Indianapolis Wedding/Scott and Sarah (cc welcome)

JulieLawsonPhotography · August 15, 2009

I'm pretty excited about the whole day. It went so well. I wasn't able to go to the rehearsal the day before because of a conflict in my schedule but had heard that the place where it was to be held was pretty dark. It was and that made me a little nervous. I was able to use flash and just knew in advance that the images were going to be noisy. I used noise ninja on some of them, but not sure that I want to use it on all the wedding images.
1

2

Some getting ready shots and some of the couple
3.

4
I think I'm going to pull this one back into PS to fix some issues I see here.

5
I kind of like this shot with the dress in the background

6
In the hotel room in front of the hot tub. Posing needed some tweaking, should have situated her different, I'm sure.

7

8

9

10

11

12
These would have been a good time to have some external flashes.

13

14

15
and a last one of the guys

We didn't get any creative ones of the girls because of time issue. They didn't arrive at the site until a few minutes before the wedding because there wasn't any place for her to go without the groom seeing her.

The Mack · August 15, 2009

Personally, I wouldn't even show them #2.

JulieLawsonPhotography · August 15, 2009

The Mack wrote:

Personally, I wouldn't even show them #2.

There is a story behind it that the Bride and Groom will appreciate, so I am including. No thoughts on anything else?

The Mack · August 15, 2009

JulieLawsonPhotography wrote:

There is a story behind it that the Bride and Groom will appreciate, so I am including. No thoughts on anything else?

If that's the case, then ok.

The group shot of the guys I like the idea, but I wish the guy in the back, well, wasn't in the back. He should (IMHO) be included more.

#'s 3,4,5 & 7 I really like.

#11 has a good feel to it.

I'm not sure exactly if I like some of the edits, but that's my style vs yours. So that's a moot point.

The shadow on the wall from the flash is a little bothersome though.

heatherfeather · August 15, 2009

You have a lot of potential with these... especially #s 3 & 7.

#3 looks just about ready to go... just fix up that fold on her shoulder. She will likely consider it to be a "fat roll" so get it gone and she'll never know.

#7 & #8... neck wrinkles have to go. Pretty simple to do with the patch tool, too.

I think off camera flash is a necessary thing for you to get pretty soon...

Shima · August 15, 2009

I really love how you framed #5 but be careful, her ring is rather blown out and it's hard to see the actual stones in detail... so that's just something to watch out for.

I like the guys walking one very much, but I just wish we weren't losing half the head of the one guy who isn't parallel to the rest of them.

10 has such great emotion, love it.

JulieLawsonPhotography · August 15, 2009

heatherfeather wrote:

You have a lot of potential with these... especially #s 3 & 7.

#3 looks just about ready to go... just fix up that fold on her shoulder. She will likely consider it to be a "fat roll" so get it gone and she'll never know.

#7 & #8... neck wrinkles have to go. Pretty simple to do with the patch tool, too.

I think off camera flash is a necessary thing for you to get pretty soon...

I know that getting an off camera is absolutely a must get thing. I'm finding more and more times when I could have really used it.

So, do you think I'm getting any better Heather? I really do feel better about this particular wedding than I did my last one. I did go in with a new perspective though (I prayed. ;D ) I've got one more wedding for 2009, unless of course someone else hires me before the end of the year, and it'll be outside.

JulieLawsonPhotography · August 15, 2009

Shima wrote:

I really love how you framed #5 but be careful, her ring is rather blown out and it's hard to see the actual stones in detail... so that's just something to watch out for.

I like the guys walking one very much, but I just wish we weren't losing half the head of the one guy who isn't parallel to the rest of them.

10 has such great emotion, love it.

I know, I wish I could have gotten them spread out a little more. Would it have been okay, acceptable to have them walking in the grass as well as the road?

mmmatt · August 15, 2009

JulieLawsonPhotography wrote:

I know, I wish I could have gotten them spread out a little more. Would it have been okay, acceptable to have them walking in the grass as well as the road?

