How to replicate this style

manthonyphoto · Mar 30, 2015

Hi guys,

I was wondering if anyone could shed some light on how the images on this website are created. If you go here:

Weddings

You will notice that the first post of pictures has an unbelievably gorgeous quality of light to them. If you continue to browse the different postings, this lighting is pervasive throughout. I am an aspiring wedding photographer and before I saw this website this is exactly the style I had in mind for my brand. So my question is this:

1. How are they creating this light? The sun is visible in many frames, yet the subject (bride/groom) is not underexposed. Are they using massive reflectors to bounce the sun back toward their subjects? Are they using gigantic studio strobes set behind equally gigantic diffusers to overpower the ambient light?

Thank you so much for your responses!

snowbear · Mar 30, 2015

IMO the first photo has an overexposed, blown out sky. Is that what you are referring to?

dennybeall · Mar 30, 2015

Photoshop -- Photoshop ------- Photoshop
Seriously, Photoshop has tools that can manipulate all the elements of the photos. Some of the effects are done with lighting on scene but with the large areas in most of those photos I'd say Photoshop, or a similar program, was used in post-processing.

manthonyphoto · Mar 30, 2015

I suppose the sky is blown out in a lot of these pictures. I'm referring specifically to the bottom right image in this link.

Connection_Photography_ChurchRuins19.jpg

How are the subjects so well lit and yet the sky is not as blown out as it seems like it should be for how well the subjects are exposed.

manthonyphoto · Mar 30, 2015

The top image in this link is also just insanely well lit. Any ideas on how they're creating such intense colors along with ridiculously soft light?

Connection_Photography_ChurchRuins14.jpg

tirediron · Mar 30, 2015

I'll pick, "What are Photoshop Actions" for $200 please Alex!

Derrel · Mar 30, 2015

Get a Canon 50mm prime, so you can get this kind of ever-so-slightly hashy, vibrating, nervous bokeh when shot at wide apertures, as seen here: Connection_Photography_NC3.jpg

Shoot outdoors, in strong backlighted conditions, in camera RAW capture format of course, so that post-capture exposure adjustment offers the maximum amount of highlight recovery AND shadow lifting; both of these things are critical when shooting against the light. "Lift" shadows, recover highlights in Lightroom. Add warmth to white balance and or/tint. Keep the blacks weak and not very saturated. Use your favorite Lightroom presets as needed. Make sure to blow focus on 15 to 20 percent of shots because of shooting at f/2.8 inside of eight feet. Look closely at the number of shots with blown focus! Shocking. And yet, not. Use the 50mm lens whenever possible.

A good number of younger people,especially, like this warm, warm, yellow look to blown, overexposed highlights that are beyond the recoverable level on Canon sensors. When the highlights are really un-recoverable and free of any detail, the yellow color of the highlights is totally objectionable to older people or older photographers who were raised on film images. However--when those same sickly yellow blown highlights are accompanied by a massive,1,000 to 2,000 degrees Kelvin "wrong" white balance, the overall effect is sort of a golden hour warmth...a faked, "warm" look that's not native to the Pacific Northwest, nor to the Northeast,except for a few months a year, and it really creates a look that a good number of people like.

I think this look really looks better when shot on Canon than it does on Nikon. If you go to some of the web's YouTube comparisons done by that "Maven" fellow, his side-by-side comparisons of popular Canon and Nikon bodies show that Canon and Nikon have different "family" color palettes. I think the warmer-toned, overexposed look Canon gives from RAW files looks better on this type of work.

Again, you want to shoot all strongly backlighted scenarios like this in RAW mode, to be able to have the most exposure adjustment--but it is even MORE critical to have the RAW files in order to do the wonky white balance and color tint shifts to get to this wildly "golden" light look.

This is not accurate color, but it is a pleasing color look that, this decade, is very popular. I'm not trying to bash it, I'm just stating my observations on how I have seen this done. A lens that is good when shooting into the light is very helpful here too. Accurate color is not the goal--pleasing, artistic color is what this photographer is doing. This massively golden light feeling is warm and fuzzy. There's even a Lightroom preset available called Warm& Fuzzy that has a lot of this strong,warm tint, and bright,light,airy feeling to it as part of its basic "look".