Low Light & Night Photography

The availability of light is the life-blood of any photography. And when it comes to the wedding photography session, bright wedding venues and a plethora of light play an important role. A wedding photography session offers a wedding photographer with various techniques to explore in order to get the perfect and radiating wedding shots. We know that your wedding day is the most important day of your and your sweetheart’s life, and you want to have the swoon-worthy photographs to cherish for many more anniversaries to come. 

There are times when couples choose some dark wedding venues as they have planned something non-traditional and out of the box for their wedding day. Couples who want to have a gothic-style wedding majorly opt for dark wedding venues as the setting of these kinds of venues enhance the wedding pictures. Dark wedding venues usually come with endless challenges, especially for wedding photographers. Getting a perfect wedding photograph clicked at dark venues requires the correct use of equipment, the right technique, and incredible creativity to get every moment clicked flawlessly. Documenting weddings at night is quite a task for photographers but our photographers have the expertise to tackle this kind of situation. Just because the sun starts going down, that doesn’t mean you will not have amazing and stunning wedding photos with all the details. In fact, the golden hour of sunset brings a whole new world of creative image-making and a vast opportunity for photographers to capture enchanting and breathtaking photos. And we are proud to say that our experienced and talented wedding photographers have a plethora of incredible experience when it comes to capturing photos at dark venues in low light especially during the night time. 
 

Documenting a wedding during the golden hour of sunset is one of the favorite things amongst our professional wedding photographers. Our wedding photographers explore the effects of waning light on a photograph and always make sure to utilize the maximum manual setting on their cameras to get the most out of what the night light is giving to capture a flawless shot! 
 

This blog is specifically dedicated to all the photographers who are trying to get the best of wedding photos during the night time when the light is quite low and the venues are quite dark. Check out the tips below so that you can also have an amazing wedding photo album. So, happy reading…

Always Identify Alternative Light Sources

Having the picture-perfect lighting setting is the basic key to get excellent pictures in wedding photography at dark venues. No wonder camera flash does the work perfectly, but there are times when photographers should also explore the alternative light source as it might turn out to be the helping hand in compromising stunning and majestic wedding shots. Wedding photographers can always use backlighting or even identify other light sources such as sidelights, windows, etc. to get every shot in the best of frames. Considering the side lighting will help photographers produce more vivid wedding photographs (a pro tip here- be mindful of the shadows). While the photographers consider side lighting, there are times when the shadows are near the face, so make sure it gets avoided as they can ruin the beauty of the photos. Apart from side lighting, windows are the other interesting option when it comes to the light source for wedding photography in dark venues. It is always advisable to place the beautiful couple at an angle to the window that creates soft ambient lighting and results in glorious wedding portfolios. 

Use the Perfect Golden Hour 

The night time and low light always bring along the magic of the golden hour, which offers incredible effects to the wedding photos. It’s a treat for the eyes of our wedding photographers to capture couples getting married to each other and marking their union while the sun is all in the mood to set and gives the sky a dramatic effect. The most interesting shot you can have during your wedding photography session is- when you both share a kiss while the warm and liquid-like evening light is glorifying the love you both share with each other. 
 

Golden hour has a specific and significant look and our wedding photographers are quite familiar with that. It is such a photographic moment and light that it probably doesn’t even really count as night photography, but it’s worth bringing up here only to discuss the shift in photography mindset as you transition from day into night.
 

This golden hour time is great for photographing you, your family, your friends, and nearer subjects because they have more contrast than the background, so they tend to jump off the screen. Also, the low light gives you some very creative backlighting possibilities. But as we head out of the golden hour and into the blue hour, that all shifts. Suddenly, those background elements take a much more significant role.

The Moment of Blue Hour

Capturing a blue hour is the dream shoot time for every wedding photographer. The blue hour is the special time of the day when light still allows you to shoot with a handheld camera, but the lights are coming on in the city, offering some dynamic images with high drama enhancing the essence of wedding photographs. Documenting your wedding day at this specific time will allow our wedding photographers to get shots that feel cinematic and are filled with drama and soul. And this is the time of day when the night really begins, so often the activity is interesting. Everybody is dressed up, going places with friends, and the promise of the night ahead brings more charm to your wedding photography session background. 

The Best Wedding Photos Happen in Last Light

The last light is that incredible and outstanding moment, right before it goes totally dark. Your wedding photographers can still pull color from the sky while using some long exposure techniques to create something very unique during your wedding photography session. This specific moment doesn’t last long, so it’s best you prepare for it by having the camera on the sticks (tripod) and switching over to manual settings, if your wedding photographer hasn’t already.

