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Creating the Photograph

Creating the Photograph: David Vevia’s “The Flower Girl”

Chris Gampat
No Comments
02/07/2015
3 Mins read

Final

Creating the Photograph is an original series where we interview photographers about a photo that they shot and how it was achieved. The results are some knowledge passed on to you. Want to be featured? Email chrisgampat[at]thephoblographer[dot]com.

David Vevia is an Orange County Wedding and Family Life photographer. He has taught various photography workshops, and seminars as well as currently teaches photography classes at Northwood High School in Irvine, California.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/David.Vevia.Photography

The Concept

DSC_9872_2

I love the idea of shapes and symmetry in photography. I love how you can use light and shadow to direct the viewer’s eye. I knew the bride’s family and wanted to create a photograph that not only the bride would love, but the rest of her family as well. I knew that the bride and the flower girl’s family would love an image of the flower girl looking at the wedding dress, well maybe except for her father.

The Gear

Diagram

– Nikon D700

– Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 lens

– Nikon Sb800 Flash

The Shoot

DSC_9741_1

When I walked in the bride’s parent’s house where they were getting ready, I walked around to find a good location for the dress and prep pictures. I was unable to go out in their backyard as the grass was wet and I did not want to dirty the dress accidently. They did, however, have a beautiful big sliding glass door. I was able to hang the dress from the door frame and it created a beautifully backlit image.

The flower girl (the bride’s niece) was the first one to get ready, since she was almost as excited as the bride was. She was walking around the house when I asked her to come and let me photograph her. I had the flower girl sitting looking at the dress while I photographed her from the side. I had my Nikon SB800 on a stand behind the flower girl to fill in light to balance the bright window. I set the light to bounce off of the ceiling as the ceiling was white and not too high. This would give me very soft and even light on my subject. The result was good, but lacked the punch that I was looking for. So I adjusted my own angle and photographed her straight on looking at the dress. With the fill light, the image looked exactly what I had envisioned.

Post Production

Screen Shot

When I got home, I loaded the image into Photoshop CC and decided that I wanted the image to be very symmetrical. This did not work as the door in the background was just one side of the whole door. So I copied the left side and flipped it onto the right to create a smaller door. Then I cleaned up the walls by removing the light switch, and images hanging on the wall. I converted the image to black and white using Nik’s Silver Efex Pro.

When I was done, the resulting image needed a bit of a vignette to make the circle of light around the flower girl and her dress.

Before/After

Unedited
Unedited
Final
Final
David Vevia flower girl lighting nikon wedding
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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