Scott Kelby’s Step-by-Step Guide to Making Brides Shine

Scott Kelby has an impressive list of credentials, including award-winning author, photographer, CEO of KelbyOne, and editor and publisher of Photoshop User and Light It magazine, among many other things. Here, he shares some excerpts from his book, The Digital Photography Book, Part 5: Photo Recipes (Peachpit Press).

ONE-LIGHT SETUP

All photos © Scott Kelby 

Behind-the-Scenes
You only need one flash for this look, and we place it behind the bride and at a 45-degree angle (so it’s behind her and off to the side). The softbox is a small one (24 x 24 inches) on a light stand held up by an assistant. That’s pretty much it—simple.

Camera Settings
Since we’re shooting with a flash, we’re in manual mode on the camera (that way we can dial in the exact settings we need). My f-stop is f/5, and my shutter speed is 1/60 of a second. (Anything under 1/200 of a second will work. If you go much higher than that, you’ll probably see a dark gradient start to appear across the bottom of your image.) I’m shooting with a 70–200mm lens zoomed all the way out to 70mm, and I’m at 100 ISO (my lowest, cleanest ISO).

TIP: The Advantage of a Light Stand vs. a Monopod
Mounting your flash on the end of a monopod is super convenient because it’s very light­weight. There are no legs hanging off, etc., but holding up a light stand does have one big advantage over a monopod: when your helper holding the flash gets tired, they can simply extend the legs of the light stand, put it down, and take a rest (or just use the light stand, in some cases). With the monopod, when they need to take a rest, they have to find a place to put the light where it won’t tip over and crash to the ground. (I’ve seen it happen. When it does, the flash is usually dead.)

FINAL IMAGE

Thought Process
Light bounces off whatever it hits and if it hits something red, like that red door she’s leaning against, it’s going to bounce a lot of red light back onto her. I pretty much knew this was going to need to be either black and white or a duotone, like you see above. This shot is all about the shadows, which is why I put the light behind her, but we’re going to need some post processing to make it as dark as we want it. As far as the lighting goes, we’re aiming for that rim light along the edges of her hair, shoulders, arms and dress, so keep the power of the flash pretty low. If you turn the power of the flash up too high, it will bounce off of everything and overlight it so you’ll lose all those nice, dark shadow areas.

Post Processing
To make the shot more dramatic, I used Lightroom’s Develop module (or Camera Raw) and darkened the overall exposure by dragging the Exposure slider to the left quite a bit. To make the lighting brighter, I dragged the Highlights slider to the right quite a bit as well. Then, I converted the image to black and white (by clicking on Black & White at the top right of the Basic panel; in Camera Raw, turn on the Convert to Grayscale checkbox in the HSL/Grayscale panel) and applied a duotone look in the Split Toning panel by increasing just the Shadows Saturation slider to 20 and Hue slider to 32. I also used the Adjustment Brush to brighten her face a little bit, darken the bouquet some, and darken the far-right side of the wall (it was reflecting too much of the light).

DRAMATIC LIGHTING

Behind-the-Scenes
Here, you can see the simple one-light setup: it’s a 24-inch softbox on a lightweight light stand. It’s to the left of the camera, a few feet in front of our subject, up high and aiming down. All the lights are on in the church.

Camera Settings
I’m shooting in manual mode on my camera, but to create the drama, I’m shooting with a higher shutter speed than my normal 1/125 of a second. In this case, to intentionally darken the area around my subject, I raised the shutter speed to 1/200 of a second. (That’s about as high as I can go with a studio strobe, which is what I’m using here with an Elinchrom Ranger Quadra flash head and its portable battery pack. If you’re using a Canon or Nikon speed light, then you can go up to 1/250 of a second before you have a flash sync problem, where you see a dark gradient across the bottom of the image.) I stood way back from our bride and used a 70–200mm f/2.8 lens at f/6.3 zoomed out to around 82mm to capture some of the pews and the stained glass windows behind her in the shot.

FINAL IMAGE

Thought Process
The idea for this look is to keep the light really soft and subtle, and let the background pretty much fall to black, which is why I raised the shutter speed to 1/200 of a second. What makes this shot look so elegant, besides the light, is the pose. First, her body is turned away from the light. When the bride tilts her head toward her back shoulder, it’s a more casual look. When she tilts her head to the front shoulder, it gives a more elegant look.

Post Processing
To make the light appear more focused, add a dark edge vignette around the edges of the image. You can do this in the Effects panel in Lightroom’s Develop module (or Camera Raw), under Post Crop Vignetting: drag the Amount slider to the left and, if it doesn’t extend inward far enough, drag the Midpoint slider to the left as well (the farther to the left you drag it, the farther in the edge darkening extends).

Related Links

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