Five days...

Vertigo

Vertigo

Vertigo

Soldato
Joined
28 Dec 2003
Posts
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So, five days until my first solo wedding shoot. Erm, eeeeek!

Done several as second shooter but never before on my own. It's for extended family and a relatively small affair in terms of numbers but still bloody nervous :(

Read all the advice given on here before but if anyone has any more pearls of wisdom, I'm all ears! Wish me luck.
 
danoliver1 said:
Getting them to look in your direction instead oflooking at everyone elses iphone will be tricky.
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Some people skills will be useful here.

You can either makeup humorous, let one of the guest take centre stage with his Iphone.

You can asks the guests not to at all.

You can ask the guests to let you go first and you will step aside after each one when you've got yours.

I usually do the latter, everyone's happy.
 
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Having just got married a month ago and had a professional photographer, the things I really liked about him was his general approachability and charisma. He was incredibly friendly but also commanded respect as "the photographer" and politely asked people from time to time to step away or even, "let me take this one, then you all can take one after me" which was also a good approach. He also sat down with us before the event to make sure he had a list made with all the photos and the people we wanted in with them. He also had a background in architecture which was great (the photos in front of the church archways and inside from the top with a wide angle lens were superb).

Good luck! Seems like superb advice in the thread KD linked.
 
Yeah I'd already seen the big thread mentioned earlier.

I'm also very aware of the "other photographers" phenomenon. Even second shooting myself, I often actually shout at the assembled subjects to look at the main photographer and ignore me - I'll be doing the same this time with guests taking their own snaps.
 
It's partially due to the proliferation of cameras IMO. Everyone wants in the action in the day now. Just look at stadiums at night, it's just an amazing array of LCDs lit up! :)

Factoid: 10% of all pictures taken digitally ever, were taken last year!
 
Raymond I think his main line of work photography wise is commercial architecture, taking photos of buildings and interiors for catalogs, marketing, etc.
 
Raymond Lin said:
Some people skills will be useful here.

You can either makeup humorous, let one of the guest take centre stage with his Iphone.

You can asks the guests not to at all.

You can ask the guests to let you go first and you will step aside after each one when you've got yours.

I usually do the latter, everyone's happy.
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Do you ever take them away elsewhere?

Last wedding I went to, I don't think the Photographer was particularly good, certainly so after seeing her final work with default preset filters for each version stamped on the images.

We were asked not to take any photos during the ceremony and were then given a moment towards the end where we were all allowed to. I further realised she wasn't very good from the fact that she had the focus beep active on her 5D during a quiet service.

When we went outside and she was taking shots, obviously we then had what is being described where everybody is trying to get shots. She didn't really speak up much, but eventually just took them away to another area of the grounds and into the house as well.
 
I do the couples shot away from everyone, time to time a single guest will try and find us, i just politely ask him if he could wait until i am done and he can photograph the couple later on. Almost always they leave and go back to the drinks and leave me to it.

Although it is a lot easier to get the couple to look at me instead of Uncle Ed at this point as i only have to content with 2 people instead of the attention of 20.

alas, but I am quite proud of this one from last wedding, not from an artistic point of view but because no a single person blinked, not a single person looked off camera.

You will find sometimes the girls will look at each other if not someone off the camera that they know. It could be anything, their boyfriend or even a call just pulled up to the side.

q8eR3Hg.jpg
 
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Blinking is a nightmare - I usually end up firing off three or four shots of every group shot I do to increase my chances of no-one blinking in one of them! :)
 
3 or 4?

I remember one group shot I took, only 6 people in it. The sequence was like this.

1 - Mother of the bride blinked
2 - father of the groom licking his lips
3 - groom blinked
4 - best man looked to the right across the group, like he was checking what everyone is doing
5 - Mother of the bride blinked again
6 - father of the bride made a weird shape with his mouth
7 - One of the bridesmaid looking at somewhere else

at which point i am crapping myself....where is this shot I thought i saw in the LCD that i thought it passed the test ?!

8 - something else wrong

etc etc

Other little things such as:-

Mother of the bride/groom wearing hats, it creates a shadow under their face so it will ALWAYS be under exposed. They are reluctant to take it off as its part of their outfit, some even continue to wear it throughout the evening do.

Some men wearing reaction lenses or sunglasses. They forget they have them on and remember to ask them to take it off.

Wind making hair flying across their faces

Big groups tend to stand in a horseshoe shape instead of a straight line........it is a weird human nature thing and I don't know how it happens, the people on the edges just unconsciously step forward, the more to the edge they are, they step further forward. So make sure they are, unless you want to shoot in F/11. (noticed how that shot above they are lined up straight across)
 
That shot above they don't look quite straight, although it's not awful either. As a side point, what was it shot with? 14 or 24 I presume? Do you ever try and use off-camera flashes on the smaller group shots to light up underneath the hats?

kd
 
It was straight as I could get it....they keep coming forward ! (must be my charm :p)

No off camera flashes, just take notice of where the sun is so they are not facing it, wait until a cloud pass by or go stand in the shade. Take notice of background - no telephone pole, no red signs/bins/traffic cone/randoms walking in the distance. Take notice of what is on the ground, bits of rubbish, people putting glasses of champagne down on the floor, handbags etc.

Formals group shots I shoot with the 24-70. It is pretty much what I use the lens for these days. It gives me the flexibility of the zoom, (24mm for group and 70mm for half body shots of say a smaller group) I don't need the shallow depth of field as these kind of shots are for the mothers to put above their mantle piece a lot of the time. It is perhaps the least creative/fun part of the day for me but it is important to the client so you just need to get it done and the 24-70 covers all the bases for these kind of shots. You could do the same thing if you got the primes (24, 35, 50 & 85) but you would be changing lenses from group to group and when you don't need that DoF so there really is no point. You are going for technical rather artistic here.

Perhaps the only creative group photo I do is for the bestman/usher/bridesmaid one, those can be fun when they play along.
 
For large groups I actually just run back if there is enough space. Wide angles distort people closer to the edges of the frame so they look like they are carrying a few extra pounds.

As no one likes to look fat, I can only assume the people in the periphery will hate the picture, so I avoid wide angles where possible.

On a side note, often there is good moments when people don't think you are taking pictures, so look out them.
DSC_2454.jpg



Regarding lists, a limited number of group shot's and the days timeline is all I use lists for. Everything else is either instinct, or knowledge from previous revision/experience. I tried the shot list thing once when starting out, and I soon realised I produced much better pictures flying by the seat of my pants.
 
Haha, I do remember your preference shooting group shots with a small tele photo.


You have a point with distortion and anything over 35mm will look slightly distorted, so try to step back if you can but obviously it is location dependant and group size dependant.
 
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Ta for all the advice, particularly Ray, all good stuff to remember (will make a little list in Evernote to keep on my phone I think!).

I think I've got the bases covered with kit - two bodies plus 10-22, 24-70, 70-200, 100L & 50 1.4 :) May borrow a friend's 24 1.4 just on the offchance it comes in handy.
 
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