Blog 6 - Silhouettes

I shot a wedding today at 4pm this afternoon but at around 2pm the heavens opened and it rained, it rained hard! As I am sure some of you have seen on my FaceBook page when it rains here in Barbados it really rains but only lasts for around 20min. Unfortunately when it comes to getting married this does leave massive puddles every where and our two main wedding locations on the resort flood. 

Wedding Gazebo - tried to make a feature out of the puddle 

The bride and groom took it in there stride and insisted they wanted to get married on the beach still which I think was a good choice and the whole ceremony (actually the rest of the night) went on without any more rain.

I have had a theory for a while and I think that today I am going to be able to prove it. (Or at least give some evidence to my case) Once it has raid I always tell couples not to worry as the rain does not last long and it seems to mean the sunset is going to be amazing. Clouds always seem to come from the east and then leave out over the west (the resort is on the west coast), if it rains at 2pm by the time 6pm (sunset time) comes along the majority of the clouds have passed over the land and they are all over the horizon. This then leads to some very dramatic results. 

To take a good sunset shot you need to slightly under expose the photograph, once you have your camera set up for the sun set all you do is put the people in front with the same settings and no flash and you get your silhouette. I often play with silhouettes, couples holding hands or having a kiss but today I tried something new. 

One of the last photographs I was asked to take was a group shot in front of the sunset, which I did, but then I asked the wedding party to turn around, take a step away from each other and look out to sea. This meant that you had a silhouette of the whole party but there was enough space so you could see each members profile from behind. Kind of reminds me of "Oceans 11" at the end when there all looking at the fountain, very nice shot that I think I will use again for groups.

Congratulations to Graham and Lucy you have been great to work with and I wish you all the best in the future.