After successfully finishing several wedding photography assignments I learned a few valuable things, which I am going to share in this article. Here you will find out what the guiding list of shots to consider while doing wedding photography and how to be better prepared to the wedding day. In addition to that I want to share some ways that helped me to produce better photographs and finally made my clients happy. This article though is more about photography techniques, not the business ones. And I should add that the article mostly regards to the photojournalistic style of the wedding photography, when the photographer is transparent and unobtrusive.
"I have never shot a wedding with only one light on the camera. Ever since one could use a second flash head off one power pack, by the use of an extension cable, all my work, as a wedding photographer, was done with two or more light sources. When practical photo-electric tubes were introduced, for portable use) I was probably one of the first guys standing on line to purchase one" says Ed. And in this article he continues to talk about usage of multiple flashes and slaves in his wedding work.
There are certain rules that should be applied to certain aspects of our work simply because ignoring those principles cause problems that negatively alter the images that we make, by sending the viewer the wrong message or photographic statement. Let's take time to examine one aspect of wedding photography where applying the rules makes a lot of common sense; rendition of the wedding dress and full length portraiture of the bride.
Currently I am trying to design a wedding album, which then I give to my clients (as their wedding photographer). And in this article I decided to share my ideas and thoughts about this topic. It seems there is not much of such information available. I hope this text will help some of you.
In the Part 1 we talked about creating a template and placing a single photograph. Now it's time to add more photographs and do something about that. Let's just refresh some basics about the composition - the page (or the page-spread) should have a flow, people on the photographs better be looking into the album (to the stitch). And when put several photographs on the page, the sense of telling a story greatly increases, which makes us be more cautious about mixing images that don't fit together.
With time you learn new things, find out how better handle different situations and generally how make your life better and easier. There is no difference with my wedding photography thing. But if my previous article "My Wedding Photography - Lessons Learned" I tried to address immediate technical issues, such as flash, lenses, battery, focusing and metering, etc. This article is more about what drives and makes the wedding photographer. Of course, I cannot make any standards in the industry or suggest any guidelines for those who start in this field.