One shot from today's wedding...

dawssvt

This is a shot I was looking forward to trying at this wedding and I think it turned out pretty good.

C&C welcome. More to come soon

Darren Troy C

I like the angle and composition. I, personally, would have gone for a touch more bokeh. Only a "me" preference though.

zoomer

I very much doubt the bride with be happy with it.
That angle is very unflattering to her.
The photo is unexposed by a bit as well.
The idea for the shot is good, unfortunately as presented this just doesn't work.

sherijohnson

I will be curious how they like it, they may love it, you won't know till you show it to them.

dawssvt

Idlewild wrote:

I like the angle and composition. I, personally, would have gone for a touch more bokeh. Only a "me" preference though.

Yea, I was hoping there would be more bokah in the shot as well. I stopped my 17-55mm all the way down to 2.8. I was pretty close to the rings as well. What could I have done different to get more bokah? I think I am going to photoshop it a little more to see if I can make everything but the hands more out of focus.

zoomer wrote:

I very much doubt the bride with be happy with it.

That angle is very unflattering to her.

The photo is unexposed by a bit as well.

The idea for the shot is good, unfortunately as presented this just doesn't work.

I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. When I saw someone else do this exact shot a couple weeks ago, I loved it.

I really like the shot personally.

Elaine

This shows off some of the nice detailing in her dress, and she has a very happy and pleasant expression!

Something to try next time is maybe have them kissing in the background? They are looking at the camera, and so the viewer is trying to connect with their eyes, which are purposefully out of focus, but (as already pointed out) not totally blurred out. The rings are the focal point, but it seems when eyes are in the photo (especially eyes that are looking at the camera), our initial reaction is to connect with them. In this shot, I find her face so engaging that I wish I could see it more clearly.

When I look at the rings, I wish hers was turned a bit more on her finger. Perhaps a 50mm lens would work better for this sort of shot, to get that shallow DOF?

dawssvt

Elaine wrote:

This shows off some of the nice detailing in her dress, and she has a very happy and pleasant expression!

Something to try next time is maybe have them kissing in the background? They are looking at the camera, and so the viewer is trying to connect with their eyes, which are purposefully out of focus, but (as already pointed out) not totally blurred out. The rings are the focal point, but it seems when eyes are in the photo (especially eyes that are looking at the camera), our initial reaction is to connect with them. In this shot, I find her face so engaging that I wish I could see it more clearly.

When I look at the rings, I wish hers was turned a bit more on her finger. Perhaps a 50mm lens would work better for this sort of shot, to get that shallow DOF?

You know... I was thinking the same thing. I keep getting drawn to the eyes in the picture. That is a great suggestion of having them kissing. I will definitely try that next time. Thanks for the advice

I probably should have tried this shot with my 50mm stopped down to f/1.4 which would have created more bokah. I just didn't have it with me when we went out to the golf course.

I actually tried this shot two different places with the couple. The first time, I did adjust her ring so it faced more towards the lens, but the second time I forgot.

Thank you for your comment!

Jeff_Milo

have to agree with Elaine on this. I would like it a lot more if they were not looking at the camera. I am drawn to her face more than the rings. The bride's position is not very flattering, turning her in for a kiss would giver her a much nicer curve.

KyleMc569

I think it would look neat with a much wider focal length. I keep imagining it shot with a 10.5mm fisheye.

Matthew Saville

I like using that concept...

dawssvt wrote:

This is a shot I was looking forward to trying at this wedding and I think it turned out pretty good.

C&C welcome. More to come soon

Here's one of mine:



I don't think it' a particularly strong portrait concept in general, but it's fun to do. However, I would be so frank as to say that you should only ever do this with people who CAN be shot from down low. As we all know, shooting "up" adds weight, and shooting "down" shaves weight. This will limit you sometimes, but it is in your best interest, trust me...

=Matt=

jeffreaux2

What focal length was it shot at?

More bokeh can be gained from a longer focal length if all else remains the same.....distance ...aperture...etc. Try a similar shot at 50mm F2.8.

CraftyChristie

More Bokeh
Forgive this suggestion if it seems like "cheating".. I'm a photography newbie and don't have a DSLR so...
I recently found this program called Bokeh, it's a Photoshop plugin, and it works wonderfully. You can add more bokeh to a photo like this after the fact. You can choose where to add it, too. So maybe you can play with this photo and blur out the background as well as their faces more, to focus on the rings. There is a free trial available fully funtional for 30 days so I would definitely download & play!
You can find it here:
http://alienskin.com/bokeh/index.aspx

Hope this helps!

FedererPhoto

I feel Elaine and Matt nailed the comments on this shot.

My only real addition would be - if you are going to take the time to do a 'set up' shot of a little detail... take the time to make sure things are perfect. (ie: her ring is tilted to the side)

I know it's easy for me to say here on a forum long after the frame was shot, but it's generally something we can all work on ... being calm, making sure everything is right. Oddly enough, it generally works out faster than 'rushing' and having to try 10 different things.

