"A Pretty As She Can Be"

"A Pretty As She Can Be"
© David A. Ziser

I think this is about as beautiful as a bridal portrait can be.  The look of our bride, the subtle smile, the slight tip of the head, the soft S-curve running through her figure, makes this image a classic beauty.  The pose really shows off the dress and the lighting is as flattering as it can be on the subject.  The bottom line, it is one very beautiful bridal portrait.

Now having said that, this image did not come easily together.  We were walking through Philippe Park looking for a location for our next image.  I spotted the large palm frawns that you see behind the bride.  The only problem was that they were too dark.

I felt that if I could brighten the tonalities up considerably, I just might create a pleasing background for my portrait.  I had one member of our class take my Quantum 150 watt-second strobe and get 15 feet behind the bride and point the strobe, at  full power at the palm frawns about 10 more feet away.  That did the job for me placing the tonal values of the palm frawns exactly where I wanted them.

Next I needed to get the beautiful loop lighting on her face.  I pulled out an inexpensive show mount flash, attached my Quantum Freewire radio trigger to it and fired it off through my 42” Zumbrella coming in from camera right. 

Whenever you use a shoe mount flash through an umbrella, be sure the wide angle diffuser is in place so that you get the maximum cone of light coming out of the flash head in order to completely fill the Zumbrella’s translucent surface.  That’s how I was able to get that beautiful soft quality of light on her face.

Camera specs: Canon 7D fitted with 18-200mm lens at 145mm, F5.6 @ 1/320 second, ISO 640.  Enjoy!  -David