New Idea for Bridal Portraits

Bridal portraits with nice light and a clean background

In college I studied science. For a year of my science classes I read physics. A small chunk of my nine months of physics concerned nuclear physics, which I must say is absolutely fascinating. Learning how Einstein got to E = mc2 fascinates me. One principle of nuclear physics is the phenomena called “half-life.” Imagine an atom with an extra proton or a few extra protons. Carbon 14 instead of 12 for example. The carbon wants to have 12 protons, but some have 14. The extra proton carbon atoms want to be at 12 and every now and then kick a proton out. “We don’t want you, get lost!” A pile of carbon 14 will become carbon 13 (a stable atom) over time. When half of the original carbon 14’s become carbon 13’s, the time it takes is called a “half-life.” (FYI - the half-life of carbon 14 is about 5,730 years)

Science is fun!

Doing wedding photography for many years I slowly came to understand the bride’s makeup, hair, and dress all have a half-life of maybe an hour. So if you wait a couple hours to do portraits of the bride, the hair, makeup, and dress have significantly decreased in glow. Mostly I’ve observed bridesmaids doing camera phone pictures of peak beauty. So why not bring in my Profoto and a classic background for a couple bride portraits while she’s at peak beauty?

Last summer I discovered a Westcott X-Drop background stand with some Joel Grimes backgrounds. Sure, it’s slightly flimsy, but it totally gets the job done.

The first time using it was at Lauren and Thais’s wedding in Bend last summer. I used it again recently for Emma and Scott’s wedding where she got ready a little ways past Redmond and then drove to St. Francis in Bend for the wedding.

The room where Lauren got ready was not in any way big. Plus it had a very busy background. A big giant window facing south occupied almost an entire wall. Combined with a cloudy day I didn’t even need to use the Profoto for her portrait. Just the window showering her with nice soft even light. Lately I’ve been having fun with the Nik analog efex pro software and the Classic Camera filters. I used one for Lauren and it transformed the picture into an almost classic painting. What fun it is to see this happen the first time.

Using the background again a couple weeks ago

Emma and Scott got married in the old St. Francis church in downtown Bend. She got ready at her grandmother’s house up past Redmond and had to drive down to Bend for the wedding. Her grandma’s house is fabulous. Built to look like a classic turn-of-the 20th century farm home with high ceilings, a turret, and antique furnishings. My background was almost too much, but I wanted to just have Emma in a nice portrait without any distractions. My idea was to do one of those black and white pictures that look like a charcoal drawing. The only way to accomplish this look is to have a clean background and nice bright soft even light.

For Emma’s portrait (one of them - I shoot a ton) I used the Nik Silver Efex Pro to play around with the edges and make a charcoal drawing look.

Two lights, one background

The background does take up some space and requires both a little bit of room and a few minutes to deploy, but the results speak for themselves. I love these pictures. Whether it’s soft window light, or the Profoto the brides look spectacular. I’m looking forward to creating new looks with different ideas. Maybe invest in a blue background? I really loved the congressional portraits from a few years ago with the blue backgrounds. (Can’t find them now, but they were in Vanity Fair maybe) A bride in white with a blue background would look amazing. Nice crisp edges and colors. Maybe go for the 8x8 and have the ability to get a couple people in the picture or do a full length with a clean uniform background.

Overall, these pop-up backgrounds really look good. They don’t have seams and wrinkles and colors don’t overtake the subject. Plus I can play with different filters to create art.