Backgrounds and the environment are something that I often have no control over. I have to deal with all sorts of messes, and I usually just try to blur out the background and shoot tight to hide most things. For Lauren’s bridal portraits, the background was not an issue; it was beautiful. We went to someone’s house that they knew and shot some staircase bridal portraits.
Lauren’s Staircase Bridal Portraits
Our location was a friend’s house in Springdale. We didn’t explore much of the house, but what we saw was just stunning. The outside reminded me somewhat of a castle and as soon as you walked in, there were dual staircases winding down. This is where we spent the majority of our time.
We started on one staircase and shot a variety of shots including the front and back of the dress, a wide shot, and then putting in an taking out a veil. I lit these shots with one Octabox coming in from the side. From there, we had her move down to the center, so both staircases led down to her. We had to move some things to get this shot, but it was worth it. After that, I basically moved around and kept her roughly in the same location. I was able to go to the very top and shot down to get a cool perspective. Then I moved to one staircase and shot down from there. The last real spot I shot was down the hallway under the staircases. We did one with flash to create something dramatic and then the rest was natural light.
We ended up spending a good amount of time inside in that one space. Our last shot was outside. I really wanted to get a shot in front of this amazing house. I used my Rapidbox Octa on my Profoto Acute B again and my Flex TT5 to get fast shutter speeds to darken the skies. The affect was awesome.
Even though we didn’t move very much for Lauren’s staircase bridal portraits, we were still able to get a variety of looks. This place was so great and we knocked out some classically beautiful shots, some I’m really proud of.
