Group shots and receptions

Oh that favourite topic of every photographer, group shots!  My father's (delayed) wedding reception was on the weekend and he asked me to shoot it.  I drove through a rather crazy wind storm to find the party had already started without me having any time to setup.  Pictures available at http://photos.davidporterphotography.ca/wedding-porter (If you don't have the password, contact the bride or groom, not me.)

I had with me a 17-55 and 2 hand held strobes with light stands and pocket wizards.  As I quickly assessed the home, I determined it had some good and bad points.  Lots of marvelous large glass windows letting in tonnes of ambient light, open concept design and a front hall that just killed me.  It also had a ceiling that was painted with white paint.  Perfect.

Now, with just 2 lights and 0 assistants,there's no easy way to get great lighting on everything all the time.  At least not with this many people in a room this big.  You have to pick your spots.  I set up both lights on light stands, one of which I quickly moved after seeing it starting to wobble as people were passing by.  I found the top of the kitchen shelves to place one strobe on and bounce off the ceiling while finding another out of the way spot to place a lighting stand and bounce from an opposite direction.


Did this give me perfect lighting all the time?  No.

The long kitchen bar and wooden cabinets gave me heck the whole time as I had one strobe placed on top of the cabinets so it could hit the ceiling and not get knocked over.

Did it give me good quality lighting in a few high traffic areas that I could cover with no assistant?  Yes.

My strobes were hitting the ceiling area over the living and dining rooms to make for consistently good crisp pics all afternoon at a steady f6.3, ISO400 1/125 all the time.  The strobes were set to about 1/4 power so they could recycle quickly.