Hey Julie! It sounds like you are starting to get a little more comfortable! I will give you a few opinions on what I see here.

For the shot of the boys you could have just moved to the right a couple of feet and gotten his face in the picture. A shot like that it is Ok to randomly stagger IMHO so you could have shot it a lot of different ways. One straight line would appeal to me personally, the least.

#1 looks a little soft to me... maybe that is the noise ninja? In my opinion you should have included her whole dress in the comp. It is also underexposed a touch. How dark was it that you couldn't shoot it with flash? Did you bump the iso up? I know very little about Nikon but I'm sure that the d90 should do fine to 800 iso right? Open the aperture, reduce the shutter speed and shoot a little higher iso. If that doesn't work then you are too far away and need to move in closer so your flash can do the job better. Work on that in your home with your lovely daughter! The 2nd shot is more properly exposed, a bit soft again. May be a little motion blur on that one. That all said I like that shot. It was a real moment between them and that is awesome!

I agree with Shima about your ring shot being a little hot. Tone that down if you can. It also seems a little over sharpened and a little too contrasty too. To my eye anyways. I also agree that it is a really nice comp though.

In general your skin tones/white ballance are all over the place. Are you shooting raw? Are you using Adobe Camera Raw for processing? Getting all your white ballance adjustments on these should be a very simple matter of clicking on a solid white part of her dress with the white ballance tool, then just move the slider a bit to taste. This isn't always perfect, but it is consistant for the most part. I assume you can do that in lightroom or Nikons included software as well but I use Adobe Camera Raw myself.

9 is in rough shape. You may try converting to b&w to see if you can bring some detail into her dress. Skin tones may be beyond repair in that one. 8 needs flash or more flash on the couple. you may be able to bump the exposure up some and get it useable but the background will probably suffer a bit.

Your stone wall shots would be much better with a bracket. Off camera is a great way to go but a bracket will help a lot. Especially in 12 and 13 where you shot vertical and left a shadow on the wall just to the right of them. Notice how 14 doesn't show the shadow? That is because with the flash over the lens the shadow goes behind them. Moving them away from the wall and/or shooting more paralel to the wall will help too.

Well, I hope I wasn't to rough on you Julie! Overall it seems to me that you are moving in the right direction.

Matt

JulieLawsonPhotography · August 15, 2009

mmmatt wrote:

Hey Julie! It sounds like you are starting to get a little more comfortable! I will give you a few opinions on what I see here.

For the shot of the boys you could have just moved to the right a couple of feet and gotten his face in the picture. A shot like that it is Ok to randomly stagger IMHO so you could have shot it a lot of different ways. One straight line would appeal to me personally, the least.

#1 looks a little soft to me... maybe that is the noise ninja? In my opinion you should have included her whole dress in the comp. It is also underexposed a touch. How dark was it that you couldn't shoot it with flash? Did you bump the iso up? I know very little about Nikon but I'm sure that the d90 should do fine to 800 iso right? Open the aperture, reduce the shutter speed and shoot a little higher iso. If that doesn't work then you are too far away and need to move in closer so your flash can do the job better. Work on that in your home with your lovely daughter! The 2nd shot is more properly exposed, a bit soft again. May be a little motion blur on that one. That all said I like that shot. It was a real moment between them and that is awesome!

I agree with Shima about your ring shot being a little hot. Tone that down if you can. It also seems a little over sharpened and a little too contrasty too. To my eye anyways. I also agree that it is a really nice comp though.

In general your skin tones/white ballance are all over the place. Are you shooting raw? Are you using Adobe Camera Raw for processing? Getting all your white ballance adjustments on these should be a very simple matter of clicking on a solid white part of her dress with the white ballance tool, then just move the slider a bit to taste. This isn't always perfect, but it is consistant for the most part. I assume you can do that in lightroom or Nikons included software as well but I use Adobe Camera Raw myself.

