The 52 Project, Week 10: My Big Fat Jewish Wedding

About a month ago, I was carousing Craigslist for some last minute gigs to fill up my weekends (like the pro I am :p) for the end of July and early August. About ten minutes into my random browsing, a particular gig in the Columbus area struck me as a unique opportunity. "Photographer Seeking Assistant for Othodox Jewish Wedding" was the headliner. Considering I'd never even attended one of these ceremonies, experiencing one on the photographic side would be a real learning experience.  And oh boy was it an experience. A 9am to 9pm kind of experience. An I'm-not-sure-when-the-next-time-I'll-have-a-break-to-eat experience. But overall, much was learned, and there are a few interesting shots to commemorate that day. 

A short warning before going through these photos with a furrowed brow; I was a lighting assistant who wasn't supposed to be taking photos. Through a little sweet talking of my main, Abish, I convinced him that a few shots of film wouldn't hurt, *wink*.  Now onto the show, ^_^.

Pre-Ceremony Shots

 Abish shooting the bride. The big lighting setup.

The bride with niece and nephew.  A closeup of the bride.   

Kids with their Grandparents. Baby needs his Cheerios. The groom with rabbi minutes before ceremony.

The pre-ceremony shots aren't that varied for the simple fact that they all took place within the same 100 feet. We started setting up the lights at 10:00AM, moved to two different locations, and finally ended up at a large, sky-lit stairway, adorned with fake foliage. Awesome backdrop? Not really; but it beat the hell out of whatever white, green, and beige walls were lined up to begin with.

With a vast majority of all my previous weddings being Catholic, prior to this shoot I was used to only one hour before, and up to two hours after the ceremony for any kinds of group pictures. This day, however, had allotted two and a half hours before, and nearly two hours after for the group pictures. "Uh oh," I thought, "this is going to be a long one." Every possible combination of relative between both the bride and groom's sides were captured, no matter how irrelevant certain said combinations were.

Post Ceremony Shots

Blessing the bride & groom, and the meal. The bride's big happy family.

Rabbis in downtown Columbus.

Did I mention this day was long and still at a fast pace? Anyone who's familiar with the Hyatt Regency Columbus and Greater Columbus Convention Center knows they're HUGE. And amongst this huge complex, this wedding's party moved between not one, not two, but seven, that's right, SEVEN banquet rooms. So aside from sweating my butt off in full black suit and tie, I was also the kid responsible for juggling a four light strobe setup between five of these seven rooms. This didn't leave a lot of time for candids where I was expecting to get them, namely the ceremony and reception. I was lucky enough to manage a few post ceremony shots that give a unique feeling to the day's events

Something Good: I learned A TON about Jewish ceremonies. And even though I thought I took in a lot, all that knowledge is barely scratching the surface of what I'll need to know before claiming that "I also do Jewish weddings"

Something Bad: There's some pretty nasty flaring and loss of contrast throughout these shots. So what went wrong? I was using Fuji Pro 400H & 800Z; not that this is the entire issue, but these are Daylight balanced films that don't respond well to mixed lighting and/or uncoated lens flare.

Something Learned: I need some "Jewish terms" flash cards, seriously. Maybe after three or four more of these weddings will I feel comfortable enough to go through shooting a Jewish ceremony without embarrassing myself or offending anybody involved.

Next Week: I'm revisiting B&W in a big way. More work in Tmax 100 and 400, with better handling, processing, and scanning.

The 52 Project, Week 4&5: Wedding Edition

Wow, it's already been a month and I'm still excited about film. Something must being going right for a gearhead like me to go analog for longer he typically plays a new video game. Just before we get to the meat and potatoes of this week's post, I'm going to change the structure a bit from previous weeks. Instead of just a few images, there will be about a roll's worth of them; this is because there were four rolls shot instead of the typical one or two. Thereby, top choices were harder to make, and besides, I just love shooting weddings*.

*couple getting married must be awesome like those you'll see below ^_^

Color Division

1) Katie's Gorgeous Dress

2) Just a touch of makeup

3) Moments before the wedding.

4) The cliche bouquet shot.

5) Meet Mr. & Mrs. Tomas Menec.

6) The Radl sisters, yes, Katie has a twin.

7) Baby with a Mohawk, nuff said.

8) We were all glad to see this cake go >__<

 The color shots were a little risky, IMO, because I'd never shot in the films used. To some it's not a big deal, but I like to know exactly how a film looks in a given situation. (See Week 1 and Week 2 of The 52 Project for examples of Portra 400VC vs 400NC) I even explained to this cool couple how I'd occasionally pop a film shot during downtime of digital (filled buffer, etc.). To my complete surprise, they were ok with it! Onto the mini-critique.

Shots 1-3 are shot in Fuji Pro 800Z and 4-8 are Pro 400H. I like the look of both, however, I noticed a lot of flaring issues with the 800 speed film in a lot of the getting ready shots. Compare the grain you see in shot 1 over shots 2 & 3. The main difference? Positioning from the window/main light.  This flare doesn't appear to be a lot, but that's about a 60 degree turn away from the window. Trust me, you don't want to see what the shot into the window exposures looked like. x__X And what about the 400H? Beautiful, accurate skin tones, little grain, and fantastic exposure latitude. I shall be working with 400H much more in the future.  My only gripe about shots 4-8 is that shot 4 shows the Aquiles Heel of the Hasselblad closeup filter; excessive, excessive vignetting. Sure it's not much, but it muddles Katie's skin tone in that shot; thank goodness the focus is the bouquet.

B&W Division

10) Copy & Paste the aforementioned.

9) Simple, elegant, and outdoors!

12) During the ceremony

11) Rings in a flower, who'da thought?

13) Dancing with Dad

 Not too much going on here that couldn't have been covered with the color film. Live and learn, I guess. Overall, the B&W came out great. I shot one roll Tmax 100 and one roll Tmax 400. They were hand-developed in D-76, and came out just as envisioned. The scanning, however, is a different story. I'm getting there, but there's still a long way to go with this Epson V700. Notable traits about Tmax 100 vs 400 were that 100 seemed to pull a much wider dynamic range while the 400 tended to yeild a very narrow band of midtones that needed to be "fluffed up" in Photoshop.

Something Good: I got paid to play around with my Hasselblad, and managed to score some real keepers for the album.

Something Bad: I took a HUGE risk in playing around with film during a wedding that was supposed to be delivered digitally (though permission was granted). Also that nasty flare thing with the 800Z.

Something Learned: Millers Professional Imaging, aka MPIX, aka the best print company EVER, are rediculously fast and good at what they do. They provided me with postage paid priority mailers to deliver film in. The package was mailed 7:30am, the Monday after the wedding. Once it got to them, rush processing with FedEx overnight, I received it on Wednesday afternoon at 2:00pm, processed, proofed, scanned, cut, and sleeved.  All this for ~$10 per roll. This was a very good thing considering Katie and Tomas were leaving for the Czech Republic the next day for ceremony number two and their honeymoon. If you're reading this and thinking about adding a touch of film to your next event, seriously consider Millers. No, I don't get a kickback from them everytime you check out their site, I'm just very impressed with the speed and quality of their work, coupled with top notch customer service.

Next Week: Slowing down back to the normal posting pace, but get ready for a LOT of the same film. I just scored a ton of recently expired 120 film that's basically carrying me through to the end of The 52 Project. Oh yeah, and 4th of July pics, whew!