"Harry Potter Bridal Portrait"

"Harry Potter Bridal Portrait"
© David A. Ziser

I know that is kind of a funky name for this image but that's what comes to mind when I see this image.  During my Dave Cross Workshop last Monday, Kathy, one of the photographers attending knew Philippe Park we were working and suggested shooting around this giant oak tree a short walk from the main road.

The huge branches of the tree were hanging very low to the ground and winding all over the place.  For me I envisioned the lands of Harry Potter and wondered how I could pull off a cool wedding portrait around this giant oak.  Because of the long, low, large tree branches, I decided to go with my super wide Sigma 8-16mm lens.

I had one of our class members holding my strobe well out of the field of view coming from camera left to give me the beautiful lighting you see on our bride’s face. I balanced the strobe light to the ambient and then under exposed the scene by about 1 1/2 stops in order to have my bride really project from the background.

I worked the image in Lightroom to finish placing the tonalities where I wanted them mostly using the gradient tool.  The finished result shows an almost spotlighted lighting effect on our bride allowing the rest of the scene to be ominously dark and foreboding just like so many of the Harry Potter movies.  Anyway, I love how the image came out. 

Camera specs: Canon 7D fitted with Sigma's 8-16mm lens at 16mm, F5.6 @ 1/250 second, ISO 400.  Enjoy!  -David