Spinning Bridesmaids – A Shutter Speed Challenge

When Crystal picked out her bridesmaids dresses, she loved the flowing skirts, and I agreed upon seeing them that we needed to do a swirly shot of some sort.  But how?  Just asking them to stand and spin and shoot them at ground level wasn’t enough for me.  Inspiration struck in the middle of Crystal and Clint’s wedding ceremony, as I stood on the right side of the barn they were getting married in and glanced out the window as the sun broke through the clouds on what had been a very dreary, hot, rainy day.

There, in the barn, I looked down about 20 feet to a wide open, grassy area, with nothing else around, and I knew what I wanted to do.  After the ceremony was over, as the guests were heading out to the reception, my second shooters gathered up the newlyweds and the bridesmaids and directed them over to the grassy area.  From high above, I shouted my directions: “Crystal, Clint, I want you to kiss, but you cannot move a single muscle until I tell you it is ok to move!  Girls, on the count of three, I want you to spin in place as fast as you can, make sure to put your arms up, and don’t fall!”

I then took the settings on my camera to the extreme, braced myself against the windowsill and held by breath, counted “1-2-3-spin!” and pressed the shutter. It only took a couple of tries to get the exact look I had imagined.

My second shooters always say that I have a little happy dance that I do when I get “the shot”.  They were ready for it this day!  Here is me checking out my camera (also known as chimping) and realizing that it was exactly what I wanted!

And the shot, you ask?  Well, I guess I can share it.  I am pretty proud of it!

My goal with every single wedding I shoot is to create an image that I have never done before, that is truly unique and different, and that I likely won’t recreate.  This is that image.

For those wondering how I did it:

Canon 5D Mk II

Canon EF 24-70 2.8L

ISO 100

Aperture f/22

Shutter Speed 1/6

Focal Length 24mm

Shot fully in manual, hand-held

It was hot and sunny but the clouds kept rolling by.  We waited for a brief full cloud cover in order to assist with the exposure.  Even so, it was a little bit over-exposed, but nothing that takes away from the image.  The only post processing I did was to remove the flip flops scattered all around..