Photography Adventure: Wedding Day

One of the most coveted and feared adventures in photography is the wedding assignment. Coveted because it is one of the few ways a photographer can actually earn enough to pay the bills. Feared because: 1. Customer expectations will never be higher, 2. Church lighting is worse than trying to light the grand canyon with a refrigerator light bulb, and 3. Family and friends fly from all over and will only be together this one day, there are no second chances.

Working in a camera store you see and hear all kinds of wedding stories. Stories that teach you some of the pitfalls that the amature wedding photographer inevitably falls into. Here is how the conversation goes:

Customer (in tears): I asked my cousin (brother, sister, friend, dog) to photograph my wedding, and my pictures are all bad, blurry, yellow... can you fix them?
Answer: A resounding NO.

I'm not telling you this to try to drum up business for professional photographers. I am telling you this because the day you get married, graduate, have a baby, win an award, get elected, etc. is one of the most important days of your life. Photography is a very complicated art and science. Don't let the fact that you liked the way so and so's pictures came out when they used their disposable camera at the pool, make you make the mistake of thinking they can photograph a wedding appropriately. When the lighting is low, and church lights tend to be hung from high ceilings, the auto setting just DOESN'T GET IT!!! If the photographer you have chosen doesn't know how to compensate for tungsten light, doesn't know what an aperture or shutter speed setting does, doesn't know how to compose an image, and thinks their ink jet printer will make beautiful long lasting images, think again. Remember the paintings of your grandfather and grandmother that still grace the walls of your home. Those images were painted, or photographed, with the eye of an artist on materials that lasted for a half a century. You don't want your grand kids to wake up one day and say, "Hey, why don't we have any pictures of granny?"

Ok, here are some tips if you are on your way to becoming a pro wedding photographer. It's better to learn these things before the wedding.

1. What is the most common crop requested of wedding photos? Customer: Can you cut the glass of whisky or bottle of beer out of this image of the bride and groom? A: Yes, but we will have to crop out half of the bouquet to do it. TIP: Tell the bride and/or groom to put the glass down BEFORE you take the picture.

2. Use a flash. It is fashionable these days for wedding coordinators to demand, "there will be no flash photography at our wedding!" If they tell you this refuse to photograph the wedding. Seriously. Low light conditions with moving people and no flash will produce bad pictures. A higher ISO can help, but that also makes a grainier image. If you are the pro shooting the wedding, explain that they will get bad pictures if they don't allow the flash.

3. Indoor lighting is usually tungsten. If you take a few indoors without the flash for a special effect, set your camera's white balance to tungsten (the light bulb icon). If you use auto white balance, you run the risk of the bride (and everything else) having an ugly yellow cast. Don't ruin her dress that way. PS> I've tested a lot of different camera brands and I will add that Pentax cameras do the best job of compensating for tungsten light in the automode (but I'd still set the white balance appropriately to be on the safe side). Also, don't forget to change the white balance back when you go back outdoors. If your pictures are coming out blue the white balance is set for tungsten under sunlight. If your pictures are green you are under florescent light, change the white balance to the tube bulb icon.

4. Close is better: Probably the biggest mistake amateur photographers make in composition is thinking people are landscapes. They want to show the beautiful church behind the people. They include the alter, communion rail, half of the congregation... Take close ups of individuals and couples. The greatest joy in viewing your loved ones photographs is being able to see the faces that you love, not seeing a spec in the middle of a huge church. Let the person's face fill the frame. Of course you want to take group shots of the family and guests also, but don't forget to get close ups of everyone attending if possible.

5. If possible, go to the wedding location before the event and take some test shots. This will help you gauge your flash range and get a feel for any lighting surprises.

6. Use a tripod.

That's enough tips for now. There are probably hundreds more, but that covers some of the most common problems that come across our counter. When you do a great job on that wedding, you will know it because of the, "WOW" effect. When your pictures are great people will look at them and go, "WOW!" Hopefully these tips will help you achieve WOW and avoid the tears because even if you refund someone's money, you can't get the day back to do it over.

Here are a few pics from a wedding I recently photographed. I'll never forget the sound of the greatest wedding photography award I've ever achieved: The appreciation of the family for a job well done.