My 2nd Wedding - 2nd shooter

FotobyMoMo

I did this as 2nd shooter and here are a few candits. I was shooting from the side. Again, I'm only 3 months into photography. But please do judge hard.



Yes yes I know I know!! Selective coloring YAYAAA!





This is a cropped version of above. Good or bad?

photoger

Hi Fotobymomo,

Not too bad since you have only been doing this for 3 months. I would recommend that you continue to second shoot as much as you possible can as it is a great way to learn.

Since you did ask for us to judge hard, here are a few thoughts:

1 - It's a good second shooter shot. When second shooting you should always be thinking about shots that can "compliment" the main shooters images. In this instance a tight crop of just the flowers and hands may have worked great (you may have got shots like this as well). Because os the tight posing of the girls at the moment there i a stray hand coming in from the right and also some hair, you would hope the main photographer would have gotten the full shot of the girls, so a detailed shot may have worked better.

2 - Ummmm, I don't think I can say anything about this other than to keep in mind "just because you can in photoshop, doesn't mean you should!"

3 - This is a nice shot but one thing to learn is to always be aware of the background. At the moment you have someone walking on her shoulder, very distracting If this was a grab shot and you really couldn't wait until the person in the background moved on (would have only been a second as you could have taken the shot whilst the person was behind her head) then I would have cloned them out in photoshop. Also another thing to watch out for is your cropping. In this image you have cropped her head *just* below the hairline, this makes it look like her head goes on forever... it is a good idea to always crop either tightly just above the eyebrows or include all the hairline in the shot.

4 - I prefer the previous version.

5 - Again most of the things with this image are around the cropping. Because you have cropped the image without her elbow in it, it makes her arm look bigger. Her arm also looks bigger because it is up against her body (this is not something you have control of as a second, just good to know). Having separation between her arm and body and including all her arm would have made her arm more flattering.

It's a good start though. Keep it up, shoot as much as you can to get as much experience as you can. Hope this was helpful.

Cheers,
Andrew

FotobyMoMo

Thank you very much. I really appreciated the C&Cs. I have done 3 weddings so far and I must say, I hate all my pictures when I take them but then I go home, download them to my comp and ignore them for at least a week to get my mind fresh and realize lots of them came out nice

With that said, just couple things, I don't care for selective coloring really but on one or two with flowrs, I might do it and give them both versions. You never know which one might catch their eyes. As for being 2nd shooter. Out of the 3 weddings I did, the 2nd one (this one) was my first as 2nd shooter. Although I must say, I would much rather shoot alone. The reason for that is because I can direct the couple myself and put my full attention to them and get in return.

The last photographer I worked with, he's been EXTREMELY GREAT but here's what I've noticed. When both are shooting, neither one us had the time to pay attention to eachother. We both shot on our own. My ideal way to do it as a 2nd shooter is to just go there and watch the 1st shooter the entire time. And ask him questions after questions. But that is not possible because it'll most likely annoy them.

I do want to take some workshops for wedding photography. I heard of a local guy who's very good and he has a different style of teaching. He actually trains all his shooters before he sends them out to weddings. Which is GREAT. I am in line. He always hires 5-10 photographers every few months from what I heard. He's in the DC area. I hope I get to work with him then I would learn a lot more IMO.

flaclick

You are off to a great start!

photoger

FotobyMoMo wrote: »

When both are shooting, neither one us had the time to pay attention to each other. We both shot on our own. My ideal way to do it as a 2nd shooter is to just go there and watch the 1st shooter the entire time. And ask him questions after questions. But that is not possible because it'll most likely annoy them.

The first & second shooter should always pay attention to each other. The first shooter should be helping the second out with angles etc... unless they have worked together for a long time and know exactly where each other should be.

During the wedding is not the best time to be asking question after question Have a drink afterwards & ask questions then