Sunita & Kelly Engagement

I met Sunita and Kelly about a month ago.   I was excited when they booked me to shoot their October 7th wedding in Florence, Texas.   We decided to do Sunita’s Bridal session on August 31 at Laguna Gloria (I can’t post these until after the wedding) and then we did the Enagement session the next day, September 1st, at the Long Center, Butler Park and the Lamar Walking Bridge.   My son Michael assisted.

One set of images I really love were the “flow posing” images with Sunita and Kelly backlit by the sun.  I often look for this type of lighting.  The key is to be able to keep the lens of the camera in the shade so we don’t get sunlight in the lens which will produce lens flare and low contrast images.  At the same time, we need to pretty much have the couple’s back directly to the sun.  I was able to use one of the columns at the long center to shade my lens while having Sunita and Kelly with their backs almost directly at the sun (the slight angle produced a “kiss” of light on the side of Kelly’s face which is an effect I like).  This backlighting produces beautiful hair light and separates the subject from the background (ie. the hairlight makes the subject stand out from the background rather than having dark hair blend in with a dark background).

Another great set of images was taken with the pond in the background and Austin cityscape in the far background.  The lighting here was supplemented with a Canon flash through an umbrella to produce beautiful, diffuse light on Sunita and Kelly (with Michael expertly holding the umbrella).  Using this technique, we can adjust our shutter speed to make the background slightly darker than the subject.  These were incredible images as well.

I enjoyed getting to know Kelly and spending more time with Sunita after our bridal shoot the day before.  We “beat the heat”, had a great time and captured beautiful images.  Now onto the Guest Book design.