Natural Light for Wedding Photography

We have spoken a lot about the benefits of off-camera flash for wedding photography and how it can be beneficial when doing night photography. Contrasting to this is natural light. Natural light is just that, natural. It is the light created by the sun or golden hour, it can either be diffused through cloudy or overcast weather, or direct sunlight.

There are many benefits of using natural light, the main one being is quick and easy. The wedding photograph above is taken with natural light only. We only had roughly 10 minutes at this particular location and the bride and groom wanted some wedding photos displaying the lighthouse in the background. I was amazed when we arrived by the colour of the sky and the brewing storm in the distance. The light however was very quickly fading and was in fact dark 10 minutes later.

If I had chosen to use off-camera flash, it would have taken around 5 to 10 minutes to setup and I could have potentially missed this amazing opportunity. As the sun was behind the horizon, it allowed for a beautiful soft light on the bride and groom, the lighthouse and the background. If a photographer has an understanding of natural light, when to use it and when not to use it, the wedding photographs can be truly amazing.