It’s been an incredibly busy summer so far, so the “Shot of the Week” has unfortunately become more like “Shot of the Month”! I hope to get things back on track here soon, so please bear with me as I get caught up.
This week’s shot came from a recent wedding that I covered with a reception at the North Carolina State University Club here in downtown Raleigh. In looking through the images from the wedding, this one really stood out to me for its fun content and I think it brings something different for this series.
After the cake is cut and the bouquet is tossed, shooting the reception can sometimes get a bit challenging in terms of finding something new and interesting to show, but there is always something to keep an eye out for in terms of making a good picture to tell the story of the day. On this occasion, the children in the picture had taken their glow sticks onto the dance floor and had been playing around for a while. I took some shots of them dancing and twirling their glow sticks and watched the situation develop. First they were kind of off by themselves, but then they decided to join the glow sticks together and, all of a sudden, an impromptu limbo dance competition started with the bridesmaids as the main competitors. After about a minute, the band got into it too and the whole thing was pretty fun to watch.
I have been experimenting more with off-camera flash recently, but I’m still a sucker for available light and a flash on this occasion would have overpowered the subdued lighting of the scene. I used the 50mm f/1.2 wide open at ISO 1600 for a shot at 1/30th second, which was enough to get a good exposure and show some movement in the image too.
I took a few frames, but this was the one that came together best for me in terms of composition and capturing the fun of a good moment. The fact the bride is in the shot too is a welcome bonus!
