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I just heard from a bride that I photographed this year that her father had died suddenly. She was distraught, and I saddened. He was a nice man.
I’ve just gone through the proofs again, and find many photographs of him – walking his daughter down the aisle, dancing with her and enjoying himself. She says that she will show these photographs at his funeral, the last pictures of him and her together that she will ever have.
I am proud to have taken these photographs, ones that will be treasured forever. That’s what wedding photographs are all about; treasured memories.
One area that most brides don’t think about but should, is watching their backs. I don’t mean it the way you’re thinking, but from a photographic perspective. While commercial weddings venues usually do a good job, from my observation, churches don’t.
Here’s what I mean. Be sure to watch your back(ground). Brides like photographs of themselves getting ready in a special, or not so special changing room. Here’s the problem… if the venue’s (church) changing room is really a glorified junk room (yes, I’ve seen it) then your photographs are going to have junk in the background.
I’ve found that venues usually spend money on the froo-froo in their changing room so that the photographs will have nice backgrounds, but churches don’t. Venues depend on quality photography for their livelihood, but not churches. So if you’re planning on getting married in a church, in particular, take a close look at the changing room’s furniture, and level of junk. If it’s awful, either make sure its moved to another room or see if there is another room that’s nicer. And be sure to bring your own props, so your photographs will not have distracting junk in the background.
If their isn’t a way to get rid of the junk, just move it behind screens, into closets or anywhere that it will be hidden.
No, I know these blogs are about wedding photography, but the question is valid. Your answer will be yes. You don’t think about it, except to add air to it (I hope) once in a while so it won’t be flat when you need it but other than that it’s “out of sight, out of mind”.
Car tires are very reliable nowadays. How long has it been since your tire has failed, either by blowout or even a flat? You may not remember, but you still have a spare tire. Why? It’s because the car manufacturer knows that when it eventually happens, they want you to have a way to self rescue. Even if your tire could run with a nail for a hundred miles, it’s cheap insurance.
Here’s how it relates to wedding photography. It’s called photographing a wedding with two cameras, and if your budget affords it, two photographers.
Cameras are sophisticated packages of electronics, and machinery. And they fail on occasion. If that occasion is in the middle of your wedding, your wedding photography is ruined with the photographer’s only liability is to give you your money back. As I’ve said before, you have to get it right the first time; you can’t re-shoot a wedding.
Personally, I buy two identical camera bodies at a time so I won’t have to think about how each operates and miss the shot. Speaking of missing shots, I actually use both during every wedding… one with a telephoto zoom and the other a wide angle zoom. In that way, I don’t waste time changing (and possibly dropping lenses) but just grab the second camera, take the shot and move back to the primary. As another benefit, it also prevents any possibility of getting dust inside the camera as the lenses are rarely removed during the wedding.
And a second photographer can get shots that a single photographer can’t, as you cannot be in two places at once. All good insurance.
Remember, what’s good for your car, should be good for your wedding photographer. When you book yours, be sure to ask and make sure that you see two around your photographer’s neck. It’s cheap insurance, and from my perspective just good common sense.
I cannot remember a wedding when the bride and groom didn’t rush the photographically important parts, where I didn’t have to ask them to s-l-o-w down. Some of those important parts are the processional (towards the altar), recessional (away from the altar), the first dances, throwing the garter and the bouquet and so on. My observations are that while the bride and groom are physically there, they are mentally in a thousand places and are so excited that they don’t move slowly enough or take their time. I think that the venue typically have a process and want to efficiently execute the wedding steps, because that’s what they do. The couple on the other hand want to experience every blissful moment, but feel pressured to go with the flow. I wish they would resist.
So my simple advice is “Don’t rush it”. As it’s your wedding, this is the one day where the world revolves around you. You’ve spent a huge amount of time planning, and a also lot of money so savor every single minute. In the years that follow, the cost of the wedding will be long forgotten, but the only things left will be your memories and your photographs, wall prints and albums. The longer you take in the key moments the better the chance that your photographer will get those great shots that will make you smile… forever.
There is one thing that almost no one ever thinks about when they choose a wedding photographer. And that one thing is “What is the end game? End game, what’s that?
The end game, in this instance is what do you want the final results of your wedding photography to be? An album, small prints, large prints, very large prints? On what types of materials, glossy, matte, canvas?
