We always love to photograph our brides and grooms on the 3rd floor at SF City Hall. This is because of the beautiful soft light that is often present at the north side of the building. Artists have long known about the beautiful light that comes through a north facing window. At San Francisco city hall we are fortunate to have 3 such windows that make perfect backdrops for wedding photography. We rarely have to worry about harsh sun on this side of the building, making it possible to produce images like the one above. Black and white photography just enhances the effect in this case.
For this particular image we used one off-camera flash set to really low power to help light the grooms face. Due to the lack of ambient light at this location we often find that the window will cast a shadow from the bride to the grooms face. This addition of a light helps to eliminate this problem. Our 600 weddings photographed at SF City Hall has helped us learn some of these types of fixes. Our only goal being to provide our wedding couples with the best possible city hall wedding photography. We always adjust our photography technique to accommodate the current conditions in the building. If it is foggy or cloudy outside it sends us to other parts of the building to seek out brighter light. If it is sunny outside, we can just about go anywhere and obtain nice natural light pictures. There are also times where we can only get exceptional results using our professional off-camera lighting set up. No matter what the conditions either inside or outside of San Francisco city hall, we will make the best adjustments and provide you with professional quality wedding images.
