If you are planning on having sparklers at your wedding, you may be wondering how to photograph wedding sparklers. Though your wedding photographer will likely have some experience in this area, there are some key things to keep in mind when photographing wedding sparklers.
Writing in the Air: The Best Wedding Sparklers Photographs
One of the most desirable effects to capture in a photograph is the writing of words or symbols with wedding sparklers. This can produce a really cool effect, and the possibilities are virtually endless. You can do everything from spelling out the word “love” to writing out your wedding date. You can even create romantic shapes such as hearts with proper camera technique in wedding sparklers photographs. Below, we will outline some of the key points to achieving the desired effect using writing out the word “love” as an example, in your wedding sparklers photos.
1 – Position the Subjects
Ask your guests to stand in an open space with no light obstructions behind them. You want the background to be as dark as possible, so avoid street lights or any other bright background contamination to get the best representation in your wedding sparklers photos. Since we’re using the word “love” as our example, you will need 4 people for this photograph.
2 – Write the Word
Now you’ll want to have them right a specific letter in the air. They will need to write the letters backwards so they come out the correctly when you photograph wedding sparklers, so make sure you do some rehearsal beforehand. If someone can’t write backwards, you can optionally flip the image after the fact in a photo editing software of your choice. It’s also advisable to use 20” wedding sparklers or longer because they last the longest and will give you time to take multiple photos.
3 – Time to Photograph Wedding Sparklers
After everything looks good in the “dry run”, get the camera ready to shoot. You’ll probably want to turn off the flash because the wedding sparklers should be bright enough to provide all the light you’ll need. Next, set the aperture to f/8 to start with, and set the shutter speed to 30 seconds. Now it’s time to light the wedding sparklers. Once the sparklers are lit, have the subjects start writing their assigned letter and start snapping photos. It’s a good idea to take as many as you can for the duration that the wedding sparklers burn so you can choose the best photo or group of photos later.
4 – Check Your Results
Thanks to the marvel of digital cameras, you will likely be able to take a peek at your wedding sparklers photos right after your done with the shoot. If your using a film camera, you will probably want to repeat the photo session a few times with slightly varying settings since you won’t know the results until after the film has been developed. Hopefully, everything has turned out great on the first try and you’re all done. If not, there a few other things you can try to properly photograph wedding sparklers.
Other Things to Try with Wedding Sparklers Photos
If you didn’t get the results you wanted using the methods above, there are a few things to try. First, you can try taking your wedding sparklers photos again using the flash. This sometimes can help if your subjects are too far away from the camera. You may also want to adjust the aperture and shutter speed to see if you can get a better photo of the wedding sparklers.
