One of my first posts was about the Golden Hour, and how it casts beautiful soft light ideal for Bride & Groom portraits.
Well, I was up at my partner's house and visiting his grandad who lives near a river and it was a lovely clear evening so I dragged him out to have a go at capturing the sunset and the golden light.
The sunset was glorious. Stunning. Astounding. It was one of those perfect orange to blue to purple coloured ones reflected in the river.
I took a few portrait shots of my partner silhouetted against the sunset, and of the sunlight on his face. They came out pretty well I think.
Now, I made an incredibly stupid mistake. I forgot to take my tripod! What I really wanted is to get a nice off-camera flash to the side of my partner for dramatic lighting. But I forgot it, and the drive was a good half hour back so we couldn't just nip.
Instead I exposed for the sunset and for my partner, and in Lightroom had a play around to see whether it was better to darken the sunset or lighten him. I found darkening the sunset to be a bit better.
I also tried using the pop-up flash on my camera, exposing for the sunset and dropping the flash's power by a couple of stops. It created a very flat lit image. I have attempted to rescue it in Lightroom, but I think it is mediocre at best.
This just shows how important lighting and off-camera flash can be! A bit of fill flash with the pop-up flash can be useful, but when trying to get dramatic lighting they just do not work.
+ Remember my tripod
+ Make sure flash & wireless triggers have batteries
Lesson learned!