How I Shot This Volume Four | Dreamy Sunset Photographs

Want to know how I shot this photograph?

Hooray! You’re in the right place because, today, I’m spilling my thought process behind this photograph.

I took this photograph way back in 2017 in downtown Springdale while holding a mentor session with my girl Kristen. At the time, Kristen was associate shooting weddings for me (one baby girl + one pandemic later, it’s wild that I used to have an assistant, an editor, and three associate shooters. Like, dang!! It’s just me again now, lol.) and we’d scheduled this shoot specifically to go over bride and groom portraits. Three years later, I’m still obsessed with Sara’s dress + veil and Ken’s suit. They’re so fun!

But! I digress! Towards the end of our shoot, golden hour was in full swing. The light was super strong – y’know when it’s so sunny that it’s hazy? – and I knew that, if I brought Sara’s veil up, we’d be able to capture more haze + make the photographs we captured feel even more dreamy. To achieve this, I framed Sara and Ken in the sun, used my 35L, stood under the veil about two and a half feet away from Ken and Sara and, between us, I bunched up a handful of veil and moved it around until I got the effect I wanted: lots of light + lots of tulle.

Shots like these often take a lot of trial and error and I’ve done them lots of different ways: sometimes I hold all the tulle, sometimes someone else holds the tulle, sometimes I’m under the veil, and sometimes I stand outside it. Every situation is different but my go-to for a photograph like this is to stand underneath the veil and then move the tulle around on my own. Since tulle is basically weightless, tight tulle looks severe and unnatural; loose tulle like this looks dreamy. Don’t forget to use backlight to help achieve this feel!

Love posts like these? Head on over to Instagram to see how I shot the photograph below.

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