Yorkshire Wedding PhotographerAs a Yorkshire Wedding Photographer, I make a promise to myself before I shoot each and every wedding. That promise is that I will push the creative envelope a little bit further on at every wedding day that I cover. To be creative as a wedding photographer is a given but often there is so much going on at weddings, that I really have to plan well ahead how I am going to fit in the ‘diamond’ shots that I like to deliver for my clients. The shot above was taken during a very busy wedding day for Caroline and Paul and I only needed 5 minutes of their time to create it. I had been thinking of this shot over the past few weddings but it never quite made its debut until last Saturday. I always recall my Canadian photo mentors doing a similar shot on dancefloors and it worked really well but I wanted to put my own spin on it. I took Paul and Caroline out onto the croquet lawn at Rowley Manor and placed a Quantum Q Flash behind them on a small tripod, a Pocket wizard was used to trigger it. I think the flash was on around 1/4 power. My first exposures were around 1/8th second and I instantly liked the look but I knew there was another element missing. I opened up the shutter to around 4 seconds for the frame above and what happened was just magic – although it was pitch black, the camera’s sensor picked up on the very low amount of ambient light and burnt in the beautiful red sky you see in the scene. I had to ask Caroline and Paul to keep very still as my Nikon D700 recorded the frame but 4 seconds of stillness for the bride and groom was much appreciated! There is absolutely zero photoshop work in this image, it is as was captured in the camera and is a very similar effect even if I had used film (film? What’s that now?) I’m really proud of this image and it has definitely raised the bar for the lit work I do for modern, discerning wedding couples and it is why as a Yorkshire Wedding Photograper, I love my job!