For portrait and wedding photographers, like Sandra Åberg, the chance to experiment and be creative is essential. Test shoots form ideas for her wedding and portrait shoots that can create lasting memories for the people she photographs.

One such shoot recently saw Sandra take her Sony Alpha 1 and Alpha 7R V to Saint Jean Cap Ferrat, in the south of France. “It is a such a stunning location, just out on the cliffs on the outskirts of the town” says the Swedish photographer, who is always travelling. “I had an idea in place and knew that I wanted to go back at sunset and shoot.”

The shoot would involve a female couple, with both women dressed in white, looking like a wedding shoot. “The girls weren’t a real couple,” Sandra explains “I didn’t really know what would happen, but I love being by the ocean, it always brings something almost spiritual to be in that kind of setting.”

With the idea formed, Sandra used her Alpha 1 and Alpha 7R V to realise the story. “I usually shoot with two cameras, each with a different lens. That way I don’t have to scramble around changing lenses when things are happening” she says. On her Alpha 7R V Sandra mounted the FE 50mm f/1.2 GM lens, which she describes as ‘essential’ due to her racing against the light of the setting sun.

“It’s pretty much dark at the time we’re shooting this. Thanks to the f/1.2 aperture I was still shooting at ISO 100 for most of the images, despite the low light. And I love the shallow depth of field; I will always shoot at f/1.2 if I can, that is what the lens was made for. That is what creates the stunning look of the images.”

Sandra’s FE 24mm f/1.4 GM lens was mounted on her Alpha 1, with the wider field of view allowing her to put her subjects within the context of the landscape around them. Something that is obvious in her images is a sense of movement in the environment, which comes both from her and her subjects. “It is one of the reasons I prefer to shoot on prime lenses – I like the look more, but I also have to move around, and I feel myself getting more creative” says Sandra. There is also little direction on her shoots, with the photographer preferring not to micro-manage how her models pose and move. This playfulness opens the door for magic moments to occur.

In one such shot, both women’s face is obscured by one of their elbows. “It just happened” Sandra says of the image. “I told the girls to keep moving. I kind of needed them to keep being in movement together, almost like a dance.”

The shot was made possible with the intelligent AI autofocus system of the Alpha 7R V. “I had the focus on the girl in the background because I wanted her to be blurry in the foreground, to create a very different kind of look. Seconds before I fired the shutter, the Eye AF would have locked on the girl in the background, and it stays locked despite her face being briefly hidden.”

Technology like AI-driven autofocus allows Sandra to be playful and creative with her images. “I don’t have to worry about looking at the back of the camera like in the old days and checking if this shot is sharp. I ask the subjects to keep moving and I keep shooting,” she says.

But the old days weren’t all bad; one thing that Sandra loves is the timeless artistic feel that black and white images conjure. “I love the look of old film, so I think that’s what I try to imitate in my black and white photos. It’s a more faded and grainy look. I actually have to add grain to the images, as the images are just so sharp.”

Although you can capture Black and White images in-camera, Sandra prefers to shoot raw images in colour and then edit the images into monochrome. Shooting raw images allows for the highest level of image quality and detail that Sony Alpha cameras can produce, whilst offering the photographer the freedom of exactly how they want their colour or lack of it.

With so much spontaneity it has become instinctive to Sandra when she has got the shot and it is time to move on.