In general, the larger the end print the more megapixels you need to maintain a finely detailed image. And not only that. Asking the photographer to shoot in “RAW” becomes vital when you expect to receive large prints. I am ignoring the viewing distance in this example. Just about any digital SLR will produce excellent prints up to 16×20; the reason that camera manufacturers keep introducing cameras with up to 50 megapixels is to attempt to persuade the photographers that newer is better.They don’t make any money if people don’t continue to buy.
In truth, it doesn’t make a hill of beans difference to the end result. For example, I have a friend who is a motorcycle mechanic. If you give him the crappiest tools, he will do an excellent job. If you give me the finest tools, I will ruin the motorcycle. Giving someone the finest paint brush, does not make a Rembrandt.
Let’s talk about RAW files for a moment. Digital SLR camera can record digital data in several ways. Point and shoot cameras cannot. Point and shoot cameras process the image recorded on their tiny optical sensors and produce a jpg file which you are all familiar with. The problem with that, as well as their SLR cousins is that the cameras discard much of the data recorded to produce a file to the jpg specifications. It’s like buying a map of the country and then throwing away all but Georgia, thinking that’s all you need. Just don’t drive to Florida.
RAW files, however, are the closest representation to what the camera sensor can produce. The file sizes are much larger, just like the map. The RAW files are copied to the computer and then processed with infinitely more powerful software and computer hardware to produce an much better result. The good photographers shoot RAW to get the finest result they can for their clients. In addition, as software technology is leaping forward RAW files produced a few years ago can be reprocessed to create potentially, much better results.
So what should you take from this post? Just that if you don’t want to produce photographs of over 16×20 inches then the megapixels is not that significant, but do ask for RAW images. Today’s digital SLR cameras will produce great work, no matter what the generation. It’s the photographer that makes the difference.
This topic is white balance, the process of making the colors in the final print look the way they should. For example, a white wedding dress should look white and not orange or green. That process is called white balance adjustment by the camera manufacturers. Each SLR camera has a number of settings to resolve this, as cameras will just “see” a white dress based on the light color bounced off of it. If it fluorescent light, it will be recorded as green, if a light bulb, orange. The cameras make a valiant attempt to fix this problem by using a setting known as automatic white balance. The computer circuitry makes a best effort and usually is fairly close to what the colors should be. It will also have a variety of settings such as sunshine, cloudy, incandescent, fluorescent and so on. For example, if you’re shooting under clouds, the light is a little blueish. By changing the setting to cloudy, you’ll get a closer result by making a slight blueish cast become white; or you can leave as auto and you’ll likely get a similar result.
The problem is this, one that I’ve never read anybody commenting about. When a photographer leaves the settings on auto, the camera continually makes guesses from photo to photo to fine tune the white balance adjustment. That wouldn’t really matter if you only shoot a dozen shots (especially in RAW, see adjacent post) as the actual white setting can be adjusted in post production software. Here’s the problem… when I shoot a wedding it’s between 1-2,000 images so can you imagine trying a individually tweak the settings of 2,000 photographs after the fact to get consistent results in similar surroundings? It a horrendous task.
So what I do if to switch from auto to sunshine, cloudy or whatever and leave it there. Although the RAW files may have be off (sometimes way off) by having a distinct color caste, by shooting in RAW I can adjust that out for the entire session in a matter of seconds. And without a loss of quality. Whites looks exactly the same in the same settings.
If given time, I photograph a special card with white, gray and black panels. Not only does it let me set the white balance exactly for those lighting conditions, it also is very useful for setting the correct exposure. With a few button clicks, the custom white balance is set and the photography begins. The more you get it right in camera, the less work in post production. If you multiply 2,000 images by just 1 minute each, you get over 33 hours of non-stop work after the wedding. That’s why thinking ahead saves a huge amount of time.
When I shoot weddings, I’m not paying a lot of attention to the minutiae all of the time, but I am paying a lot to context. What’s context? Context is focusing on the subjects and the background. For example, when I shoot the cake cutting, I always stand behind the cake so I can photograph this couple, and the guests. Many photographers shoot couples from the side, and miss the context… in this instance the guests. After all, shooting the couple cake cutting without guests screams a staged shot. The guests make all of the difference.
