There are certain moments that you remember for the rest of your career. In this case, it was about 45 minutes before the wedding, when the groom came up to me and said, “Ian, I forgot to tell you something. Entire ceremony in Russian.”
I looked at Vlad and fired off the only phrase I remember from my college Russian class 18 years ago. I think it translates as “I badly speak in Russian.” Whatever it means, he laughed, so I’m pretty sure I didn’t accidentally ask him for permission to do something unnatural with his Pomeranian.
Luckily, it was a Jewish wedding, and generally, if you follow the cups, you’ll be pretty good there.
Not the easiest room to shoot in– it’s a nightclub where the area the chuppah was in had a black ceiling overhead. For a less experienced photographer, it becomes difficult because there’s nowhere to bounce the flash. I got permission from the rabbi (who’s a bit of a camera enthusiast, so he wanted complete details so he could learn my technique) and hid an off camera flash unit in the chuppah canopy– the white silk turned the whole thing into a giant studio light, with glorious, soft, flattering light.
One of the things that sets the full-time pros apart is the ability to make a quality image in spite of the circumstances.