White Bear Yacht Club Light Painting
Joannie and I would like to share the story behind James and Erin’s one-of-a-kind White Bear Yacht Club light painting.
But first, let’s recap what was an exceptional wedding day! Several days ago we shared “Part One” of their wedding day. It began with getting ready photos, their first look, bridal portraits outside, and concluded with family and wedding party photos just before their wedding ceremony.
James and Erin share a kiss in the breeze.
“Part Two” began with that very wedding ceremony on the shores of White Bear Lake. What a wonderful location to get married! Of course, Mother Nature, finally in a good way, had a helping hand with making it happen. It was a glorious spring day in Minnesota, making it an easy decision to hold the ceremony outdoors instead of inside.
Erin and her dad going down the aisle.
A fantastic social hour by the lake was followed by a wonderful luncheon in the clubhouse. All throughout the afternoon, Joannie and I found great spots to take wedding photos of James and Erin. We’d set it up, go “borrow” them for a few minutes, take the photos, and then send them back to their wedding guests, then go set up the next one.
It worked out great! They were able to be with their family and friends a lot and still get a wonderful variety of unique wedding photos with minimal time away from their celebration.
James and Erin at the circular Grand Staircase at the yacht club.
Try Something New
The best light painted wedding photos have a lot of depth, details, and textures. While the White Bear Yacht Club is a beautiful building inside, I couldn’t find a spot that would allow us to make a really special light painting for James and Erin. It was time to think outside of the box.
Since their wedding was early in the day, their wedding reception was all wrapped up by late afternoon. With the days getting pretty long (S far as I’m concerned, that’s a really good thing), it would have been a five-hour wait until it got dark enough to light paint in the traditional way.
So, James and Erin’s pretty light painted wedding photograph was the first one that we’ve ever attempted outdoors in the daylight hours. You can’t learn something new if you don’t try something new!
The behind-the-scenes photo of the light painting set-up.
There is a pretty grove of cedar trees outside that would easily give us the depth and details that a light painted wedding photograph needs to really stand out. In fact, we had created other images of our newlyweds there earlier. The cedar canopy would shield much of the image from direct sunlight and help me to make it look like it was dark outside.
As far as we know, no one has ever attempted light painting anything in the daylight before. Time to give it try.
James and Erin in the cedar grove.
White Bear Yacht Club Light Painted Wedding Photo
By using a combination of a high shutter speed, a small aperture, both of our powerful MoLight AD360II-C’s, two of our MoLight V860II-Canon Speedlights, and our Molight AD200, we had the flash power to overcome the sun to make artificial nighttime. It took a lot of that flash power too, we went through two sets of batteries!
Our creative vision allowed us to create this one-of-a-kind artwork for James and Erin:
James and Erin’s pretty light painted wedding photo created at the White Bear Yacht Club.
As I always do for our big light painting projects, I’ve got a short video on our YouTube Channel that shows some of the steps involved in creating James and Erin’s cool White Bear Yacht Club wedding light painting. Please check it out below.
Thank you for reading our post and have a good one! – M&J