Doug Levy is a former professional baseball umpire turned wedding and portrait photographer. Doug attended umpire school after graduating from Syracuse in 2003 and spent six seasons on the field, reaching the AAA level before deciding a lifetime of 7:05 starts wasn't for him. He lives outside Boston with his wife Jessica and miniature schnauzer Bentley.
Technically, yesterday’s shoot was a “just married” shoot, as Christine and Doug were formally married a few weeks ago at their local church. The official part of the celebration isn’t for a few more weeks at the gorgeous Saltwater Farm Vineyard in Connecticut, and as we’re not likely to make it to Boston on their “wedding” day, we spent a couple of fun hours last night walking around Beacon Hill and the esplanade for some photos.
Sometimes, things just work out. An engagement shoots at a ’50s style diner? No problem, the staff couldn’t have been more friendly, even allowing me to commandeer a bottle of whipped cream for a ring shot at one point. Let me back up a bit first though. Jen’s a photographer herself, and booked me over the phone a few months ago for their June 2013 wedding (yeah, she’s on top of things!), so yesterday was my first time meeting her and Nick in person. Jen’s dad collects and restores antique cars from the ’50s (and they’ll have some at the wedding), so she thought it would be fun to do part of their shoot at a diner. She found us Budabing’s 50′s Cafe in Millis, and the folks that work there couldn’t have been nicer (when I asked for the whipped cream the waitress responded, “Anything for young love.”)
After the diner, we headed to a local park, then wrapped up behind a church (hey when the light’s awesome, it doesn’t matter where you go), here are a few of my favorites.
As I was trying (and becoming increasingly frustrated) to set up this ring shot without losing the ring to the bottom of the milkshake it dawned on me, if they can use mashed potatoes as ice cream in professional food shoots, I can make my own rules. I borrowed a can of whipped cream and stuck a napkin in the top of the glass, which I then covered in whipped cream and placed the ring back on top. Who knows, if this photo thing doesn’t work out, maybe I have a future in prop styling on food shoots.
After Taran and Robert’s wedding last weekend at the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center, I thought it might be fun to share a little of how I lit the photos for their toasts. The reception room at CMAC is gorgeous, but does provide one challenge, and extremely high ceiling. Unlike say, the downtown Harvard Club though, the walls and ceiling are bright and reflective, so bouncing flash off of them is not a problem. Any of the following images could have been made with three lights, but the bounce from the balcony would have needed to be set to 1/4 power (vs. 1/16) which would have meant a far slower recycle time (and a less even spread of light).
Here’s a wide shot of the room.
Initially I’d set up three lights in the balcony for the first dance, set to 1/16 power and bounced upwards, which when combined with my on-camera TTL bounce flash gave me an even light across the dance floor. When Taran and Robert took their seats for the toasts though, I felt like using the four bounce flashes alone just didn’t give me enough pop.
Here’s a straight bounce flash photo. The exposure was 1600 ISO 1/200 at F/2.8 with my 70-200 on the Nikon D3s.
Nice, but I felt like it was missing something. At this point I was out of light stands as it’s rare that we need more than 3 on a wedding day, so I set a fifth flash to 1/64 power and had Jess hold it and aim it at the back of Taran & Robert while they watched the toasts.
The exposure for these next two was D3s with 70-200 ISO 1250 1/250 at F/2.8.
Here’s a diagram of the setup to get a better idea of where the lights were. The balcony bounce flashes were at 1/16 for the entire reception, and my on-camera TTL flash ranged from zero exposure compensation to -2/3.
The added benefit of not placing the final light on a stand was that when I turned to photograph the toaster, Jess was able to turn with me and direct the light at the best man and maid of honor.
