Will Robb Photography

The other week I caught the bullet train down to Izu to shoot a wedding in Izusanjinja temple followed by the reception in a nearby house next to the sea. The couple getting married, Chris and Nao were a really lovely couple, they basically just asked me to do my thing and were very accommodating in whatever I suggested for their photos. Initially I was just supposed to shoot a portrait session with them after their service in the temple and then shoot some more portraits at the reception followed by the speech and meal etc, but on the day the chief priest of the temple said it was OK if I wanted to shoot inside the temple during the ceremony so I jumped at the chance to do so. Usually it’s hard to get to shoot inside a temple/church during a wedding ceremony here, mostly because there is a photographer attached to each wedding venue who demands complete control over their own little spot and for the couple to bring in their own photographer they have to pay a large amount, sometimes around 200′000 yen extra (about $2000) just to bring in their own photographer to someone elses turf. Understandably most people wont pay for this, but this temple was a bit different from the big wedding factory type temples who are more about the cash input than having a good day and they were very open to us all and I jumped at the chance to shoot the ceremony. I’d never seen one myself, so getting to shoot it was really great for me.

After scouting some spots in the temple grounds for post ceremony portraits I had about 5 minutes to work out the lighting inside the temple, which wasn’t much time at all. It was pretty dark inside and the light outside was strong, a big contrast so I had to use my two speedlight flashes (580 EX and 580EX II) off shoe as slaves and fire them with my speedlight transmitter ST-E2 mounted on my bodies. I had my 24-70 lens on my 5D mk II and my 50mm lens on my 5D, swapping the speedlight transmitter onto each as I needed it. The couple were seated in the middle of the temple, the priest in front of them and their respective families to the side. I placed the flashes on the tatami mats in front of the couple and angled them very slightly towards the couple to make sure the were lit up correctly, but also keep the flashes close enough for me to grab and hold above my head and fire into the (thankfully) white painted ceiling to illuminate the familes as I shot them at different points throughout the ceremony, when sake was getting passed round for example. So, my flashes were getting worked hard to get the light right during the ceremony and when it was finished I was asked to get a group shot of everyone, this time I had to stick my flashes on tables at the side of the group, angle them up and towards the group slightly so the flashes would actually cross over each other a bit and cancel out shadows. I didn’t have much time to work on this, but managed to get a good lot of the shots spot on and I didn’t have to keep the guests more than a minute. During weddings, I try to keep the portraits sessions as quick as possible and allow people to get on with their wedding business, so a lot of the work isn’t just taking pictures, it’s problem solving with light in a very short time frame.

We had planned on at least 30 minutes of portrait time round the temple grounds after the ceremony, but due to delays in the ceremony kicking off there was only about 4 minutes to do portrait sessions and there were also many guests who wanted to snap the happy couple. So, I let the guests get their snaps for the first minute or so and then I had to do a quick session in the grounds as the couple came out, down the steps and off for their taxi to take them to the reception. I was happy with the results, but I would have liked a bit more time to shoot in some other areas and also break out my light reflector board, but time just wasn’t on my side and I had to make do with my flashes again.

A quick taxi ride later and we were all at the reception a venue, a beautiful house owned by a friend of the happy couple which had a nice roof area for some portraits with the family before the reception itself started. Here there was a bit more time to play with and I could use my reflector board. It was slightly overcast, but the board brought the light out well and the backdrop down to the sea was great. Two of the guests were actually good friends of mine, so I roped my friend Asami into being my assistant for 20 minutes and she did a good job. I showed her how to work the boards to reflect light where it was needed and get rid of some shadows on the people whilst still keeping the sky colour pretty vibrant in the background and she did an excellent job. I made dinner for her and her husband a few days later to say thanks, well worth it for her help. Anyone else wanting to help me out could get the same treat I think…as long as they have strong stomachs anyway.

After all the portraits were out of the way, I just mingled during the reception, making sure I covered the meal, speeches, people having fun, all the moments that come together to make the big day memorable. It was a pretty long day, shooting from about 1pm to 8.30pmish without a break (although I was always being brought water and snacks by the catering staff which I was very grateful for). All in all I took more than 2000 photos, all shot on RAW so I was going through my 16GB and 8GB cards fairly quickly, so I had to keep downloading images to my macbook every so often, usually during long speeches when I just needed the start and finish, I have about 5-6 cards on me at any point, so I never run out or have to rush off to download at “important” points of the reception. From the 2000 I chose the best 800 and edited down to the best of them and they got a few hundred photos in the end.

The couple were really really nice to me, after I finished work the sorted me out with some lovely food and then cracked open some very old and very large bottles of wine from the cellar and were kind enough to invite me to join them (modeled here by my friend Shigeo, who’s wife Asami had helped me out earlier). After a long day’s hard work I really enjoyed their hospitality and had a few nice glasses of wine before getting the bullet train back to Tokyo. I think maybe I should insist on a large bottle of old wine at the end of each wedding shoot now, perfect way to finish a shoot off.

A very enjoyable days work, a lovely couple and they were very happy with the results. A job well done.