Flying ring bearers

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Kermers

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Dave
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Looking for a bit of advive here.

We are shooting a wedding this year and the clients have informed us that they plan to have an owl bring in the rings.

Has anyone come across this scenario before?

Any advice or experiences of this would be greatly apreciated!

Kermers.
 
Haven't done it myself but having photographed owls I would make sure that the owl is happy with what he is doing as sometimes they have other ideas!

owl20.jpg
 
Thanks Gramps,

That's my big worry!

I'm sure they must be trained, but as you say, you just don't know!

Be my luck to get one with an attitude :-)
 
How could this possibly go wrong. :suspect:
 
Thinking now of setting up multiple cameras covering all angles and shoot like crazy. :-)
 
Never heard of this before - could be interesting but sounds very difficult. to shoot.
So the bird will fly down the aisle to land on a hand carrying the rings. I guess you'd need to talk the the handler/your clients to discuss how they think this is goinf to work.

Head onto the bird with the looks of the congregation would be good, but you'd need the bridge and groom in the shot. Or the shot of when the rings are handed to the bride and groom?

A quick google shows there's several offering this service, plus photo's, videos to give you ideas
http://www.barnowlringbearer.com/
http://www.theowlringbearer.co.uk/
http://www.flyingtheknot.co.uk/

Video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ1nxl1i57Y
 
And make sure your gear is covered just in case the owl needs to go!

Seriously, there is so many things that could go wrong with this idea, sounds like it'll either be the photo of the year or the cock up of the decade.
 
Cheers Byker28i that's a real help. We always shoot with two photographers so should be able to cover a few angles. really have to liase closely with clients and handler on this one me thinks!

All taken care of Modchild, lets hope it's not the latter :-)
 
Good to hear that there will be two of you covering this, my first thought was for you to get a second tog in to help with this.

I imagine one of you will be up the front with the couple shooting them, so will be in the right place to get some head on shots of the owl flying in. Maybe have the second tog to the side or towards a conner to get some panning shots of the owl in flight coming in over the crowd.

There are plenty of people on here that can give you specific advice for photographing birds in flight, and maybe a trip out to a falcony centre to have a practice before hand will be a good idea. I have only had the chance to try it a couple of times. I have below an example of a couple of shots from my first attempt a couple of years, with no planning before hand.

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They are not particuarly good, I think I was using a 40d at the time. But imagine yours after a bit more practice with the background of the inside of a church. Could be really good!

On a practical side, I imagine you already have you base settings for weddings stored as a custom user setting. Once you know what you are doing for the BIF, have the setting for that stored as another user setting so that you can quickly change between the two shooting styles and not miss anything.
 
Hi Dave.

Prob will visit local falconry centre, good idea!

Getting the settings set up before the day would be a great help too.

Cheers for the tips, much apreciated!!!
 
Well, depending on how close you want to get depends on the lens to use, but this was at 11mm about 18 inches away!
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1/1600s f/3.5 at 11.0mm iso100
 
You need Cobra's input on this; him being the resident bird chucker!

Btw Gramps - how does one psychoanalyse an owl to make sure it's happy? :D
 
I can't decide if this is a ridiculous, or AWESOME wedding idea.

Strap a gopro video camera to its legs.
 
I have seen it done before. I will go with it being an awesome idea. Until the owl spots a mouse out of the corner of its eye at least. :lol:
 
I really don't know what to make of this. Is it madness or a stroke of genius?
Good luck with the photography Kermers and I hope you share the end result with us.

DemiLion said:
how does one psychoanalyse an owl to make sure it's happy? :D
Click to expand...

Reading one of those links it would seem that they're extremely intelligent owls :eek:

"Our owls have flown in front of over 2 million people during their time with us, so they know exactly what they're doing.

During the ceremony, the owl will wait patiently out of sight until the rings are needed. At this point, the owl will gently fly to the hand of the best man, groom or supervising falconer."

An owl experienced enough to know when to hide out of sight and when it's exactly the moment when to deliver the rings . . . surely they must be aware enough to talk about their emotions :lol: ;)
 
DemiLion said:
You need Cobra's input on this; him being the resident bird chucker!

Btw Gramps - how does one psychoanalyse an owl to make sure it's happy? :D
Click to expand...

It's ok. Owls don't give a hoot.
I'm sure it'll be owl right on the day :)
 
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bass_junkie83 said:
I have seen it done before. I will go with it being an awesome idea. Until the owl spots a mouse out of the corner of its eye at least. :lol:
Click to expand...

I've seen bats flying about during weddings at darker times of the year. Could be carnage - unless you can get flash setup to capture the kill.
 
Nice pic Byker28i, not sure they'll let us that close though.

Love the bad jokes, hope I don't remember them on the day, last thing I'll need is the bloody giggles.

Wedding in August, I'll post some pics from the day (hopefully)

Thanks for all the advice guys!
 
I have been to a wedding where the rings where delivered by Doves, and TBF they where trained to perfection and everything went without a hitch
 
I have done this before and it's not easy.

The wedding I did the registrar let me stand right in the middle at the time the owl was coming down the aisle.
These are the problems:
1. It was dark inside as not to scare the owl and very bright outside and I was facing an open door making the whole thing backlit!
2. The owl didn't want to play and so squaked for a while. Make sure you are 'ready' when he suddenly decides to fly.
3. Although I was in prime place the owl swooped downwards on it's way down the aisle.
4. It shifts fast - fast shutter, NO FLASH (as it scares them), in dark conditions all required.
5. You can't practice. The owl will only do it if it's hungry! It's a one shot deal, no rehersale

I really hope no one ever asks me to do this again. It's the hardest bit of a wedding I've had to photograph!
 
Make sure the owl signs a model release form and if its under 16 years old you will need a CRB check too ;-)
 
I'm presuming they will be doing a test flight or two in the church before hand?

Could you not be there and have a practice .. should also hopefully give you a few shots of the bird coming in with the rings should it go pear shaped on the day.
 
They aren't getting married at Castle Bolton are they? It showed them trying to train the owls to deliver the rings on the program on ITV about Yorkshire that went on for a few weeks.

Hopefully by now they will know what they are doing, it seemed a bit hit and miss on the TV.
 
The main thing you will need to know is the flight path, as said above owls usually swoop and skim the floor and then rise towards the end of the flight before landing so don't expect it to go up and flap its wings a lot. unless the aisle isnt wide enough for it to strech its wings.

I keep thinking about going to a local bird of prey centre and having a play shoting the birds.
 
staffitaxi said:
They aren't getting married at Castle Bolton are they? It showed them trying to train the owls to deliver the rings on the program on ITV about Yorkshire that went on for a few weeks.

Hopefully by now they will know what they are doing, it seemed a bit hit and miss on the TV.
Click to expand...

Hi Andrea,

They are getting married in a little Hall in York. It seems the general consensus is they will be well trained. One of us will be at the venue beforehand to liase with the handler and get some test shots.


V Fast lens me thinks!!!
 
To be honest the main photographic problem will be the clash of requirements between "wedding" and "birding" gear.

The stuff you have for wedding shots won't be the stuff you need for birding and its possible that even f2.8 glass won't cut it in some medieval coal cellar.

f1.8/f1.4 glass tends not to be "fast focus" as in "fast action focus", in fact quite the reverse, the focus tends to be slowly stepped for accuracy in narrow DOF portraiture.
 
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