Today we are going to talk about overcoming the best prepared plans going out the window.
I schedule a bridal session with Kylie for this past Saturday at a location in Pflugervile at a local park featuring a Green Red Barn, a nice little gazebo, and a Century Old House. I had gone there twice for scouting purposes, planned where I would want to place her and which lenses to use and where. Even wrote them down to carry with me so that I could let emotion and creativity take over once the shoot started and still get the framework of images I wanted.
Texas Weather had other plans.
On the Thursday before the Saturday session, weather.com was predicting rain. Uh-oh, start looking for back up sites. On Friday, it looked like Saturday would be nice and clear. Saturday came, and the rain I had hoped wouldn’t show didn’t, but in it’s place came a mighty wind. If you have lived in Central, we get these blue northerners coming through pretty briskly, and then a coastal south wind returns the favor. At least the skies were cool.
The winds were in the 15-20 mph range with some serious gusts coming through from time to time. Sandbags weren’t going to hold a 2 foot square softbox. Luckily for me, my second shooter for the wedding came out to help and meet the bride. Thanks Kaush and Chris!
So what to do? your favorite spots are invalid with the wind blowing.
First thing we did was keep the bride in the car while Kaush and I scouted for both look and wind shields.
The house from the top picture was something I wanted to incorporate into the pictures, so we found a corner where the wind was minimized to get the sitting down shots from the prepared list. This bought us time in hopes that the afternoon wind would wind down. (see what I did there)
The second location of the big red barn we had to move to the side to keep the wind in the right side of Kylie’s face.
The best thing was the crazy sky that added a touch of the dramatic to the photos, and with the wind speed they were moving fast enough to give us “multiple backgrounds”
The key to making this a successful shoot in spite of the howling breeze, was having a vision of the images you want from the get go. Wind can be blocked by buildings, light stands can be held by assistants, advance scouting will key you in to alternate shots. Shooting on-location portraits is always going to be a chancy game, so do your best to come with an ability to roll with the punches and make the images you want to make.
Pictures are made with cameras or crayolas, and our craniums.
Josh loves a good adventure and some of his favorite wedding and engagement shoots have involved “getting crazy” or going somewhere special to the couple.
Josh is a Texas native and long time Pflugerville resident. He started his photography business in 2009 and has never looked back. His photo business even allowed him to be daddy-day-care before his two sons reached school age. Over the years his business has expanded to include just about every type of photography including automotive, editorial portraits, corporate events, sports and food. Through it all, he has continued to love wedding photography for genuine moment, the fast pace and the diversity of subjects it offers. Josh is a co-founder of North Austin Pfoutographic Society and a resident instructor at Precision Camera & Video in Austin, Tx.