There is nothing like that first few minutes of light from a sunrise and the last few minutes from a sunset to just make everything fall into place. Shooting at Cox Arboretum in Miamisburg, OH this evening provided one of those opportunities. As I type this, I have the 19x13 image coming off the Canon 9500 Mark II printer so it can be mounted in the office in the morning.
Canon 5D Mark III, 70-200mm L IS, 1/200th, f/4.5, ISO 200 |
Here are the elements that bring this shot together.
1) Timing!!!!! With about 10 minutes of light left in the day, we are seeing that "Golden Hour" color just shine through the shot.
2) The arrangement of the shot has the sun at about 10 o'clock and low in the sky. Shooting at this angle gave the large sun flare spots just to the left of the subject. I was shooting with a 70-200mm L IS on a 5D Mark III body to also give the shot some compression.
3) I added a fill flash just slightly off camera left
3) I added some vignetting in Lightroom 4 to help bring the focus to the center
4) The color of the dress and flowers matched
5) Finally, remember the rule of thirds!
The whole series of pictures came out amazing.
Enjoy!
JP