Mark Thomas baptism

untitled (Mark Thomas baptism) Copyright 2014 Douglas Stockdale – 

Perhaps one of the nicer gifts I can provide my family is when I am the official photographer for a family event. That is when I am the one who brings the “big” camera to observe, participate and document the occasion.

My nice & Mark Thomas’s mom, Ashley, was married in this same church, so I was already familiar with the back lighting issues. As you might guess, that big stained glass window behind them is pretty bright compared to the interior of the church. Translation: a really wide contrast range. With digital capture, if you lose the highlights, the details and colors of that stained glass window, it is darn difficult to get them back even with all of the Photoshop wizardry. I knew to expose for the stained window and reveal the interior detail using Photoshop and RAW capture.

And to make lots of exposures!

I think that this particular moment was pretty beautiful.

Cheers!

Note: since my exposure was based on the back-lit window, my shutter speed was faster then if I were to meter off the interior of the church. When you don’t have a tripod, that little extra shutter speed can make a huge difference, especially when you know you can improve the contrast balance of the image later in PhotoShop. nice.