First wedding in 10 years

fredjclaus

I've stopped marketing weddings because there seems to have been a flood of "wedding" photographers in the area. Seems most of them either quit or moved away. I'm continuing wedding photography again and this was the first wedding I did in a long time. What do you think?



Groom is the older gentleman in the middle.



Bride and her son



Bride/Groom with her son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughters.

Matthew Saville

Off the top of my head, Fred,

1.) Not really any flaws in the image, however at the same time it's not very strong as a composition either. The viewer will have a hard time discerning each subject because the background is sharply in focus, and doesn't really exhibit any rhyme or reason compositionally...

2.) Did you give ambient a shot before going to flash? And did you give bouncing / off-camera a shot before pointing the flash straight at them? I bet that with a current generation camera and a 1.4 prime, you could have done this shot without the flash.

Of course it's your call, and if you dislike the high ISO, shallow depth look more than you dislike the look of direct flash, and if the couple doesn't mind, then that's fine. But personally I prefer to shoot ambient. I'm just not a fan of sharp shadows, and glare.

3.) Again, not really flawed but I would have turned the whole thing around and put the sun to their backs. As before, it's just my personal preference to avoid having to use direct flash.

=Matt=

Agnieszka

Matthew Saville wrote: »

Off the top of my head, Fred,

1.) Not really any flaws in the image, however at the same time it's not very strong as a composition either. The viewer will have a hard time discerning each subject because the background is sharply in focus, and doesn't really exhibit any rhyme or reason compositionally...

2.) Did you give ambient a shot before going to flash? And did you give bouncing / off-camera a shot before pointing the flash straight at them? I bet that with a current generation camera and a 1.4 prime, you could have done this shot without the flash.

Of course it's your call, and if you dislike the high ISO, shallow depth look more than you dislike the look of direct flash, and if the couple doesn't mind, then that's fine. But personally I prefer to shoot ambient. I'm just not a fan of sharp shadows, and glare.

3.) Again, not really flawed but I would have turned the whole thing around and put the sun to their backs. As before, it's just my personal preference to avoid having to use direct flash.

=Matt=

I think Matt gave you some good ideas already.

A lot has changed since 2000. I guess it's kind of hard to comment on the photos you posted because there is nothing really creative you can do with 2 of them.

1) I can see here you want to be creative, however this shot doesn't work. At all. I had not idea who the groom is, you have to play around with your composition a bit more, put him in front of the group. It's a good idea, but uncle John could have taken that photo ...

2) A shot of them walking down the aisle, I assume? Not much you can do here ... I guess it's in focus, I'd take Matt's advice and bounce your flash.

3) A family photo. No major body parts are cropped off, which is good, BUT the woman on the right is standing in the sun, while the others aren't .... + In my opinion you are too close to the top edge.

Are there any other photos you have that you'd be willing to share?

jbakerphoto

Agnieszka wrote: »

It's a good idea, but uncle John could have taken that photo ...

Man there is just no love for Uncle Jon......Think it might be time to change my name.....

Agnieszka

unclejon wrote: »

Man there is just no love for Uncle Jon......Think it might be time to change my name.....

Oooops, sorry! :giggle