Photographing a wedding in San Francisco's amazing City Hall

It was about a year ago when my next door neighbors told me that their daughter got engaged. Her future husband is from Ireland, so they were planning a small wedding here in the US and another one in Ireland. For the local wedding, they had made an appointment at City Hall in San Francisco, and they asked if I was available to photograph the momentous occasion for them in October of this year. I have known Danielle since the day she was born, and I was more than happy to volunteer my services!

I have photographed a couple of weddings in this amazing building, and looked forward to capturing beautiful images of them, and trying new things. I wanted to photograph them in new settings within the space, and from new angles. The wedding was to take place at 3pm, so I suggested that we meet at 2pm to take portraits of them and the extended family. 

I started with just Danielle and David. I went up to the third floor, looked down and saw this great location. I directed them to sit on the stairs below and look up at me. I used the Canon R6 MKII with the Canon RF24-70mm lens, shooting at ISO 2000, f/4.5, with a shutter speed of 1/125th sec. I had never tried this in the past and love all the negative space, the leading lines, the curves, light and shadows. 

I then had both of them join me on the third floor for portraits. For these portraits I used the Canon R3 with the Canon RF70-200mm lens (ISO 250, f/2.8, 1/125 sec) and I popped a Canon 600EX-RT flash at -1 exposure compensation to add just a touch of light to them. 

Since we were far from the background and I was shooting at f/2.8, the focus is almost entirely on them. You will also notice that one side of their face is lit slightly more than the other, This is because there are windows behind me adding some directional light.

I took numerous photos with different poses...

I have photographed in front of the windows in the past, and tried that once again. But this time I felt that it needed something more dramatic.

I asked Danielle and David if they were OK stepping up onto the window sill for a full length shot and they readily agreed. I switched back to the Canon R6 MKII with the wider lens, turned off the flash, and purposely underexposed by one full stop to create this silhouette. This is one of my favorite photos of the day.

Then it was time to take portraits of the rest of the family members. 

We then went over to where the wedding would take place. I saw these expansive arches and knew that I needed to capture some wide angle portraits here.  I removed the mid range zoom from the Canon R6 MKII and switched to the Canon RF15-35mm lens. I took this photo at 15mm.

And then at 3pm sharp, the wedding took place. 

The wedding itself only lasted a couple of minutes. I moved around to capture as many different angles as I could in the short amount of time.   

After the wedding, we took some more portraits. This time with me getting low and trying the Canon 8-15mm fish-eye lens.

Many people say that fish-eye lenses should never be used for portraits, but I disagree with that.

Before leaving the building, I knew that we needed some classic photos from the rotunda. There were other couples getting their portraits taken there, so we needed to wait a little bit for me to get a clean shot with nobody in the background. But it was very much worth the wait.

I then ran up to the second floor to get this wide shot of them in the rotunda. There were a couple of people in the background, but I removed them in Adobe Photoshop. You may also notice that in this and the previous photo, their shadow is going off to the right. I asked David's sister to hold a remote flash to the left side and point it at them. I then triggered that flash from my camera on the second floor. This adds some more dramatic lighting to the scene. 

I came back down and did some last photos on the beautiful staircase. This building was constructed in 1916 and has so much incredible detail. 

And speaking of detail...I had them rest their hands on the railing to get a shot of their rings.

As we left the building, they requested a photo in front of the entry door.

Since we had some free time in between the wedding and the dinner party, I drove them to a couple of my favorite locations in San Francisco for some additional portraits. You may recognize this staircase from other photos I have posted in the past. This location never disappoints. 

We were driving back towards City Hall (since the dinner was nearby) and I saw this location and thought about one last shot that would be fun for portraits. I knew that the lighting was not ideal, but I also knew that I could probably enhance the photo in Photoshop. So...I had Danielle lean on the gate on one side and David lean on the other side. I popped a flash towards them, hoping to add a little light to them, but that one flash was not enough.

Luckily, I was able to darken the background, lighten the foreground, and then lighten Danielle and David to bring them out even more. I also removed a bunch of other distractions including, the man and his dog on the middle grass, the helicopter in the sky, and the trucks in front of the building. I also removed the distortion from the wide angle lens, straightening the perspective. This finished image made for an awesome two-page spread in their albums.

If you get to San Francisco, you should visit this iconic building and take portraits for yourself. I hope that this blog post helps you in that endeavor.

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• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• You can now purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa Costa Rica and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours.

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Back from Costa Rica and the Give-Away is almost over!

