My first Photo shoot! Wedding dress practice

Ratty2austin

Well, to start out- I have thought about doing weddings to help pay for my hobby of photography- as you all know, the good toys cost a pretty penny :deal

I also wanted to improve my skills with a staged photo shoot, as compared to my normal - "fun photos" that I am used to...

I picked up one of those silver/gold reflectors, and I also just started using a 550EX flash with my 40D- and I have one of those Apollo micro light modifiers on the flash...

My mother has a wedding dress she had sitting in a box in the garage- not hers, but one she had been given by a family friend long ago.. she wanted to post it online to sell, but not just a photo of it laying on the couch or something- so I took the opportunity to do a little practice with it, and get her the photos she needed! I talked to a friend of mine who was the first girl to come to mind who would fit nice in the dress- and she agreed on the model position for me

So my model and I decided that Saturday was a good day to do the shoot- it was nice weather and I wanted to do these outdoors in Seattle, turns out we were not the only ones too :wink (there were about 3 other wedding/engagement photo shoots going on too where we were!)


We had a great day- wonderful weather, and great evening light!

Here are the photos- the gallery link-
http://ratty2austin.smugmug.com/gallery/8193692_ZsiRa#535307411_NbXWF


And some of the shots C/C welcome!

1


2


3


4


5


6 this was a fun shot


7
Oh, and just to show that this was not an actual wedding.. :haha




thanks for looking, the only post processing for these that I have done, was a slight WB adjust- and some brightness/saturation...


what do you think?

manbou

I'm not sure I like the looks of that giant anchor as a prop...

Also, the composition of some of these could be improved. Too much sky in 3; crop it out. In others you've positioned the bride dead-center but cut off part of the dress. Move her to one side for a more interesting composition (rule of thirds) AND get the whole dress in the picture, too. 4 gets it right.

In general, get closer and/or crop tighter. 6 is my favorite, but even here you could have a tighter framing of the bride and the flowers. Maybe 6 would work better as a close-up on the bride from the waist up and the flowers, instead of a full-body shot -- i.e., focus on the action.

zoomer

Well these look like exactly what you described.
Looks like the young lady was having a lot of fun posing.
Keeping working on the basics, you will get there if you put in the time and practice.

randiman

great beginner work its inportant to widen your skill and online photography guide can be of great help

dreamcometrue

Nice shoots...but I agree with the anchor not being the greatest prop. No humor intended, but large Items pointed at a brides face like that is not the best pose. I love #5. #1 is great, it would be better if you could get ride of the lamp next to the top of her head. Good start

joshhuntnm

Nice series. Photography is fun, isn't it?

I like the anchor -- something unusual.

I don't like shooting that time of day unless it is a bit cloudy. I am not a fan of the hash shadows. The color cast is, in general good, but color cast can be fixed to taste anyway. hash shadows are hard to fix.

#1
I like this one except the shadows. the background would be a little better if it were more city and less cars. That light pole is especially distracting; could be cloned out.

#2
i agree about too much sky. You have a lot of variation in terms of exposure here. i always try to adjust the exposure to the brides's skin, which, in this case seems a little dark.

#3
too much sky

#4
it might be just me, but there seems a bit of distortion on this lens being this wide.

#5
nice. I'd like to see the rest of the dress -- or else crop closer

#6
fun shot. The speed was just right on this to create just a bit of motion in the flowers.

#7
anymore, I am not sure that is proof. who knows what a bride might do!

Great work! hope you will keep shooting and posting.

The Sloth

Number 2 has a ton of potential, the flow of her dress is awesome. i like it!

#3=awkard :wow

filmphoto

You've got some good images there.

Here's the thing - if that was your first attempt at this kind of shoot - critique your images real hard - then go and do the shoot again - your second shoot will be so much better and give you much stronger images.

Ratty2austin

Thanks for all the comments and advice!!!


I do see some of the things you all mention- like #3 being awkward ,

and the cropping off of the dress in many of them.... and the cars in the background of #1 I did think kinda sucked when I took the shot, but I liked the shoreline in the back..

oh, and I suppose you are right about #7 being possible in a real wedding- my brother went to a wedding where the bride and groom were wearing hiking boots- it was because he proposed to her at the top of a mountain on a hike



Thanks!!! I will remember this advice for my next shoot