John is an IT guy and an avid Caps fan... when there isn't a lockout. Danielle is a teacher and also works with and rides horses whenever she gets the chance.  We had the session at River Chase Farm in Aldie, Virginia which is where Danielle rides at. It is also where John proposed to Danielle.We started the shoot in one of the barns and ended with Beau (the other guy in Danielle's life) out in one of the fields.

Danielle and John- I am so excited for your wedding in October 2013!

Huge thank you to the lovely Katy for helping me on this shoot! Check out the end of the blog post for a peek behind the scenes.

Behind the Scenes: The first location we shot was up in the roof area of one of the barns. It had very little natural light coming in from a single window. So we needed to add extra light to make shooting possible.

The key light was a Nikon SB-910 with a 30" Lastolite Ezybox on a monopod which Katy was holding. I added a second light to help give more detail of the barn behind them. For that I used another SB-910 on a Manfrotto Justin Clamp on the ground. I used a Pocket Wizard MultiMax to trigger the speed lights and Plus IIs for the receivers.

-Becca

I am taking a break from writing emails to write about some of the things that make my heart happy.Plus there is a behind the scenes look at lighting a wedding portrait on location at the end of the blog post.

CANNNDYYY- I have an insatiable sweet tooth. I constantly have candy near by. Right now on my desk I have 2 chocolate bars, one thing of Starburst, 3 bags of Skittles, and a half eaten bag of Dove Chocolate. Yep. So when I'm editing your photos, writing a blog post (like this one), or responding to an email, I'm probably on some sort of sugar high.

My lovely Fuji Instax Camera- So many people think that instant cameras are dead, and that is completely not true. Recently, I bought a Fuji Instax camera just for my personal entertainment. It may be a little on the bulky side, but I love taking it with me to shoots, weddings, and everywhere else and snapping some quick photos. It's also super handy for location scouting. Just bring a sharpie, and you can label all of your photos with the address that it was taken.

Photo Mechanic- This is one of those programs that has saved me SO MUCH time since I was introduced to it. (Shout out to Kyle LaFerriere.) I used to spend hours waiting for photos to import and render and whatever else in Adobe Lightroom just to narrow them down to the final photos. This nifty software makes culling down photos a snap. For example, I culled down ~5,000 photos in an hour and a half with Photo Mechanic. Usually, that would have taken me 4-5 hours. What this means? Less time in front of the computer and more time doing the fun stuff like ACTUALLY TAKING PHOTOGRAPHS!

Here is a quick look behind the scenes: If you follow my blog/work, you have probably seen Anna and Lucas' wedding at Rosemont Manor earlier this month. I just want to quickly show you how we lit one of the portraits of Anna and Lucas.

BTS Photos taken by Cory

The entire shot is a two light set up triggered by Pocket Wizards (two Plus IIs and a MultiMax). I added the one large key light to the upper left with a 30" Lastolite EZYBox with a Nikon SB-910 at a 1/16th. I then realized that the entire inside of the arch would be completely dark without an extra light. So I added a SB-910 (I think at a 1/32nd) with no modifier directly behind them on a chair. I pointed it up slightly toward their faces. That gave them a little bit of rim light and lit up the area behind them nicely. You can see PJ holding up the Lastolite on the handy-dandy monopod, and I am directly behind her. Camera settings: 50mm, 1/100 of a second, f/2.2, ISO 500

That's the finished product. Aren't they gorgeous?!?!

Moshe Zusman has a great blog post on his workshops website about how to build up lighting for a studio portrait here. You can modify/tweak that system for on location photos.

-Becca