I just got back from the latest photo tour in the rain forest of Costa Rica, where we had an amazing time! Now I am trying to get caught up on everything.

You might think that I am just hanging out and doing nothing...

...but I assure you that I am doing everything I can to take a bite out of the workload and get caught up!

I am climbing out of the to-do list and email backlog. 

I also realized that my give-away ends at the end of this week! All you have to do is go to my fine art website and enter your email address. After Dec 15th, I will be selecting a winner, and will ship you ANY image printed on fine art lustre paper that you select from the site. Yes, you can pick your favorite photo from any of the galleries and I will do the rest.

If you have not entered yet, now is your last chance!

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• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• You can now purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa Costa Rica and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours.

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I am giving away a FREE Jeff Cable photo print up to 24"x36"!

I am really thankful for all of you who follow the blog. So thankful that I have decided to give away one large print up to 24"x36" in size, printed on Canon lustre paper (one of my favorites).

All you have to do is go to my fine art website and enter your email address. If you have already entered your email on the site, I will automatically include you in the give-away. After Dec 15th, I will be selecting a winner, and will ship you ANY image that you select from the site. Yes, you can pick your favorite photo from any of the galleries and I will do the rest.

These prints normally sell for more than $400, but this is a chance for you to get one on me. I am excited for you to have one of my photos as a great addition to the wall of your home or office space.

Just click HERE and enter your email address. No need to do anything else.

I hope that all of you have a happy, healthy and peaceful holiday season.

__________________________________________________________

• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• You can now purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa Costa Rica and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours.

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Photographing the Beauty of Yosemite in Fall Colors

It has been quite a while since I have visited Yosemite National Park and this was my first time photographing the park with fall colors. Many months ago, I made reservations to stay at the Yosemite Valley Lodge on the valley floor and last week was the first available opening. It turned out to be great timing!

We left the San Francisco Bay Area very early in the morning to give us as much time as possible in the park. The first stop for me has to be Tunnel View - my favorite view of Yosemite. It is the most photographed location in the park, but a must capture. For this trip, I brought my Canon R5 body with the Canon RF 24-105mm lens and Tiffen Circular Polarizing filter. I also brought the Canon RF 100-500mm lens, but rarely used that. 

Once we got down to the valley floor, we were blown away with the fall colors. 

We walked around to get different views of Half Dome framed with the colorful trees.

Most of the water falls were at a fraction of their full volume, but Bridal Veil Falls still looked great. I framed this shot to get as much fall colors in the foreground of the falls.

You might be looking at this photo and thinking "Jeff - what were you thinking taking this shot?" Well...let me tell you. I took this shot from a bridge and when exposing for the trees and river, the sky was totally blown out (so bright that there would be no data to work with). I figured that the best way to capture this scene was to darken the scene to expose for the sky and then work the image in Photoshop later.

Believe it or not, this image is the exact same shot as what you saw above. I hit the "Auto" button in Adobe Camera RAW and it basically did all the work for me. Pretty amazing how much data was in the dark area. Right?

Yosemite Falls was little more than a trickle since we have not had much rain so far this year.

I love the variety of color in the trees.

We were walking through a parking lot and I saw this straight-on view of Yosemite Falls perfectly framed with the different colored trees. 

The next morning we made the strenuous hike up to Vernal Falls which was totally worth the view. In the old days, I would have brought a tripod with me to capture the falls with a slow shutter. With these newer cameras with in-camera image stabilization, I am able to handhold the camera even at a half second exposure. I prefer the slower shutter speed which blurs the water. I framed this shot to show the people off to the right, to show the scale of the falls.

We climbed along the rocks as well, and took some portraits.

We did not see a lot of wildlife on this trip, but did catch a glimpse of this guy hanging out along the side of the road.

We had blue skies and no clouds on our second afternoon in Yosemite. Luckily, this part of the river was calm and allowed for perfect reflections. I climbed out to a clearing to get the clearest shot I could. The polarizing filter really helped to accentuate the colors and mitigate any glistening off the top of the water.

(Photo credit to Laura L.)

Here I am trying to get the cleanest foreground I could find.

This is the photo I was taking from that spot.

Yeah, I love taking photos!

This reflection photo of Half Dome was taken while walking the grounds of the infamous Ahwahnee Hotel.

When visiting Yosemite, it is quite common to see people on the valley floor using binoculars to catch a glimpse of the rock climbers on the face of El Capitan. This was one of the rare times I switched to my Canon RF 100-500mm lens to get a clear shot of these guys mid climb. 

