I have my first real mixed couple wedding this week, and I wanted to get some of your thoughts regarding any tips or ticks to properly meter and expose everything. The bride is Chinese American, so she's pretty fare skinned and will have a traditional white gown. The groom is African American, has a darker complexion, and will have the traditional black tux. I'm not certain, but I'm guessing the difference between them is about a stop, give or take a bit. Ceremony is outdoors during the day, reception indoors at night. My guess is to just meter for the brides face and maybe over expose 1/3. However, I don't know if that's going to blow out her dress or not. Also, should I flash it even outdoors in day light? I don't know, never shot one of these, so any tips you have will be greatly appreciated.
I expose in the middle being very careful not to lose shadows on him and then balance it out later in post. I've shot my friends family several times infusing a few weeks ago and she is as white as me (freckles and all) and he is very dark. Basically I expose for their kids. lol
It honestly makes no difference how far apart the bride and groom are. As in every other situation, expose to protect the highlights and know that you can pull up the shadows easily in post. Assuming your shooting Nikon
You're more likely to clip highlights on the lighter skin than you are to clip blacks on the darker skin. I would expose as you normally would for the lighter skin tone, then push shadows as needed in post processing.
The only thing I do is (assuming that i am using some off camera light) is to try and give the darker skin a little more light during the formals. Otherwise, I don't do anything different.
Jim, your samples look great. Thanks for sharing. My groom's complexion is closer to the man in blue to the far left, and the bride is similar to this bride.
Hah, we're all about this. Two of our first three weddings involved mixed race couples. For this wedding, we pretty much did business as normal. That is, we exposed the way the people looked to us. If you're really worried about it, I'd expose for the lighter complexion and pull up the darker one in post, as others have noted. We're about to start editing our second mixed wedding, and I'll update the thread when it's done.
Thanks for the feedback peeps. I went to the rehearsal today, and tried various things without a flash. Surprisingly, just shooting it at 0EV in RAW seems to still pick up his skin tone without blowing hers out. I'm hoping this is not just a fluke and will hold true tomorrow as well. Only problem is, I have to do the formals in the midday sun, at an open golf course. God help us all.
Metering is a non-issue. Meter as you normally would.
What is an issue is how you give definition. You give definition to a fair skinned subject by using the shadows. You give definition to a dark skinned subject by using the highlights.
Let that guide how you position off camera lights, or how you position them with respect to the light.
to add to what I said... in most circumstances, reasonably controlled specular highlights, especially on dark skinned dudes look epic... so don't fear harsh light, they can take it!
lisy78 wrote:
to add to what I said... in most circumstances, reasonably controlled specular highlights, especially on dark skinned dudes look epic... so don't fear harsh light, they can take it!
Thanks for this tip Ale. Just to test out your theory, I had him stand facing directly at the blazing sun. The sun was probably at its harshest. I was actually pretty surprised at how well his skin tone took it. http://www.limonphotography.com/FM/skinsuntest.jpg
