Anyone who knows me knows I love cloudy skies!! Sure blue skies are pretty but the cloudy ones make for better drama! The shot below is no exception!

It was Lieze and JP’s wedding at Blomhuis in Betty’s bay, it was getting dark and the sky was heavily overcast, light was dropping faster than our faith in bankers and we still needed to do the romantic shoot… eisch!! (“eisch” the South African equivalent of “eeeep!” (See Calvin and Hobbes) pronounced “aish” but I digress…)

By the time we got down to the beach I knew what it was like to be one of the three blind mice, lets just say I’m not planning to join the gang any time soon! I wondered around aimlessly trying to think what I could get out of the darkness, the sky still had some life left, else was all but pitch black, so start with the sky!

When using ambient light you always expose for the areas you can’t alter, since I don’t have divine powers that would be… yes you got it sparky! The sky! 1/4 s, f4 at a massive ISO 6400!!! (that’s quite something if you are into nerdy technical photographer talk!)

The next step was to adjust my flashes to balance, I decided to use two, one behind Lieze as a rim light and to highlight the veil, the other from the front, I also snooted the front one so I could concentrate the light on Lieze and exclude any bleed from hitting the ground.

Tech info: 5D MII, 24-105 f4 IS, 1/4 s, F4, ISO 6400, 2 x SB28′s triggered by Pocket Wizards.

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