I have had a few people ask me how I shot the second photo of the bride in my last post. The assumption is that it was done through Photoshop, but the truth is that this photo saw next to no post-processing at all. I am adding a photo that my trusty "assistant" Susan took while I was shooting. This should help you better understand what was going on.
The first thing you should see is that the photo was taken right before the sun set. If you look at me sitting on the rock you can see that the camera is in the brides shadow. The sun is so low that it creates very long shadows. Initially I exposed for the sky behind the bride, but the sun, which is directly behind her, was still a big bright ball. To make it a little more dramatic, I exposed more for the setting sun. Of course this makes everything else in the photo go black even though you can see how bright it still was. I used an Alien Bee 800, camera right and bare-bulbed, to light the bride. If I remember correctly it was at full power from about eight feet. I also had one of the brides friends holding a flash aimed directly at her head to fill the left side of the brides face. I don't recall what power the flash was set to, but it was probably at 1/4 or 1/2 power. She is only a few feet from the bride. I had my camera set to 1/250 at f/22 with ISO 100. This is why it looks like I created a vignette. With that aperture, light fall off is so fast that it gives you a natural vignette. It is kind of hard to see on the web version of the final image, but she is standing about ten feet from the edge of the cliff. That also helped with light fall off, as there is nothing there! Post-production consisted of converting from RAW, white balance, cooling the photo a little, a simple s-curve that I always use, blemishes, and a just a tad of sharpening.
After I had shot a few frames I got up and showed the bride the LCD. She literally squealed with excitement and called her friends and mom over to see. You know you have done your job when you receive that kind of reaction. Hopefully this has made sense and given you a bit of understanding or inspiration to go out try some of this on your own.
Strobist.blogspot.com is a great place to learn about blending "strobes" and ambient light to make some great pictures.
Susan and I went to see my newest niece last night, Katherine Sophia. (I actually don't know if they are spelling her name with a K or a C.) Tiffany actually gave birth on Monday, but we wanted to give her a day to rest before dropping in on her. She looked good for just giving birth and little Kate is just darling. 
She was quite animated and was really trying to open her eyes. She has a ton of hair and is so precious. Congratulations Tim and Tiffany!
We went up to Layton to watch Tyson's soccer game. Isn't he adorable, especially with his blue mohawk? It was fun to watch him play and he is really getting pretty good. He scored his first goal of the year and he was so excited.
