So you may be wondering, “what is a day after session?”. A day after session is a wedding photography session that doesn’t happen on the wedding day. Generally couples may choose to do this type of session if their weather was bad on their wedding day and they wanted a few outdoor photographs, or if they simply didn’t have enough photographs from the wedding day or wanted photographs in locations they were unable to use during their wedding day. This session doesn’t have to literally be the next day after a wedding day at all! We really love these sessions as time is not an issue, and that allows us to do a lot of fun locations. In this case, it rained, and was sunny, then sprinkled a bit more… but in the end we were able to get many beautiful photographs in! I was a guest during Lynae and Lucas’ wedding day and couldn’t get over how beautiful everything looked, so I was super pumped when chosen to do the day after session a few weeks later!
With extreme weather changes, we were constantly on our toes pulling out diffusers then putting them away a few seconds later. Geek/Photographer info to follow, so skip to the next paragraph if you are not interested :). What I really love about cloudy/dark weather is the ability to focus in on lighting and create some dramatic photographs. Here, most important to us is creating ratios on the face (so one half of the face is darker than the other half). This adds depth to the photographs making them appear more 3D then they would look like if lit from the front. We use multiple lights for our photography, but if the sun was out, it could be used as the second light. The thing with a sunny day and the sun being counted as one of your two or three lights, is that you are no longer able to choose your location based on pure beauty of the spot, but have to consider where the sunlight is coming from first, then refine your locations to suit. Basically, you are choosing spots that work with the current lighting situation you are in, and often that means choosing a spot that is possibly a little less beautiful in person. If you are out in a location that is really sunny and unable to diffuse the scene, often there are shadows visible under the eyes, nose and chins of everyone you are photographing. Diffusers are awesome to help block sunlight and allowing you to be the light creator, but there is no diffuser out there able to cover a large group of people, so the locations in the sun are more limited than they are on a cloudy day with our off-camera lights. So, when you hear a photographer say “wow this is perfect weather!” on your cloudy wedding day, this is why! It is easier for us to be the artists on cloudy days, and use any spot we want to. Yay for clouds!
Lynae and I go way back… our parents were friends and her dad used to babysit me when I was tiny! When my parents travelled to Europe, my brother and I stayed with Lynae’s family and became family for a few months! This session was loads of fun for me for that reason. It was like photographing cousins :). The session took place in Bonnyville, Alberta at Lynae and Lucas’ farm. I love photographing in rural locations, especially when we can include property or locations that are meaningful to the couple! Now I’m feeling rather talkative, so I’ll leave you with some of my favorite photographs from the day after session!
