cony25

Please give me suggestions on how to take a better picture in this situation.

srg

Me giving you advice would be as presumptuous as a kindergardner telling the quantum Physics professor how to teach. However, I think what went wrong here is an operator problem. Not you, the operator of the spotlight.

Alafoto Loc: Montgomery, AL

Make some sort of tube for your flash head. A beer koozie with the bottom removed makes a good one that is easy to carry along. Use manual zoo setting to concentrate the light on the bride's face, shoot at a low power to avoid overpowering the ambient light. Oh wait, that's for next time. This time just selectively lighten her face and shoulder in whatever post processing program you use. I hate post processing, so I try to avoid it by getting what I want in the shot.

It's a pretty good shot overall, but people (parents) who pay for wedding photos want to see the faces of the happy couple.

If I am being presumptuous, as another poster suggested, please forgive me. You did ask.

revhen Loc: By the beautiful Hudson

The problem is the great contrast between the white dress and the rest of the picture. In your post processing try a flash fill setting. Somebody may have a better answer - undoubtedly.

Ava'sPapa Loc: Cheshire, Ct.

A little "lightening" in PP helps somewhat. A fairly easy solution for the photos that you took. Subtle, but a little brighter.

UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

I think that srg is correct. You can take steps in post-processing. Attached is a quick edit in Lightroom masking.

(Download)

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

This is a very tough situation. You are getting suggestions about how to adjust the image. I'll defer on that. But what I can see is that the lighting was stacked against you from the start. Primary lighting on the main subject is clearly from three overhead spotlights. The general "stage" lighting appears to be from distributed blue lights, and something different that I can't fully decode is going on at the porch. There are a couple of lamps visible, but there appears to be something going on under the awning.

The spots might have been manageable for the person that I presume to be the bride, except if you look at the shadows from the three spots, you will notice that none of them contain her head or her hair...just the dress. (Actually, one of them may be lighting her hair from behind, but your camera didn't see any of that.) So you've got bright spotlights on the white dress and not much but some reflected light and some blue ambient on her face and arms. It is likely that slightly different timing of your exposure might have captured her more fully illuminated.

Flash might have helped with her, but would have left the bridesmaids very unevenly illuminated. Bounce wouldn't have worked for a couple of reasons. The first is that I'm guessing that everything overhead was black...nothing to bounce off of. The second is that you would have needed a lot of flash to fill against those three spotlights. The result would likely be pretty harsh. (Now we need E.L. Shapiro to come in to the discussion and give you some better tips about that.)

In summary, I would probably have just embraced the reduced lighting on the bridesmaids and planned my shot around it, then concentrated on finding the moment when the bride was in an attractive pose and fully illuminated to release the shutter. Sometimes, when the situation is not ideal, the skill becomes accepting the problems and finding a way to flow with them.

SalvageDiver Loc: Huntington Beach CA

The main effort is to correct for the missed spot and bring some light back to the center girls face. You can darken the background just a little to help accentuate the center girl.

(Download)

cony25

Wow,,,,thank you for your feedback...

joecichjr Loc: Chicago S. Suburbs, Illinois, USA

Great, eye catching results ❤️🤍🎖️🤍❤️

joecichjr Loc: Chicago S. Suburbs, Illinois, USA

Sumptuous and beautiful 💜💜💜💜💜

joecichjr Loc: Chicago S. Suburbs, Illinois, USA

Awesome 🤍👁️🤍👁️🤍

jim quist Loc: Missouri

My guess would be to wait until the lights lit her face.

StanMac Loc: Tennessee

Good job!

Stan

fetzler Loc: North West PA

You have some good suggestions for post processing here. Ultimately, there is no substitute for good lighting.

It did occur to me that makinng a pseudo-HDR might be helpful. Starting with a raw file create tiffs with +1 EV, 0EV, and -1 EV. combine these images into an HDR. Depending on your camera and software you might even be able to get +2EV and -2EV images.

I have used this method to correct images with high dynamic range that do not allow for separate in camera exposures.