My latest wedding job

I’m not a wedding photographer, though I have photographed weddings on three occasions, twice for co-workers and once for a sister-in-law.  This week I had the opportunity to photograph the wedding of Figaro and Susanna, two people who have been getting married since 1786.  These are publicity photos that I took at the final dress rehearsal of The Marriage of Figaro, which is being presented this weekend by The University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music.

I’ve photographed opera rehearsals before and I always find the lighting a bit of a challenge.  Some parts of the stage are very bright and others are rather dim.  The stage lights often generate a different white balance in different locations.  Also, I don’t own the fastest lenses in town; I used an EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS and an EF 70-200mm f/4L IS on a Canon 7D. So, that means I have to use a higher ISO and a slower shutter speed than I might prefer.  Most of the shots with the long lens were taken on a tripod, though some were handheld.  Since I moved around quite a bit during the rehearsal a tripod was not always convenient.  Maybe I should invest in a monopod.

Most of these photos were taken using an ISO of 1600; others were taken at 800.  The most common exposures were 1/60 or 1/125 at f/4 or 5.6.  Over the course of 3.5 hours I took 490 photos.  The main reason for the large number is that I will often take 6 – 10 of roughly the same image in order to try to capture the most interesting facial expressions.  Since I have no idea of what’s coming next, I don’t know if there will be a better scene in which to capture certain actors so I just shoot them when I see them.

Check it out.  The wedding’s enjoyable.  The music’s by Mozart.  Supertitles are provided for the non-Italians.  The happy couple did not disclose the location of their honeymoon.

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