The Fisherman’s Retreat is an amazing opportunity for any bride and groom when it comes to their wedding photography. The interior is amazing, and the staff are second to none. We’ve all seen the usual imagery from the Fisherman’s retreat and that superb wall of glass in the ceremony room. And those views! However, once we have those images for our brides, we need to look for something a little different. Something to set aside our clients day from any other.
When talking to the bride, she mentioned the views and the lake in particular, along with an interesting old stone building. Hmmmmm.
This was 1830hrs in late September, so the light wasn’t going to disappear for a while yet. I wanted to give the image a dramatic feel to it, and really make the building’s texture stand out, and make our bride and groom pop. The solution was to utilise Elinchrom’s High Sync facility with their ELB400 units.
I placed and ELB400 unit frame left, firing through a honeycombed stripbox at an output of 5.0. It was used to light the frame left side of the building and provide a balancing fill to the bride. I was conscious of the likelihood of blowing any highlights on the bride’s dress if Ii wasn’t careful.
Frame right, I had a second ELB400 unit firing through another honeycombed stripbox at an output of 4.0 as it was much nearer our couple. This particular accent light was to provide the texture on the front of the building, as well as bringing out the shape and form of our groom. The shadow caused by each accent light was filled by the opposing accent light, as well as the key light.
The keylight was just to my left (frame left), and consisted of a third ELB400 firing through an 80x80cm folding softbox. This was slightly above my head height, and angled towards our bride and groom’s mid section. To get the all important oppressive ambience and make the whole image pop, I under exposed the whole scene by a couple of stops with regards to the ambient lighting.
1/640th sec ISO200 f5.0
This is your classic Fisherman’s Retreat image. The view is simply breathtaking and very easy to capture in this scenario. Simply match your lighting output to a little above the ambient light and away you go. You want to be slightly above the ambient to make the bride and groom pop within the image. I still had my two honeycombed stripboxes (One of my favourite lighting tools to be honest). They were placed in each corner of the window recess, and angles to light more towards the back of our couple. Frame left ELB400 was set to 2.5 and the frame right was set to 3.0.
The key light was changed to a 18cm standard reflector and placed immediately behind me and set to an output of 3.0
I knew the window could potentially give me a real problem with the possible reflection of my key light. I turned on the modelling light and moved slightly till it became “hidden” by the metal upright of the window frame. This was why I chose a standard reflector over an 80x80cm folding softbox. There was just no way to hide a large area like that.
1/80th sec ISO100 f5
The Fisherman’s Retreat is a beautiful setting for a wedding, and the staff are absolutely outstanding. Honestly, give them a call, and go take a look for yourself. I’ll be surprised if you don’t book.
You can find the Fisherman’s Retreat at www.fishermansretreat.com
Incidentally, another bridal image from the Fisherman’s Retreat can be found here
