Wedding: Julie & Savio

I met Savio while I worked in P&T’s Téléboutique in Luxembourg city – my summer job for the last couple of years. I think he saw the slideshow from Martine and Mike’s wedding and showed them to Julie. They asked if I could take photos at their wedding, and once my schedule for my MA last summer had taken shape I could confirm that I’d be able to cover one last wedding during my time as a student – theirs.
Once more I asked Olivier to help me out as assistant and second shooter, and he did a great job. We started the day at Julie’s parents’ in Thionville. From there it was but a short drive to the lovely neo-apostolic church where they got married. This was the first non-catholic wedding that I’ve covered so I checked with the priest to make sure I’d be aware of the differences. After the moving service, a limousine picked up the newly-weds. We drove to Mondorf-les-Bains: the reception and the dinner were held at the Orangerie in the park. Having everything in one place like that made logistics a bit easier and meant that we could spend a bit more time for the couple photos.

In terms of lighting, I made use of the technique I first tried at the Southlands Beach Fashion Shoot, namely pushing three Speedlights to full power, and using the PocketWizards to sync at 1/500,double the 5DMkII sync speed. That way I got enough light to work in bright daylight (we had wonderful weather) without being at the sun’s mercy. The PocketWizards also came in handy for one of my favourite photos from the shoot (the one next to the river), where I was about 40 metres away from Savio and Julie, and the PWs together with the 3 flashes gave me both enough working distance (for composition) and brightness from the softbox which was about 4 metres away from them.

During the evening I gave Olivier one of the transceivers so that we could both trigger the flashes that we had set up in the Orangerie to support the ambient light. The reception and dinner were very entertaining. I’m glad that I was at the right place at the right time when Savio’s friends spontaneously decided to lift him off the ground :) During the dances I used a technique I learned from David Ziser: get one slaved flash behind the couple to create both a nice rim and some cool lighting on the floor. Olivier had to put some effort into that, since he had to be in the frame without showing up on the pictures.

I had a really great time at the wedding, and I hope I captured the ambience in the photographs! That was probably the last wedding I’ll cover. My time as a student is up and I’m moving on.

Oct 10, 2010 | People | Leave A Comment »

Wedding: Carole & Jules

I first met Carole and Jules at the wedding of their friends Martine and Mike the year before. They got in touch with me last winter and I ended up shooting their wedding day in July together with Olivier Kerschen as assistant. We took photos of Carole getting ready at her parents’ house and, once we determined that the weather was going to play along, drove to the Parc Municipal in Mondorf. It’s a really great place, quite big with lots of different possibilities to take the couple shots. The size meant that we had to walk around a bit to get to the places I had scouted beforehand but it worked out nicely. I used the 5DMkII again, mostly with the EF 70-200. Olivier was in charge of getting the lights where I needed them – which sometimes includes dangling halfway off a bridge to get the light in the perfect spot.
The wedding ceremony was in their hometown Ellange, in a lovely small church just opposite the venue in which the reception was held. And you should have been there to see their faces when the white limousine arrived to pick them up! We moved on to the the Restaurant Delicious in Sandweiler, outside of which I took portraits of all the couples before everyone went inside for the dinner. It’s a nice place, they had hired some cool DJs and the fun just didn’t seem to stop. I especially liked the balloon-popping-sumo game their friends had come up with. When we left around 3am the party still wasn’t showing any signs of slowing down!

Jan 21, 2010 | People, Photojournalism | 1 Comment »