Matthew Saville

CraftyChristie wrote:

Forgive this suggestion if it seems like "cheating".. I'm a photography newbie and don't have a DSLR so...
I recently found this program called Bokeh, it's a Photoshop plugin, and it works wonderfully. You can add more bokeh to a photo like this after the fact. You can choose where to add it, too. So maybe you can play with this photo and blur out the background as well as their faces more, to focus on the rings. There is a free trial available fully funtional for 30 days so I would definitely download & play!
You can find it here:
http://alienskin.com/bokeh/index.aspx

Hope this helps!

It's not necessarily "cheating" because hey, a job is a job and the bride doesn't care how I get it done!

...But at the same time, there's no way in heck I'm going to be opening all my images in Photoshop to add bokeh! Maybe one or two critical shots where I think they could juse just a hair extra blur, but yeah... I save that only for print orders and official stuff like that, I just do NOT have the time to do something extensive to every single photo.

:-D

Take care,
=Matt=

aim&shoot

Well she may or may not like it everyone has there own eye for photography... Me personally I would'nt like it b/c I hate showing my lower portion of my body unless you are shooting me high... Their are some woman that are ok with their weight and really don't care, but some woman like those photo's that can shed off a few pounds and really not make them look the way they really are...

Like me, I like to shoot myself at a higher angle vs shooting straight on or lower, which will result in seeing my double chin... I hate that... But that's just me...

I would show it to her and tell her that this is a shot you took and if she want's to add it to her album or the website that you will if not you won't...

One really can not predict what a woman might do when it come's to her photo's....

Also, I would have fixed the ring a bit, but minor details...

joshhuntnm

one more to look at:

Jeff_Milo

As I keep comming back to this thread and looking at the now 3 photos for samples I have come to two conclusions. First, the DOF on the B&G's faces needs to be extreme ecpecially if they are going to be looking at the camera. Even in Josh's shot I find my eye going towards their faces rather than their hands. Second, I guess I am just not a fan of the flop her hand over his hand ring shot for this type of pose. I think Matt's shot works very well on several levels, I really like the b&w processing and more so the interaction between the hands gives me that sense of bond. Yes, you cant really see his ring but I dont need to. I find myself wanting to see some kind of interaction between the hands in the other two shots.

Dave Clee

I have looked at this shot several times now...

- First looks like you shot this wide angle focal length which is making the bride look even thicker at the waist..I cant imagine she would like this look. In fact the distortion makes her head look tiny in comparison to the rest of her body. You have to be careful when shooting wide angle especially for a bigger bride. A job of a wedding photographer is to capture the moment but also make her look as good as possible. I dont think this photo does this.
- You would of been better off framing the hands at the bottom of the photo which would of eliminated her waistline.
- It definitely appears underexposed..
- Shallower depth of field would of helped, as the distortion would be OOF.
- You may want to try the same shot but from an higher view point, that way you reduce the "up the nose" shot as well as being able to focus on the rings and faces only and not the rest of the body.
- 1 last thing, b/c of your angle you are forcing the bride to look down which in turn is causing her to pull her chin down. Which of course makes the face / neck look even fatter. A higher vantage point would of caused her to look up at you, which would of stretched the neck out and look alot thinner.

In my experience, when shooting the B&G up close be very careful with the wide angle focal lengths, of you get any of the body parts on the edge of the lens, the distortion becomes more noticeable.

Its a good concept and I think the next time you will take alot of the replies in the post to help you thru this type of shot.

mmmatt

zoomer wrote:

I very much doubt the bride with be happy with it.
That angle is very unflattering to her.
The photo is unexposed by a bit as well.
The idea for the shot is good, unfortunately as presented this just doesn't work.

My first thought exactly. Watch the wide lenses when shooting a bigger bride. Especially when shooting up. A longer lens would have also helped a lot in terms of the bokeh, but on a crop body, for that type of shot, it is tough. Even though a crop body makes your lens imitate the angle of view from a focal length that is 1.6x greater, it doesn't imitate the depth of field or the bokeh. A 50 1.4 would have done the trick for sure, but you'd be on your back shooting it and imho the bokeh isn't the big issue here.

If this were a thin bride it would have been great. The camera angle and composition are otherwise really nice. Keep this one in your bag for the skinny chicks!!!

Matt

Tampa-Photography

Concur - Wide Angle and Not Looking
I agree with the other posters. The image is good, but I would prefer wide angle and the subj not looking at the camera since their faces are outside the focal length.

But what really matter is what your clients thought!

ian408

I love the concept of the shot and I think your bride will as well. You may offer a crop version too--let the hands come down to the right corner of the frame and use that as the bottom to address the less than complimentary look.

Something tells me the couple will enjoy the expression on each of their faces and ignore the rest.

dawssvt

Thanks for all the replies everyone. I think the next time I try this shot it will be much better. I did shoot this shot at 20mm with my 17-55mm, so that is the reason for the lack of bokah. I had 2 shots posted on Smugmug and the bride just happened to look at them. She seemed to be very pleased, but I will asked her about this exact shot next time I talk to her. Thanks for the help!

dawssvt

How does the exposure look on the shot now? Better? or does it need more?

dawssvt

Here are a few more from that day.

C&C welcome...

I wasn't sure about this one, but I saw this idea when I was in a portrait place recently and I wanted to try it. I think it turned out decent...

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