(1)  Sodo Park is a really cool venue. It's just a couple blocks south of my old studio, about a mile south of Safeco Field.

(2) Another shot from inside the venue.

5D, 70-200 @200mm, ISO 1000, f3.5, 1/100

(3) Heidi and Joe were so easy to work with. All smiles and very relaxed.

left: 70-200 @200mm, ISO 400, f3.5, 1/6400.  right: 24mm, ISO 1250, f4.5, 1/1250

(4)  There was some sort of metal battle-of-the-bands going on a couple doors down from Sodo Park. These enthusiastic rockers were happy to join our photo shoot.

70-200 @90mm, ISO 500, f4.5, 1/800.

(5)  One of Heidi's friends made 1,000 origami cranes for good luck. My stomach blanches at the thought of the amount of effort this must have taken.

left: 24mm, ISO 400, f2.5, 1/320 sec.   right: 35mm, ISO 1250 , f2.5, 1/80 sec.

(6)   When it was time for the kiss, H & J surprised me by putting on this rigorous secret hand shake first.

It was really dark inside.  Both of these shots were taken at ISO 3200, f2.8, 1/80 sec.  Even so, I had to bring them up a stop in Lightroom, so in effect these images were shot at ISO 6400.  If I shot them at the "correct" exposure, the shutter speed would have been too slow to get a clean shot.  Not bad for ISO 6400 on a 5 year old camera, eh?  This is why I'm not going to upgrade to the 5DmkII.  It has a marginally better sensor, but in a body that's pretty much the same as my old 5D. I'm going to wait for a body that has both a better sensor AND better focus system.  Give me a 5DII sensor in a 7D body and I'll be all set for another 5 years.

(7)  Heidi is being lit by the light of a sodium vapor street lamp streaming through the window.

35mm, ISO 1600, f1.6, 1/80 sec.

(8)  A metal, Christmas tree - like sculpture held dozens of these mojitos.

left: 35mm, ISO 1600, f1.6, 1/60 sec.  right: 35mm, ISO 1600, f1.8, 1/80 sec.  

(9)  Heidi's first drag as a married woman...

35mm, ISO 1600, f1.6, 1/30 sec.  I followed Heidi into the courtyard when she told me she was going for a cigarette break. It was dark out there and I was pretty sure I was going to have to flash it. But using flash in a near pitch-dark environment would be a pretty lousy look.  Heidi would have been white in a black hole.  It wouldn't have looked much different than the wedding guests' snapshots. Then I noticed on the other end of the courtyard were some twinkle lights strung between the buildings. I knew that these lights would give me a nice background instead of a black hole, so I asked Heidi to walk about 50 feet to get underneath them. I took a knee and shot up in order to get the lights in the background. Finally, there was a dim but visible light coming from one of the windows. I positioned Heidi so that this light would hit her face. Even so I had to shoot at 1.6 @ 1/30th to get the shot, but the end results were much superior to using my on-camera flash.