Photographer: Neal Urban
Shooting at night sets the stage for some inventive and dramatic looks—especially with the addition of strobe or LED lighting.
LED and Moonlight
At a dock outside the couple’s reception venue (top left), Neal Urban set up the bride and groom in a pose they could hold for the long exposure needed to bring out the sky. Shooting from a tripod, an Ice Light was positioned just over Neal’s right shoulder to light the couple. He shot with a fluorescent color balance for enhanced blue tones.
LED, Speedlight, and Headlights
The couple seen below was particularly excited about the Rolls Royce they’d hired for the end of the night, so Neal made sure to stick around for some images. “Usually, people who rent special cars have them only during the day,” he points out. The fact that this couple had one for the evening offered some rare opportunities. “The parking lot was pitch black. We had to add our own light on anything we wanted to see,” says Neal. To light the couple and the car’s interior, he placed an Ice Light on their laps. He added an SB-900 on the ground behind the car to light the pavement; the exhaust from the car also lit up with this flash, helping to make the car stand out.
Reflections at night (below) can present some challenges. “I tried this shot a few times with the backlight set pretty low, just creating a little glow around the couple,” says Neal. “At those settings, the background didn’t show up at all. That wasn’t really a concern—except that with nothing in the background, there were also no reflections in the pool. The water didn’t even look like it was there.” Setting the SB-900 to full power, Neal repositioned the light a good distance from the couple so the blast illuminated the trees and the background. “Since it lit up the whole street, the entire scene showed up as a reflection in the pool,” says Neal.
LED and Street Lights
Adjusting it to balance with the ambient light in the rest of the scene, Neal simply added an Ice Light to camera left for the top-right portait. Other than that, the shot relied on street lighting (note the red rim light on the bride’s hair and back from a nearby traffic signal).
