The “prep” portion of the day is always one of my favorite elements of a wedding shoot. The very first thing I look for is light. Where is the light coming from? Directional light is key. In this magnificent bridal suite at Oheka Castle on the north shore of Long Island, I entered a room that had “too much” light all around. When I saw this beautiful light coming from this killer window, I turned off all other light sources so I was able to control where the light was coming from. This prompted the “bridal attendant” at Oheka to loudly attempt to question my competence by proclaiming “these pictures are gonna be dark”, after I asked her to keep the artificial lights off. However, this is typical of my style of shooting. Use the natural, directional light, and make the most of it by creating texture, dimension, and mood.
Quality light, as opposed to quantity is what I’m searching for. The bridal attendant was just looking out for the bride, and I’m sure many photographers would have enjoyed having all of that extraneous light everywhere and even using a flash to supplement. If you’re a photographer, and you have a tendency to enter the “prep” portion of the day with a flash on your camera, this image is proof that you don’t need much light to create something cool. D3S, Nikkor 14-24mm, 1//500 @ 2.8 ISO 1600.
