Hitched and Zipped! New Wedding adventure on the WestCoast

As a part of an ongoing search for new ways to serve our customers, I teamed up with Sooke Harbour House and Adrenaline Zipline  for a test of a new adventure.

Ziplining is a new and fun thing to do and here on Vancouver Island we have Adrenaline Zipline. Acres of beautiful coastal forest and in close proximity to Victoria (only 30 minutes ) and Sooke Harbour House (15 min). I actually happen to live just outside of Adrenaline’s property, a couple of street addresses away.
As soon as I heard about this idea I thought that, even though it sounds like a ton of fun, it poses some serious challenges for the wedding photographer. Shooting in the woods can be challenging by itself, let alone  flying through the air between the trees.
For the bride there is a different challenge, you have to be able to fit into a harness, which is fine but, the dress….umm, does not work.

Well, we got together a small expedition to try and experience it first hand before we start inviting brides and grooms to take this on.

After a brief consultation, we figured out that the bride needs pants. But we wanted to simulate the actual experience, as close as possible, so our test bride Amanda Wiley, event coordinator for the Sooke Harbour House, kept dress shoes on along with a veil and flowers.

After a short ride in an ATV, we were up at the beginning of the course which consists of several lengths of ziplines ranging from 200ft to 1000ft.

We did a few first shots and right away I realized the challenges with light, speed and lens limitations. I would hate to find myself unprepared for this, so I was very grateful that this was a trial run. It was revealing to me many of the things that will be required for the truly fun and stunning images possible in a location like this.
You only really have a few seconds to focus and shoot a fast sequence. Not only the light changes every few feet of flight but the subject is rotating around as well as moving towards or away from me.