We like to have our San Francisco city hall brides pose naturally in photos sometimes. Even though the image above is an actual posed photo, we tried to make it appear more natural by having her look back at her dress and hold it as though she was adjusting it or checking the train. As you can see, it puts her in a very positive light. The curves in her figure are accentuated and her face looking down looks beautiful. You also get a good look at some of the beautiful SF City Hall Architecture in this shot. We took this photo from clear across the building on the other side of City Hall. We head up to the 3rd floor without bringing the couple and then shoot down to the 2nd floor where they are posting for us. The challenge with this type of photo is communication with the bride or couple. So it is helpful that we usually have 2 wedding photographers at each San Francisco city hall wedding. For this type of wedding photo, one of us poses the bride and the other takes the photos. If for some reason there is a misunderstanding about how to position the subjects, I can just contact my assistant by phone or text. This gives us a tremendous advantage for doing these types of remote photography shoots. We also like to use remote lighting to go along with this far away shoot. We will either backlight the bride and groom or try some different type of dramatic lighting. If the sun is coming through the city hall window, it provides natural backlight which is preferable to artificial flash. I also like the way it makes her veil and dress glow If necessary due to extreme fog outside or other low light situations, I can position my off-camera professional lighting close to the subject but out of sight. That is one of the best things about natural back light, the quality is great and provides depth. I also think it seems to separate the subject from the background. San Francisco city hall has many options for this type of wedding photography with lots of natural light and great backdrops. Depth is always important in great San Francisco city hall wedding photography. As you can see from the photo above, we have provided the viewer with multiple layers of foreground and background to achieve this result.
