I attended the wedding of the son of friends on Saturday – as a guest, not the photo guy. But I took my camera. Since there was an official photographer, I tried to stay out of her way and mainly took shots of neighbors and former neighbors. I took some video of the first dance on the Canon 5D MkII, and did grab a few shots of the bride and her dad and groom and his mom dancing.
I can’t really attend something like this without thinking about shots, light, angles, where I would be. Oh – there’s a great shot waiting to be taken. I was pleased to see the photographer in the action taking those shots. Her eye must be similar to mine. I’ve been to weddings where I’ve been surprised the photographer was no where to be seen when I thought shots were waiting to be taken.
The shot above of the bride and her dad was one I liked. However, one thing that is always there in reception shots, looming in the background, is the ubiquitous EXIT sign. I can’t tell you how much I hate those. I try to avoid them when possible, but in this case, they were abundant, and I was trying to stay out of the photographer’s line of site (not always successfully, I’m afraid).
I’ve mentioned Photoshop CS5’s new content-aware fill feature. I’ve tried it in various situations with mixed results. Sometimes it does pretty well and sometimes I’ve had to finish with the conventional tools. But this is a great example, I think, of the tool working well. This is the before shot.
You can see these exit signs are also emergency lights. Huge, big shadows, ugly as sin. I actually tried to clone this away, and it was not easy. Getting the luminance and shade just right was tough. Let’s try content-aware fill. I did a rough selection around the monstrosity, shift-backspace, enter. Done. Wow! Yes, sometimes it just works and works well.