This is a tight crop of the shot above. These people are crazy! This climb takes 6 days to complete and the climbers sleep in hanging tents each night. At night, we could see the lights from each tent dotting the face of the rock. 

I took this photo about 30 minutes after sunset. To the human eye it was really dark, but when leaving the shutter of the Canon R5 open for 5 seconds, the camera (on my Gitzo tripod) picked up all the details of the valley and a star in the sky.

It was really cold shooting at the this hour, but that was easily solved with a nice dinner, a couple glasses of wine and a big hot fire back at the lodge. 

Many of these images are for sale on my new fine art web page. I encourage you to check out the new site!

__________________________________________________________

• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• You can now purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa Costa Rica and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours. _________________________________________________________________   

A BIG surprise that happened in Costa Rica!

One month from now, I will be back in the rain forest of Costa Rica leading another photo tour, but I never had a chance to share an awesome story with you all from the last trip! But before I get to this first time ever event on one of my photo tours, let me share some more favorite images from the trip.

Here is a photo of the great group of people on the tour. Everyone got along so well, the weather was perfect for photography, and we saw so much!

We saw all four species of monkeys in the area, but especially loved the Howler monkeys. Not only are they fun to photograph, but they are amazing to listen to.

Click on the video above to hear them in action. They are SO loud!

It is a challenge to photograph these dark animals in a dark environment, but when done right, you can really see their details and expressions. 

I always teach my guests to wait for the right lighting on the animals faces, and to look for the catch light in their eyes. This male (and yes, we know for sure that it is a male) was staring right at us for this portrait.

Most of the time we are pointing our cameras up into the canopy, but for this White-nosed coati we were at eye level. 

The coati are pretty plentiful down in this region, but not always in the best positions to photograph. This last group had some of the clearest shots so far.

And, of course, we loved photographing the amazing birds. We found this one toucan hanging out in a tree about 30 feet above us. If you missed the blog showing the incredible Macaw, you can click here to see that.

I love this photo of all of us were pointing up and concentrating on the shot. (You will notice that almost everyone has an orange piece of gaffer tape on their loaner lenses. This is because I tape the sliding filter door shut on the lens hoods. It really bugs me that they slide open all the time.)

We came across a group of White-face capuchin monkeys who were swinging from one tree to another. In between their movement, they took a break to clean each other. 

These monkeys move pretty fast, making it a challenge to capture them in a good pose.

On our visit to the local chocolate farm, we were joined by a large group of Squirrel monkeys.

Any time we get a chance to photograph babies of any species, we take full advantage of that!

And then there was the big surprise!!!

We almost always stop at this one beach to have lunch. While we were there, I saw that we had nice diffused light and offered to take portraits of each of my guests. I took this photo of Jason and Stacy and then took photos of all the others. Yeah - we were all hot and sweaty, but we didn't care.

One by one, I recruited them for photos. I thought that my shot of Karen and Mike (seen here) was the last one in the bunch, but then Jason asked me if I could take a couple more of Stacy and himself. 

Of course, I agreed, but as I was looking through the viewfinder I wondered why he was holding something in his hand. I thought it was a remote to his camera, but it wasn't. It was a wedding ring, and without me even knowing it, I was photographing a marriage proposal! (Hey Jason - you could have given me a heads-up on this! 😀)

As soon as I realized what was happening, I started hammering the shutter to grab as many reactions as possible.

It was an awesome moment, and everyone was caught up in it, watching this unfold in front of us.

Of course, she said yes and he put the ring on her finger. We all celebrated with them.

I had them hold the ring out away from them, focused on the ring instead to their faces, and took this photo. 

The rest of the trip was so special for them to have this magical moment in the rain forest.

On our day of macro photography, I had an idea. This one frog sat in the same spot for an eternity, posing for us as we took turns taking it's portrait. I asked Stacy if I could borrow her ring, and gently placed it on the frog's head. It still did not move, so I took this fun shot to share with them. (And no, the frog was not harmed in any way during the taking of this photo.) 

I have done countless photo tours, but never had anything like this happen before. It was a really special moment, taken in a really special place, and we were all glad to be witnesses to it all. Now the big question is...are we all invited to the wedding?

__________________________________________________________

• Subscribe to the Jeff Cable Photography Blog by clicking HERE!

• You can now purchase Jeff Cable Photography images from my new fine art site at: https://fineart.jeffcable.com/

• If you are interested in purchasing ANY equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.

• Check out my upcoming photo tours to amazing places around the world. I have photo tours to Africa Costa Rica and more. And Canon will loan you any gear you want for FREE for any of my tours. _________________________________________________________________