Use Backlighting

Backlighting always enhances and elevates the quality of wedding pictures. It can always make the bride’s lovely veil glow and helps to create a halo-like glow in most of the wedding photographs. While using the backlighting, the photographer must ensure that the correct exposure is always maintained. If the couples want to get photographed against the sun as the backlighting source, the photographers should place the couple against a darker background in order to get the right exposure of light and click immensely silhouette couple wedding portraits! Brides can always opt for these kinds of settings to have incredible and charming bridal portraits for their wedding photo book! 

Capture the beautiful city skyline

Weddings happening at night always give countless opportunities to wedding photographers to capture the true essence of the night and the shining skyline! Couple portraits perfectly paired with night sky photos offer a variety of effects to the timeless wedding photos. Wedding photographers have a vast field to experience with the couple and the mesmerizing sky. They can always capture you both in the center while including the movement in the clouds or more definition in the stars or stars trails! 

Use a Reflector

Reflectors have always been a great accessory for wedding photographers as they allow photographers to work better with artificial lighting. Reflectors have the tendency to bounce the light on to the subject. Professional wedding photographers don’t have to keep on guessing the right amount of ambient lighting while using the reflectors. In dark wedding venues where the light conditions are low, reflectors will have every photographer covered, as they will help the photographers to achieve a more even exposure between the subject and the background. Shoot-through reflectors are popular and versatile with wedding photographers. They are easier to use even without an assistant. They also work well for backlighting.

Use the Moon for a Beautiful Night Wedding Photos

The moon is every wedding photographer’s consistent light source at night. The creamy and shiny light of this nature’s gift is enough to produce dramatic and magical wedding photos that will look nothing less than a romantic movie poster. While capturing a wedding at night, the light emitting from the moon produces some really interesting effects for a mesmerizing night wedding photography opportunity. We know it’s your day, so your wedding photographer can always place you in the center while using the moon as one of the key parts for your beautiful wedding couple portraits! 

Bounce the Flash

Do you think that using bare flash lighting can create some really harsh wedding pictures? If not then now you know! If by any chance your photographer’s camera’s flash does not have a swivel feature, then there are chances that it will also create a red-eye occurrence. Don’t worry! Any wedding photographer can easily overcome this problem, all they need to have is always look to bounce the flash lighting from nearby surfaces like walls and ceilings. If you are having an outdoor wedding photography session in the dark venues, make sure your wedding photographer is considering using the bendable flash panels. Even, the photographers can also use flash diffusers to diffuse the flash lighting and create softer ambient lighting. 

The above-mentioned are general tips which when followed will produce majestic and beguiling wedding photos. Now we will provide some technical photographing tips to have the best quality of wedding photos under low light especially during the nighttime at dark venues. 

Always use manual focus

No wonder autofocus in modern cameras may be highly reliable, but it is still not foolproof, especially when taking pictures at night, where the camera struggles to adjust its focus because it’s dark. In this condition, manual focus plays an evident role. Using manual focus during low light for capturing beautiful wedding photos will always ensure that the camera doesn’t randomly focus on any part of the background your wedding photographer is capturing. Always make sure that your wedding photographers turn on the manual focus to infinity, just to ensure that the setting that they are framing is crisp and excellent. 

Shoot RAW

When documenting a nighttime wedding, always make sure that the person who is handling the camera should switch the image files to RAW in the camera menu. RAW files take up a lot of space on the camera memory card and will maintain the quality of each image being captured during the low light time. The RAW file format is the best option to avoid grainy pictures due to low light and post-processing. Unlike JPEG, RAW files maintain their quality even after post-processing. After editing your image file, you can always convert a RAW file to any format you want, including JPEG or PNG.

Try Experimenting with Bulb Mode

The longest shutter speed for most of the cameras is merely about 30 seconds. However, there are times when a wedding photographer is in situations where 30 seconds isn’t enough to make a proper exposure. That’s where Bulb Mode comes in. The Bulb Mode function will allow your wedding photographer to open the shutter as long as they press the camera button. Bulb Mode requires more confidence to use, but it also allows photographers to experiment freely and create surreal wedding photos. The bulb mode will let the photographer expose an image without any time constraints, it’s perfect for “light painting” where wedding photographers can “scribble” or “draw” in the air using light sources such as a flashlight. The light painting in the background where you and your darling stealing a kiss under the starry city skyline will surely make all your wedding guests swoon over it! 
 

Nighttime wedding photography is usually fun to experiment with once the wedding photographers understand the basics behind it. As long as photographers can understand the exposure settings, he or she can play with different combinations of the shutter speed, aperture, and ISO to create interesting wedding shots. They will have the flexibility to switch up the subjects, use different light sources, and explore new compositions.