Dropping this tip a little late today but happy W.T.W. everybody! With it being Earth Day yesterday, I thought I’d involve the object that swings us around once a year into this weeks tip. That’s right the Sun. Which, as the They Might Be Giants song goes, is “a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furness,” and obviously very important to us “light writers.” More specifically, when it sets.
Now as it relates to wedding photography, here’s the tip: Know the sunset time of the wedding day. This is very helpful for a few reasons. First off, it will answer the question of how much daylight you have. This will be especially important to those of you wedding photographers who tend to not use strobes. Once the Sun is set for the day, you’ll have to begin to add your own light. That is unless you are a Nikon D3 owner. In this case, the light reflected off the Moon or even the soft glow of the Milky Way Galaxy will suffice. I’m kidding. That was just my attempt at “low noise at high ISO” humor (key word: attempt.) But seriously, the point here is to know how long you’ll have sunlight that day.
Secondly, it seems that most brides I shoot always want to try to get a shot involving the sunset. Where I’m located, the sunset times can vary quite a bit, from 9:03 in June all the way to a depressing 4:33 in December. For this reason I have found it to be very helpful to research and take note of the sunset time before I meet a wedding couple. That way as you discuss with them the outline of their wedding day, you can determine where in their day “game plan” sunset actually falls. Plus, how professional (albeit nerdy) do you look when the couple sees that you have actually done the work to research this?
Lastly, if you have the pleasure of photographing an outdoor wedding, knowing the sunset time is very valuable. Not just for a ceremony that is taking place at sunset but when thinking about at what angle and direction in the sky the Sun will appear. Say for example that you are shooting an outdoor ceremony at 6:30 in the evening and you know the Sun sets at 8:05. Using this information, you can pretty much count on very warm light coming in at a low angle to your subjects. The most important thing to think about is,”How is this nice warm light going to be hitting my subjects”? Are the bride and groom severely back lit so that you see nothing but their silhouette? Is the sunlight coming in directly from one side so that the bride is totally hidden in the groom’s shadow? These are circumstances you can prepare for and therefore properly deal with if you have done your Sun homework.
If you do a quick Google search, you’ll see that there are quite a few “sunset calculators” out there to help you figure out the sunset time of your wedding. The one that I use is found over on The Weather Channel website. As a wedding photographer who only shoots here in the US, it’s pretty simple and just perfect for my needs. All you do is enter in the wedding date and the zip code and click “Go.” It then lists the exact time of sunset, the phase of the moon, and the time civil twilight ends on the day of the wedding. “Civil twilight?” you say? Don’t worry, it also gives you a thorough definition of what this is. I was actually pleasantly surprised to see The Weather Channel had a wedding planning section with tips for destination weddings as well as a “Hurricane 101” page for those getting married or honeymooning in these parts of the world. There’s sure to be some tips there that would be helpful for photographers fortunate enough to shoot in those locales.
As always I encourage you to share your tips, techniques, and websites relating to this topic. Thanks!
Dz
Sweet tip man… A+