I normally don’t book more than one wedding per month, but I had a friend getting married. He was my photo assistant for several years, and he’s a real nice guy. He needed a photographer, and of course I was going to say yes!
The cool thing about his wedding was the great lighting in the church. There was actually enough decent, even lighting that I was able to shoot most of my pics without flash! I’m a big flash guy, so this was special for me. It gave me a chance to blend in with the crowd more – just a few quiet snaps vs. a popping flash. It was nice that there wasn’t a constant flashing to draw attention to me. I was able to get some real nice “fly on the wall” type images.
The other bonus is that it forced me to take more shallow depth of field pics, since I didn’t want to push the ISO too high. This gave me the opportunity to really isolate my subjects, bringing more focus to their subtle gestures and emotions. It was definitely a plus!
Here’s a good example, where I caught one of the brothers holding flowers as he waited for the bride and a bridesmaid. It’s just a quiet little moment that I think would’ve been spoiled with a bunch of flash and a giant DOF…
