How to photograph in bad light and bad background situations with great posing by wedding photographer Doug Gordon

Every wedding and shoot offers variables that we cannot control. It's about understanding how to work around our problems.

The question ( via a3180044)

How did you meter for that shot? Spot or center the grass would of been completely blown out, and matrix the couple would of been under exposed. Did you use off camera flash to even the exposure?

The answer ( by  Doug Gordon )

Everything I do is spot metered. As much as possible I try to spot meter under the subjects eye. The key is making sure there is no more than a 1/4 stop between shadow and highlights. I hope this helps. As far as flash, if I were to use it here which I didn't it would be off camera 45 degrees to camera left going into the faces thru the body set as a fill for 2 stop under the ambient light reading. However not needed here

Via Doug Gordon