Strobist Information: For the Easter weekend my partner and I were invited to a friend, Ly's, sisters wedding. Of course, being invited to a wedding is nothing unusual, but what was slightly different was that we were also invited along on the honeymoon! Rosie and Jason, the newly weds, decided they didn't want to go down the normal exotic holiday route and instead hired a huge luxury house at Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast. They then invited all their friends and relatives to join them for a week long party of sun, fun and copious drinking! We went down for the day on Saturday, before the relatives arrived, and had a fantastic time enjoying some great food (Rosie, Jason and the best man are all top class chefs), a great atmosphere and above all, great company. I took my camera and lights along on the off chance there might be a photographic opportunity or two! :) As it turned out, the house had a pool and out of the blue, Rosie suggested a jump in the pool trash the dress type shot. Now, unless you are a professional wedding photographer, that is not the kind of opportunity that springs up very often! Because of the size and layout of the pool it made positioning the lights kind of tricky. It was also quite windy which made using umbrellas almost impossible. I was left with the lights in an awkward position and fired bare. We had a practice with one of grooms men and Ly and it was obvious this was going to be a difficult shot, but we gave it a go anyway. Jason picked Rosie up, I gave it the big 3-2-1-GO and the pair of them plunged into the pool in full wedding regalia complete with vail and bouquet! Unfortunately, Tony who had been doing the practice shot, had kind of leaped into the air where as Jason took more of a step forward. I totally mistimed the shutter, not that it would have mattered much as I was also completely in the wrong spot. A once in a lifetime photographic opportunity and I blew it! :( Nobody seemed to mind too much and we did do the shot again in wet clothes which came out only marginally better, at which point the whole bridal party jumped in the pool and general chaos ensued. I just snapped away until the batteries went flat in the flashes. Later we connected the camera up to the projector in the cinema (did I mention this was a luxury house!!!) and played back the days photos. I might not have got the shot I wanted, but the pictures we did have were side splittingly funny (although you really had to be there) so all-in-all, a really great day! :) The setup for the pictures was really simple. Two bare SB-28's on either side of the pool fired at full power on 24mm zoom by PW's. I had chairs wedged into the feet of the lightstands to stop them blowing over in the wind. Earlier in the day one of the stands with a brolly had blown over into the pool. By unbelievably good luck, it landed brolly side down and floated so the flash and PW did not go in the water. You have never seen anyone get from one side of a swimming pool to other as fast as I did to rescue it! :) I have included a few of the days other photos in the comments so you can see just what I am talking about! :) Pictures here: Trash the Dress I think your dress might be a little damp Rosie Champers Learn how to light: www.strobist.com