Two weekends ago I drove down to Champaign to shoot my photog-friend Mike‘s wedding alongside the always stupendous Nicholas Mulka. I’ve had a few weddings under my belt, the biggest one thus far being the Berg wedding I shot during the summer. I’ve come to really enjoy shooting weddings, but if I could, I’d do without the little moments of frenzy that pop up now and then. Especially those involving rogue strobes.

Some more obsessively long narrative, some photo notes (sorry non-photonerds), and a gallery after the break…

Ten hours of shooting came by very quickly. The pre-wedding preparation was wonderful; I chose to shoot the bride getting ready since I’ve always only had the chance to shoot the groom and groomsmen getting ready. The room that the bride, Elise, was getting ready in was very simply decorated and incredibly well set-up for photo gems (with mirrors on three of the walls!). The sanctuary itself was a tad dim (ISO 1600, f/2.8) with no flash allowed, but I think I got by. Ned and I split up shooting portraits, he shot the majority at the church and I got to shoot most of the portraits at the stadium. Oh yeah, the reception was at Memorial Stadium. SO awesome!

Anyway, I forgot to take into account that Ned would be riding with the bride and groom, so I had to carry all my camera gear and both of our portrait gear (2-3 trips worth) up to the Stadium. Already beat from lugging light stands and Brad’s vagabond around, and with Ned wisely getting started with portraits, I started to get my setup ready and had a few hiccups with my Alienbee not shaping in the fill light like I imagined it would. I also underestimated exactly how much light was left at 5pm and how much time we had for portraits before the reception, so a few ideas I had for portraits on the field fell by the wayside. The reception was fun (with the usual wedding reception fanfare with a little “Three-In-One” action mixed in), food was very good, and dancing was lively — although it was pretty dark in the colonnades and my hotshoe speedlite wasn’t always acting the way I wanted it to. Little lighting hiccups notwithstanding, I think I got some pretty good shots:

I went kind of “wild” with the post; I think that for a little less than half of my photos, I converted to B+W (something I almost always tentative to do). Possibly Bresson-exhibit inspired. I also probably could have been a lot tighter with selections and edits, in retrospect. But in all, I came out fairly pleased with my results. I’ve come to find that my style of photography is very moment-driven, which is great, but oftentimes I can lose sight of better composition or miss some details. That, and I absolutely suck at telling people how to pose and contort their bodies. :P

Self-deprecation aside, I had a ton of fun. And really, I’m being overly dramatic about my hatred of strobes since the entire wedding went incredibly smoothly. Strobes are my friends!