Another noob giving it a go....

OhEddie

The background...

I take mostly action sport shots because my kids play baseball spring, summer, and fall. In doing so I have recently been asked if I would be interested in doing a wedding. I have been asked this before, and have said, no, because "I'm not a wedding photographer". Not that it's a bad thing. It's just not the same as shooting sports because there will always be another "at bat", and weddings don't give you that second chance.

But, even though it's a little scary being trusted with someones "special day" I feel I am up to the task. So when the Mom of one of my kids teammates
approached me about her daughters wedding, I told her that I have been thinking about getting into the wedding side of the business. So I would entertain the idea of doing this with the understanding that I will do it at a cut rate price in order to build a wedding portfolio. I also told them that if they didn't feel comfy with me and would like to hire a "real" photographer, please do so, but I would still like to be invited to take photos at the wedding, as a friend of the family, just to have the experience.

So in the end, we decided to do an engagement shoot just to see how things go, and if they were happy with that outcome. So we did.

Now this young couple have been together for some time and already have a daughter, and she came along on the shoot. So all of us met out at this farm just north of town and got to work. Her mother, father, and a couple more family members came along too. It was a very nice location, but we had blue bird sky's.

She, the bride to be, had a lot of ideas, but they were very "posed". So that's what we did, and here are a few of the results....

(1)




(2)




(3)




(4)




(5)




(6)




(7)




(8)




(9)



I told them I would like to do it again with just the two of them
in a more casual way. I think they might loosen up away from Mom & Dad.

Anyway, let me know what ya'll think.

sweet caroline

#7 is awesome! The others are good, but stiff. I think you're right that you need to get them alone and get them to loosed up.

Caroline

Andy

sweet caroline wrote:

stiff.

My thoughts, too. Very stiff. Eddie, work on relaxing your subjects.

dawssvt

I think you did a good job on this set. Make sure you don't cut off fingers like in #2.

#5 is my favorite. Very nice choice of background. Good work

Qarik

#3 and 4 are underexposed. The rest aren't bad trechincally but there is no interaction between the couple. They have the exact same smile/expression in all the "together" shots.

Only in shot #9 do I get a sense of ease heh

JohnBiggs

The under exposed images and the images with the sun making them squint are things you need to work out. Are you using a flash or reflector? Looks like some may need it.

As for the wedding day. It's not a matter of taking the pictures, it's more about working with stress, time crunches, changes on the fly, etc.

PLEASE try to go along to another wedding as a second shooter before you do this. Just so you can see some of what happens.

cwphotos

Yeah I noticed a lot of times where fill flash or a reflector would have helped you a lot. The poses are a bit stiff as has been said. I would definitely do some second shooting before you jump into it. See if you can tag along with someone.

OhEddie

Thanks for all of the advice.

Yes, we tried to use a reflector on several of them, but I had to recruit the Dad to hold it and it was a bit of a struggle to get what I wanted. I also got him to hold the off camera flash. Really showed me what a skilled assistant could do to help things work out much better.

Underexposed, yeah, I shot Raw + jpeg L Normal. These are from the jpegs I'll work on the raw files to see what I can do.

And yes, I hope to be second shooting with this guy...

http://lawsonwhitakerphoto.com/wed.html

He is a member of our photo club. We have a meeting Monday. I'm going to ask him about it then. Any suggestions on how to impress that my being a second shooter would be a good thing. Things to say / not to say? There are a few other wedding shooters in town that I know, but to be honest, there work doesn't impress me.

I better get busy because I just got a call for another wedding yesterday. This one is not until September.

FedererPhoto

As you discovered: A skilled assistant is worth more than you pay them.... Not only in helping you, but they also sometimes have a camera themselves and get the couple during 'down time' or while you are talking with them (and thus haven't tightened up - they are a 'tight' couple)

sherijohnson

I think you would do good to show them examples of what other people do for engagement pictures and see what they think, you might find with a little direction, they might like more ideas.