A Beautiful Minnesota Horse and Hunt Club Wedding Light Painting
It’s time to share another one of our unique wedding photography light paintings with you. This one is Eric and Amanda’s pretty fall color Minnesota Horse and Hunt Club wedding light painting.
A great image of Eric and Amanda’s wedding party in the pretty fall colors.
We shared their entire Minnesota Horse and Hunt Club wedding day story with you just a few days ago. At the very end of our wedding photography coverage, we were able to create a pretty light painting for them. It didn’t look like we were going to have that opportunity because it was raining most of the evening. Thankfully, the rain stopped, and we could get to work on another wedding light painting creation.
Light Painting Wedding Photography
Our light painted wedding photographs are a complex combination of a series of many photographs. While the camera never moves, all of the resulting exposures are lighted from many different locations. Then the best parts of each individual exposure are selected and “painted in” during post-production. That’s why it’s called light painting. This process creates a unique photograph that cannot be created using any other means.
There are three other styles of light paintings done at weddings. The use of sparklers, either moving or stationary, is one style. We’ve created wedding photographs using this style many times over the years. The great example below is from Jay & Vanessa’s wedding at The Hitchin’ Post in New Richmond, Wisconsin last year.
Fun with sparklers!
Steel wool set on fire in a small basket and spun on a string is another type of light painting. And finally, taking a long exposure and creating movement, or writing words using something like a sparkler or flashlight is another light painting technique. These styles of light painting only expose a small portion of the scene and are captured entirely in one image at the scene.
Light painting the entire scene is a whole new ballgame! Joannie & I are the only light painting wedding photographers in the world that are creating this type of wedding photography light painting.
Eric and Amanda’s Minnesota Horse and Hunt Club Wedding Light Painting
Once the dance was going strong, we checked with Eric and Amanda to make sure they were game to go outside in the wet grass and give this light painting thing a try. The weather radar showed that we should be safe to go out for a while and not get rained on, so our newlyweds gave us the thumbs up!
We got all of our gear out to the spot by the pretty pond at the Horse and Hunt Club and set up for the shot. Eric and Amanda joined us a short time later.
The starting image of Eric and Amanda prior to creating their light painting.
Because of the rain and all of the wind that happened earlier on their wedding day, much of the pretty fall color in the upper parts of trees was now gone. So I composed their light painting as more of a close up by keeping the upper parts of the trees out of the image. That put all of the emphasis on our newlyweds and the cute bridge that they would be standing on. Their background would be the remaining fall color, and the pretty fountain in the center of the pond. It really was quite pretty, even in the dark!
As always when we light paint, we try to keep our brides and grooms for as short a period of time as we can. We don’t want them to miss a lot of their party. So with a large 48-inch softbox lighting them, and four other strobe lights separating them from the background, we captured our starting wedding portrait of Eric and Amanda. At that point, they returned to their dance and we got going light painting the rest of the scene.
The Final Light Painted Wedding Photograph
I really love the final image! It’s so cute of the newlyweds, and the last of 2017’s fall colors look really stunning light painted and reflected in the pond. The fountain adds a beautiful finishing touch to their Minnesota Horse and Hunt Club wedding light painting.
Eric and Amanda’s beautiful light painting created at the Minnesota Horse and Hunt Club in Prior Lake, MN..
Here’s a short video that shows you the steps in involved in creating Eric and Amanda’s pretty Minnesota Horse and Hunt Club wedding light painting. Thank you for reading our story and have a great day! – M&J