The Last Word: A Church with No Roof

I recently had a chance to photograph at Old Sheldon Church, near Beaufort, SC, with my photography buddy, Tyler Nafziger. Tyler had gotten a beautiful model, Sarah, and I had brought a wedding dress with me on the seven-hour trip from Florida.

The church was built in 1745, and had been burned down twice, the last time in the 1860s by General Sherman’s troops. There is nothing left of the church but brick walls and gorgeous surrounding trees. The only negatives to this area were the heat and thousands of bugs. Sarah was a real trooper! I had a vision of photographing a bride there at sunset for years, and now I had the opportunity.

As we walked around the church, Tyler and I started with simple, ambient light images, but I wanted something more. We had brought some AlienBees strobes with a Vagabond battery pack. The nearest power was over 10 miles away. This setup allowed us to use a large light source with as much power as 1800 W/s out of one or more strobe heads, which is amazing. We entered the “interior” of the church as the sun was setting. Tyler quickly put the largest softbox we had on a light stand, and raised it about 13 feet in the air. We then positioned another strobe to highlight the walls, and a Quantum Q-flash to light the veil. The main light metered at f/11, veil light was metered at f/8 and the walls metered at f/5.6 at ISO 400.

The ambient light metered at 1/30 second, but I set my shutter to 1/90 (underexposing the sky) to bring out the sky colors. I laid down on the ground with my Sigma 10–20mm f/3.5 EX DC HSM lens on my Fuji FinePix S5 Pro camera. The main light was placed camera right and I asked Sarah to lean toward me, and keep her head turned toward the light source. Leaning at the waist toward me helped minimize the distortion of her body with the extreme camera angle. The dramatic angle of the main light helped bring out the beadwork of the dress. I also made sure not to turn her body toward the light source, as that would flatten out any detail. We photographed different versions of this image until the sunlight was gone. In two hours, we shot 400 images in RAW.

The image was then converted to a .dng file (Adobe digital negative) in Adobe Bridge. I find the .dng files are about 20% smaller then Fuji RAW files, with no loss of quality. I burned down the dress slightly in Photoshop, and did minor retouching on her skin, to remove the mosquito bites!

Sometimes it takes working with models, or just willing friends, to try new ideas. It is not always the best idea to ask a client to experiment in 100-degree heat. I have a burning desire to create new images constantly. I did not have this particular shot in my mind when the session began. I knew I just needed to create something new and different.

Alfred Gordon is one of the most decorated wedding photographers in Florida. He has photographed over 1000 weddings throughout the southeast and Jamaica. He has won awards for his photography on the local, state and international levels including WPPI’s Grand Award, ASP Masters Loan Collection and the Kodak Gallery Award.