened the front door and stood out on the porch (shooting through the door) so that I could use the telephoto end of the lens.  All flashes were controlled by an SB-900 on the camera in Commander Mode, and triggered with RadioPoppers.  I had an AWESOME time photographing Sara…what a beautiful bride!