Wedding and Fashion photography abroad: location, location, accommodation!

Nikon D810, Tamron 70-200 f/2.8 VC @ 200mm, 1/200sec @ f/2.8, ISO 200

As well as picking out shooting locations, one tiny little detail that can have a huge impact – accommodation. Hotels be extremely costly when booking in for yourself and a couple of models. Instead, we opted to use Airbnb and found a fantastic little apartment with enough beds for all of us and room to spare so the models could take a guest if they so fancied.

We made sure we were well located and could pretty much walk out of our apartment and be only a few minutes’ walk away from anywhere we wanted to be. Some locations were never going to be an easy walk away, especially for the models in full on wedding-dresses, or with us carrying lots of photography or lighting gear, so some places we re-planned or had to arrange a taxi for – another cost that needs to be considered!

Nikon D810, Tamron 70-200 f/2.8 VC @ 200mm, 1/250sec @ f/2.8, ISO 64 

Sharing the apartment meant that we were will able to brainstorm location and outfit combinations in break periods, as well as together review the results from the days’ shoots every evening. It made for a great sense of camaraderie between us all and really helped build some amazing relationships that we all cherish to this day. There is nothing better than making new friends through your photography and especially when those friends share your passion. The whole team of us have been chatting ever since we left, about where to go next… Of course, I base my decisions purely on food, so Dasha will probably have to have the final decision based on the photographic opportunities 😉

Nikon D810, Tamron 70-200 f/2.8 VC @ 122mm, 1/125sec @ f/2.8, ISO 400

Speaking of friends – One shoot, starting at around 10pm around the Colosseum, ended up with us meeting Eddie (feel free to follow him here (www.facebook.com/eddie.lain), an adventure trip coordinator at the Bucket List Travel Club (www.facebook.com/BucketListTravelClub). What started as a “sure, tag along if you want” conversation with an intrigued photographer ended up becoming an amazing late night-to-early morning shoot that finished at 5am! Needless to say, the next day’s diary changed somewhat but all I can say is it was worth it. Eddie is an amazing individual who himself could no doubt write several books on his experiences around the world. Eddie travels the world and photographs some of the most stunning locations planning travel photography holidays for like-minded adventurers. If you are struggling for ideas, you should definitely check them out.

Nikon D810, Nikkor 14-24 f/2.8 @ 19mm, 1/200sec @ f/2.8, ISO 400, Remotely fired flash (one behind the model and one to the left, out of shot, to light up the entire scene)

What’s more, one of his favoured shooting styles when we were there was to use a slow exposure on a tripod, so we decided to try something different and do a few slow exposures with multiple lights moving across the scene to light up the model and the steps around her. Something I had never really used much before and yet everything I learned from doing it for fun got put to good use in our last wedding of 2015 over New Year’s Eve (watch out for the video coming soon). Above is a shot as I might normally have taken it, lit with flash and all the ambience being ‘artificially created’.

Nikon D810, Nikkor 14-24 f/2.8 @ 19mm, 10 seconds @ f/5, ISO 1000, scene lit using light painting with a combination of pocket torch on the model and iphone flashlights up along the stair case either side)

Above, same location, using a long exposure and some light painting, the building is purely lit by the ambient lighting that was around, which was EXTREMELY yellow, and the bride is lit by the blue-tinted iphone and pocket torch lights. I rather like the balance of colours here and what I love is the completely different look and feel created from just a few minor changes in shooting style.

Tomorrow’s post will be our closing thoughts on the whole experience, a tremendous time spent with some wonderful people.

Previous post here;

http://www.danishapple.com/2016/01/wedding-and-fashion-photography-abroad-a-models-perspective/