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Mom helping her daughter into a stunning corset styled
wedding dress. |
Another
beautiful wedding shot at the Del Rio Country Club in Modesto. If you’re
wondering why everything is in black and white, it’s because I was the second
shooter for this wedding. About a year ago I started doing all of my second
shooting work in black and white. The inspiration came from our own wedding
when our photographer’s second shooter delivered all of her shots in black and
white. Melody and I LOVED them.
When I’m
second shooting I often don’t get to manage situations the way I’d like. I also
tend to stay in the background and experiment more with natural light. Because
I’m not the main shooter people usually ignore me and this lends itself well to
getting the candid shots. All of this lends itself well to black and white
photography.
Knowing that
I’ll be delivering everything in black and white when all is said and done, I
set my camera to shoot in monochrome and switch over in my mind to shoot that way
as well. I sometimes do this with my own weddings in situations that I know
will call for it because there should be some intent behind black and white
photography.
I often get asked by other photographers about my black and whites. “Man, how
do you get them like that?” They fiddle with presets, or do batch renderings,
and while I could do quite a write up on black and white photography that’s not
what this post is about, but the gist of it is you don’t simply flip a switch. You
shoot it with black and white in mind, and you convert it in post with the
specifics of black and white in mind. I usually look at every lighting
situation differently when I tackle the photo in post and make my conversions.
In short, my
black and white is unique because I approach each frame as though it were
unique.
A word of
warning to brides: If you’re looking for your wedding to be shot in black and
white, and find a photographer that will give you everything in color and
everything in black and white, run for the hills. This photographer isn’t
making real black and white images. They’re selecting everything, clicking a
button, and exporting a bunch of really muddy, gray toned images. They might
have some fantastic examples of black and whites, situations where they got
lucky with their preset, but I guarantee you that to do it right, to export and
ENTIRE wedding in both color and black and white, you’d have to do double the
work and no one does double the work without asking to be paid for it.
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Here our bride is taking directions from the main photographer who is shooting with color in mind, freeing me up to photograph
the angles better suited for black and white photography. |
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A candid moment as the bride laughs at her main photographer's antics. |
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Loved the window light streaming in and lighting up our bride while she got into her gown. The hard light really lent itself well
to black and white photos. |
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This strapless, corset styled wedding dress was definitely not for the faint of heart, but our bride was simply stunning in it. |
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The first look with dad. |
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More gorgeous window light lending itself well for some black and white wedding photos. |
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The Del Rio Country Club in Modesto has an wonderful old oak that they stage their weddings under. |
Check out this gorgeous venue here:
http://www.delriocountryclub.com/corp_events/