Last week was a pretty exciting one for my family and I. My sister-in-law married her new husband in Marco Island, Florida. One of my favorite things about destination weddings, is of course, the traveling. So I was pretty excited get out of New York City for a bit and celebrate this exciting time with my wife and her family.
Being the family photographer and graphic designer, I always get asked to shoot photos or make graphics whenever someone needs them. While my sister-in-law hired a professional photographer for her wedding, they did not have a photographer for the rehearsal dinner.
At my wedding, we didn’t hire a photographer for our rehearsal dinner. This is something that I’ve regretted. I had a blast at my rehearsal dinner and wish I had a few photos to show for it. So when my brother-in-law asked me to shoot for his rehearsal dinner, I was happy to do it.
As a natural light shooter, I was really happy to learn that the rehearsal dinner was going to be held outside, by the pool, overlooking the water, at the beautiful Marco Island Marriott. Marco Island is on the Gulf Coast of Florida. That means that the sun sets over the water, making for some beautiful sunset photos.
One thing that I didn’t realize before the dinner began, was that it is sea turtle breeding season. Since sea turtles navigate by the moon, Florida State Law says that hotels by the water, have to keep their lights down low.
So once the light began to fall off, it really began to fall off. I didn’t have much ambient light to work with, and to be honest, just didn’t like the way the photos were turning out when I used my flash.
So to compensate for the low light, I cranked my ISO all the way up to 6400, dropped my shutter speed to 1/40th of a second, and set my aperture to f/2.8. This gave my photos a beautiful glow. During dinner, I quietly crept around shooting candid shots during dinner. I loved how these photos turned out, and while I’m not usually accustomed to shooting at such a high ISO, I was really pleased with just how little grain could be seen in the final images.
Below are just a few of the photos from that night.
