the Obligation

On March 9th, the wife and I traveled 8 hours to her hometown of Hanover PA for her sister's wedding. On March 6th, I was asked by her sister to take 'a few' pictures.
With 120 shots taken, later to be edited to 60 shots, gives new meaning to the term 'family obligation.'
The job itself was quick and dirty: on camera flash straight on to the subjects with my reliable manuel settings, 400 iso. 1/60 sec at f8+/- half a stop and TTL flash sync. Ceilings were 20 ft high, much too high for bounce flash, so almost every shot was direct flash, producing hot hightlights(noticeable on glasses) and hard shadows. No post production work in photoshop, just converting from raw files to tifs and jpgs for a site a later built for them.
I did try to experiment a little. The shot of Michelle's dad in the church was achieved by bouncing a Metz off the side wall of the church and use of a slave to fire the SB-800 flash to provide fill (barely noticeable as it was stopped down about 2 stops) and a little shutter drag to allow for ambient light to expose the background. The shutter was set at 1/20 sec.
I liked the overall feel of the image but knew this could not be repeated on the spot as the bride and father would be walking down the isle thus changing the distance of the bounced light off the church walls already strained and maxed out. So I went back to basics just to get the shot because I knew no one would be upset over the outcome of the shots.

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