Looking for some Advice on a Shoot

[toddgeer]

Hiya.

I have a shoot in September and am planning things out. I'd like some advice on how to handle the lighting and camera angles.

It's a motorcycle rally, and the booth I'm helping with will be performing marriage ceremonies. We're inside a trio of tents, I believe each one is 10x10. The ceremony will most likely involve just the couple, but on some occasions may include some guests. And of course, the pastor and the photographer.

The layout is like so:
http://www.videofacets.com/1.jpg

My lighting is three simple Smith-Victor tungsten 250W satin aluminum lights on 6 foot stands.

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance!

Todd

 

[sinjinza1984]

Lighting setup

Lighting setup

Let's see if we can help you here. The only thing that I could think of, due to the limitations in size and number of lights is to use your lights to improve the baselight conditions in the tents, rather than try to actually create a lighting setup using the 'triangle' method. Try to bounce your lights off of the walls of the tents, or try to diffuse them heavily. This will raise the baselight enough to help you get decent shots of the couples and ministers involved. You could try to get some umbrellas for diffusion, or simply use the walls of the tents to diffuse the light (obviously, this depends on the colour of the walls of the tents, you can't use a matte black wall for diffusion). By raising the overall light levels in the tents, you can then hopefully try to get acceptable shots of the bride, groom, minister, and any guests at the ceremony. I would also see if there was anywhere that I could borrow some extra lights from. Extra lights can be used as fill lights to further improve definition on the faces of the people involved, or could even be used as backlights to create the professional looking 'sparkle'. Of course, backlights and fill lights need to be diffused as well, to prevent them from dominating the picture. Send me a reply if you need any further help.

 

[toddgeer]

Fantastic idea, thank you. I believe the tents will be white and that is a great option, for light as well as heat. With the price I'm charging, the "Sparkle" offered by a back light can be left out.

You talk about "baseline," can you tell me more about that?

I don't recall being notified of your reply, thanks for sending a separate message.

Todd