Sometimes its fun to use silhouettes to enhance wedding photography at San Francisco City Hall. In the photo above we positioned the bride in front of the third floor window on the North Side of the building. The natural light gave her veil and the front of the dress a nice glow. One other thing that makes this photo unique is that fact that it was raining outside. Ordinarily, this would be not noticed, but in this shot, you can see evidence of it on the window itself. The funny thing is that for a few years now I have tried to duplicate this image, but I have not been able to. Looking back, I think it was largely the outside rain that made this photograph so special. The condensation on the back of the window caused it to be more reflective and also gives it a bit of a blue tone. In addition, the amount of light on the subject is hard to duplicate unless the light in the building is low. This would be caused by a dark day which accompanies a heavy rain. I believe, this is probably the most likely reason that I have had trouble recreating this image exactly. However, I always try to provide brides and grooms with at least one silhouette image to go along with their full portfolio of pictures. I think these types of wedding photography images gives our couples a nice variety of shots to choose from.
The photo below represents another approach to city hall wedding photography. We like to call these shots "across the way photos". Basically what this means is that we are using telephoto lenses to capture pictures of our couples from one side of the building to the other. The challenge with these types of photos is communicating with the couple about what we want them to do. So even though there can be some misunderstandings, I think the results are worth the effort. I often have my assistant help direct the couple on how to pose by hiding in a place close by to them.
