some wedding photography

I took this on a wedding photo shoot with Marc Williams, a fellow photographer I met over at the http://www.photo.net forum. This was shot in May of last year. He was in Miami on a job, and asked me to second him. It was shot with my M2-R and a 6 element second edition 35mm Summicron, probably 1/30 at f/2.8 or there abouts. There's a bit of blur in one foot. (The film, contact sheet, and print were developed, printed and scanned by Marc Williams.)

It's all natural light carefully measured with the incident attachment (Invercone) on my trusty Weston Master V. It was some "new" Tri-X and some of the previous generation. I don't know what Marc souped them in. I used an ISO (although the meter says ASA) of 400, fudging the exposures to mostly assure sufficient shadow detail.

I metered for the shadows instead of the dress because with conventional black and white film you have three main variables that affect your results. First is choice of film. Tri-X is much more forgiving in exposure that T-Max 400 for instance. Second is exposure. You can't expect shadow detail if no light hits the film in the shadow areas. Third is development, which controls contrast. It's best to give enough exposure to assure shadow detail, such as detail in dark hair or the mens' tuxedos. This being a second marriage the bride wore a pastel dress, so it wasn't a concern to get detail in white lace, for instance. Still, there was spotty sunlight in some areas outside, and strong window light in some interior shots. Overexposed areas in the photo can be burned in to provide some detail. Underexposed areas? If it ain't on the negative it ain't there!