I recently overheard a wedding planner speaking with the mother of the bride about one of the locations I had chose to shoot. This location is filled with flowers, grand trees, a beautiful lake with a dock that can get you right into the water, and so much more. In true Jason fashion, I left them wondering what on earth I was doing when I chose to set up on the side of their barn. With all these amazing locations to choose from, I decided that next to the old oil catch pans, hose, and discarded lumber was where I wanted to place the bride.
Why do you ask? Because I always try to prioritize light over the location. I know what you are thinking: the light here isn’t even all that great. And you would absolutely be correct. It was a bland and overcast day so the light was pretty flat and boring everywhere we went. Although, what truly drew me into this location was the possibilities.
Where most see a clutter-filled backdrop with no visual interest, I see a giant white building that would work amazingly to create a soft yet dramatic light. Because I almost never shoot with a softbox, I’m always on the lookout for a way to create my own soft light. So, when I find a good place to bounce my light, I then go into problem-solving mode to find if I can make the location work.
In order to take advantage of this space, I placed the bride in front of the hose spigot coming out of the ground in order to block it from view. I then shot at a lower angle to get rid of all the distractions on the ground. Lastly, I shot at 85mm to compress the scene a bit so that I could get a dramatic image with the bride somewhat small and then fill the frame with trees. For the light, I used a single Flashpoint eVOLV 200Pro with no modifiers. The idea here is that I simply want to blast light into the side of the barn. This basically turned the side of the barn into a giant softbox. The below few images are the final results. All of them were done with an easy one-light setup on the side of an old barn next to a bunch of clutter.
I will say that the reason the planner and mom were talking about the situation, was because they were amazed that the final images came out so well. They knew this because when I am drastically changing a scene, I like to show off the back of the camera. This not only gets them excited, but they also provides me more trust and flexibility when I have other ideas in the future.
I also used the amazing locations on the property (some of those images below). The idea here is to always have your eyes open to lighting possibilities instead of always looking for “amazing locations”. You also need to have a good idea of what you can do with your gear (hopefully, reading these amazing Flashpoint articles is helping you get there). But this idea plays itself out over and over. When I’m at a scenic location I’ll see photographers trying to make bad light work in order to capture a certain monument. When all they need to do is turn around for access to much better lighting conditions and equally amazing scenery. But we tend to have a narrowed frame of view when we approach a scene with something particular in mind. So next time you arrive at your shoot location, keep an eye out for the light and the lighting possibilities instead of looking for pretty backdrops.
Article and Photos by Jason Vinson