RF Cookbook – Yervant: Dancing under Umbrellas

How do you create a harmonious portrait of a bride and her 15 bridesmaids when they’re each wearing a different style and color of dress? Australia’s Yervant faced this dilemma while photographing a wedding at an Australian winery. He faced not only an incongruent mix of color, material and design among the bridesmaids dresses, but also a hot Australian sun and a stark landscape made up of heavily reflective surfaces and very few background opportunities.

“The reception was scheduled almost immediately after the marriage ceremony, so I had very little time to take the wedding party portraits,” says Yervant. “I had to think fast and come up with something both artistic and spectacular while working with less-than-perfect circumstances.
“The only common components among the 15 bridesmaids were the Asian umbrellas they used throughout the shoot to keep them cool under the sun,” he says. “They were very pretty and colorful, and they made beautiful images, but I felt that a well crafted, black-and-white image would have an even stronger impact than color—especially if I finished it in my signature black-and-white art style.”

Yervant saw all the girls waiting with their umbrellas as he descended a staircase. “I saw this beautiful image from above, so I asked the bridesmaids to put their umbrellas a little closer together and stand directly under each one,” says Yervant. “Then I asked the bride to dance in amongst the umbrellas.

“I had a few magical seconds to capture some beautiful expressions, but this was my favorite,” he said. “I worked on it using my own set of Photoshop actions to create a signature piece of black-and-white wall art.”

In postproduction Yervant converted the image to black and white using his Photoshop action, Yervant B&W, which is part of a new actions pack: Yervant—Dancing with Photoshop ACTIONS, Volume 2. He darkened the edges of the image as well as the area outside the bride’s parameters using a Vignette from his ACTIONS and used the Diffuse Glow filter in Photoshop CS4 on the umbrellas. Visit Yervant’s website: www.yervant.com.au.

Ingredients:

• Camera: Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III
• Lens: Canon EF 24–70mm f/2.8L USM
• Exposure: 1/200 at f/8, ISO 125
• Software: Apple Aperture 2, Adobe Photoshop CS4
• Actions: Yervant B&W, Yervant—Dancing with Photoshop™ ACTIONS, www.yervant.info