9 is in rough shape. You may try converting to b&w to see if you can bring some detail into her dress. Skin tones may be beyond repair in that one. 8 needs flash or more flash on the couple. you may be able to bump the exposure up some and get it useable but the background will probably suffer a bit.

Your stone wall shots would be much better with a bracket. Off camera is a great way to go but a bracket will help a lot. Especially in 12 and 13 where you shot vertical and left a shadow on the wall just to the right of them. Notice how 14 doesn't show the shadow? That is because with the flash over the lens the shadow goes behind them. Moving them away from the wall and/or shooting more paralel to the wall will help too.

Well, I hope I wasn't to rough on you Julie! Overall it seems to me that you are moving in the right direction.

Matt

Thank you so much for the in depth CC

On #9 though, that was edited using an action with a texture...could that be what you see? I'll have to load the original for you.

For the actual wedding, use flash, auto ISO and used my 50mm 1.4. I had my 17-70mm lens but havent used it at a wedding yet so wanted to use something that I am comfortable with. I did shoot in RAW and use adobe RAW. I'm not real familiar with those settings in there yet...much to learn still.

Thanks again Matt.:D

mmmatt · August 16, 2009

JulieLawsonPhotography wrote:

Thank you so much for the in depth CC
On #9 though, that was edited using an action with a texture...could that be what you see? I'll have to load the original for you.

For the actual wedding, use flash, auto ISO and used my 50mm 1.4. I had my 17-70mm lens but havent used it at a wedding yet so wanted to use something that I am comfortable with. I did shoot in RAW and use adobe RAW. I'm not real familiar with those settings in there yet...much to learn still.

Thanks again Matt.:D

Not sure what version of PS you have, but this is ACR 4.6 from PS CS3. This should give you a place to start. This is not an exact science so sometimes you will blow some highlights and sometimes you will have blacks without detail, but minimize that in your subject as much as you can.

JulieLawsonPhotography · August 16, 2009

mmmatt wrote:

Not sure what version of PS you have, but this is ACR 4.6 from PS CS3. This should give you a place to start. This is not an exact science so sometimes you will blow some highlights and sometimes you will have blacks without detail, but minimize that in your subject as much as you can.

very cool.. You all on Dgrin are just the best.

bendruckerphoto · August 21, 2009

I'm sure the first two were tough at night. But for a outdoor night ceremony, you really should have rented a D700, either at your or the client's expense, depending on your preference.

As mentioned, you have some white balance and noise issues in a lot of these. Also, the bride's pose and expression look very forced and uncomfortable in some of the shots.

Keep shooting and improving!

PinkShoesRCool · August 21, 2009

Not an expert, but here are my opinions:
1 I like the framing. Very classic shot. Sort of soft though.
2 I know this isn't technically a great shot, but personally I like it. It shows personality and if you say the clients will appreciate it, then even better.
3. Might want to soften her face a little & brighten up her eyes to make them pop, but I like the pose and she is beautiful.
4 I love the DOF on this one, but I'm having a prolem with the boutonniere being fuzzy.
5. I like this one.
6. As you stated about posing, she should have stuck her neck out a little more to eliminate the extra chin look. Maybe playing with it in PS and releasing some of the extra shadow would help? Same goes with the extra fold under her arm. Not the most flattering.
7. One of my favs! Love the brightness, the dreamy look and the focus on her!
8. Very cute, sky seems a little bright and takes away from them.
9 & 10.. Another of my favs. Candid moments are the best.
11. Pretty, but her dress seems too bright. Can you tone it?
12. The extra shadow is distracting and the pose seems uncomfortable.
13. Not too sure about it. I like the pose, not too sure about the light at the top. Sort of distracting.
14 Strange pose for a wedding shot. Too much noise for me.
15 Overall I like it. Wish the other guys face was more visible, but I like the feel & idea of it.

Take it or leave it.

Thanks for sharing though!

My gallery: www.kristencarterphotography.com

Indianapolis Wedding/Scott and Sarah (cc welcome)

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