Adjusting The Sun

Landscape photographers have a good deal in common with wedding photographers; they have to hike great distances hauling heavy equipment, their subjects that have impossible dynamic range, and they are never quite at peace with the weather.

The first problem can be addressed by simply employing native bearers or wives. They carry the tripod, gadget bag, 14 different lenses, and water bottles on their heads and you simply stride through the dripping jungle or the local council gardens with them in a long line behind you. A solar topee is not absolutely necessary but it makes a nice touch. It is wise to determine if the natives or the wives are friendly before you put the topee on...

The impossible dynamic range is a stiffer problem. Brides WILL insist on wearing white, or some variation of it. Grooms WILL wear black. You have to make the dress and the tux look good so sometimes you have to adjust the dynamic range of your camera to try to accommodate this. Just when you get enough detail in the two extremes you note that everything else has gone dull gray... Grit your teeth and post process it.

Adjusting the weather or the angle of the sun is not easy - even Joshua needed help doing that - but you can use the sun that is overhead to help you out. Remember that you don't just have one light source up there -you have two. The vast bowl of Western Australian blue sky is an immense fill light, but unfortunately biased in its colour temperature. You might have to retreat under a tree and get a polariser to remove the blue from the scene. You might have to overpower the sun with a close-range burst of light from a Canon or Nikon speed light.

You might have to get an assistant to shade your subject with a diffusion panel - here the wedding worker has the advantage as it is easier to shade a bride than Bluff Knoll. Remember that there are any number of HDR programs available as plug-ins for your computer and if you are prepared to explain to the bride why her complexion has come out
looking like that, you can get great effects in the bridal dress. Those of you who are booked for a lot of  brides and grooms on pebble beaches under a storm-wracked sky in Yorkshire may care to remember this. You'll be the darling of the English photo magazines...