One part of wedding photography that I absolutely love is the bridal session I get to take my lovely bride & groom on! For those of you that don’t know what a bridal session is, it’s a time either before or after a wedding ceremony (sometimes even after a morning reception) where I get to take the bride & groom and photograph them alone in their joy! It’s like a portrait session on your wedding day!
In order to prepare for this time of the day, I love to go location scouting beforehand! If I can I love to go sometime during the week before the wedding, but often times when locations are further away, I like going early to scout out the best spots to take my clients! Usually, I use my second, usually John, to test the lighting and locations out! :)
Last week I had the pleasure of photographing a beautiful bride & groom’s wedding at the beach on Coronado Island! Here are a couple of shots that happened during location scouting for this sweet beach wedding I can’t wait to share, as well as two main things I like to look for when I’m location scouting! :)
1. LIGHTING
A big part of photography is lighting, so it makes sense that the main thing I like to look for when I location scout is what the lighting is going to look like in certain areas!
Typically, I love to look for well shaded areas! This allows for even lighting (and well.. cool shade during California heat)! Preferably, I like to find areas where there is plenty of shade so the background isn’t over-exposed, either!
In this case, however, since we were staying on the beach, there wasn’t much shade to go around! Instead, I looked for locations where, once the sun went down just a little bit after the ceremony, we’d have even backlighting. Thanks to the sand, I had a lot of natural reflective light, which allowed for my subject to still be visible (now don’t be fooled, I had a bit of post-processing to do still to these photos, but it helped a LOT to have natural reflectors)! :)
John’s such a great sport! Let me just say that I have a TON of photos of him just standing and smiling, and making faces, while I used him to test out lighting and locations out! :)
2. SURROUNDINGS
Another part of photography I love is being able to capture the elements around my subjects as well! While I LOVE my subjects by themselves, the surrounding look helps add to the photographs I take, either complimenting the couple’s outfit (in this case, usually a wedding gown & some kind of suit combination), or look! I try to find a variety of backgrounds and locations that help tell the story of where the couple is being wed!
Some things I like to consider with the knowledge of the bride & groom and wedding is what the couple’s theme is, or what their wedding colors are. A question I like to ask myself is, “Does this location add or compliment their style?”
At Coronado beach, there wasn’t much other than sand and ocean, but we did find a great area with rocks that helped add to their wedding collection! :)
Second shooters also have to test out their lighting and see how the locations work out in certain locations, as well! So of course, I had to let him photograph me from time to time!
Don’t mind my messy hair… when it’s windy it’s pretty much game over for me. I’m still looking for a way to get my hair looking good, so if you have any tips, let me know! ;)
It was a nice windy day in March and John & I had a lovely day scouting and photographing this wedding! :)
Happy Tuesday!