Geez! Posted Monday and no replies...everyone must be busy.
Generally...I think the processing on your natural light stuff is very good. Your flash stuff looks like you learned a valuable lesson in what happens if you bounce off of a not white ceiling. When I first started photographing weddings with a medium format camera, we used un diffused direct flash for EVERYTHING. It is much harder to blow out film with flash, and we used brackets, and never turned the camera vertical (it was a square so it wouldn't matter). The person I learned from HATED bounce flash, it leaves the eyes without a catchlight, and they end up looking dead. Diffused, forward, direct or partially bounced light is what shooting receptions is about (for most situations). Still even as shot these can be better color corrected. The shoe shot makes kind of chunky looking shoes look...chunkier. The bridge shot has a pictorialist quality to it, but shows some inexperience in composition. The embroidered dress shot should be pushed for exposure, it is a good shot but drab. I hope that wasn't the only shot you did with the bridge, because there is ton of potential with a structure like that. The rest is just timing and experience. I hope your clients are happy, you have some good shots.
I think it's okay, you just need to be a bit more aware of white balance and composition.
Photos 1-4 all have a distracting element to it.
1. Has a woman in a pink shirt in the background 2. The DOF is nice and shallow, but if you had moved just a tad to the left I could see more of what you're focusing on. Right now the view is obstructed. 3. Another distracting background element drawing my eye away from the shoes. 4. Same as the rest. (Having a few things in the background is fine, but when it looks like you are trying to focus on 1 item in the photo but you have a random object behind it, it's distracting).
5. Needs some color oomf. Warm up the temperature, the lady's hands look dead! A bit more brightness would help too.
6. The bridge is reall cool, I think the cropping is a bit tight (I noticed the line of people first before I found the B&G). This photo needs a lot more posing. The line of people remind me of a firing squad, and I can't tell what the purpose of them being there is.
7 and 8: move the temperature slider more blue. It's a bit yellow.
Okay. This reminds me of my first wedding but better (which is good lol).
I was going to type something about each picture but I'll just address the biggest issue to my eyes. It just so happens to be a common theme across your pictures...
Underexposure.
It might be my work monitor but all of these look like their underexposed by half a stop, easy.
That's all I'm going to say. For a first wedding you were miles beyond my first. Good job. Keep improving because none of us ever "arrives".
Like others have said, just be careful with over cropping. I still find myself doing this occasionally. Remember, some folks will want to frame the prints so you need to allow for that extra space. The toe of the shoe pic is clipped.
I don't know what equipment you used to shoot but above all, shoot in raw. I know there are many that will disagree with me, however, once you start working with raw files the little bit you lose in workflow speed, you easily make up for in overall image quality.
On to white balance... objects and landscapes are extremely forgiving to white balance and most all technical errors. The reason is because the viewer doesn't have immediate and familiar frame of reference.
Conversely, the most difficult images to take are people and more specifically faces and skin tones. This is true for for any people images; sports, portraiture, performing arts. The reason is because we are so familiar with a relative set of skin tones. A quick way to check an image is to see if the brides dress is white. There are always exceptions to rules so if you were or are shooting for artistic value and using the naturally yellowish ambient light, then you were spot on.
What has helped me is to use a dual monitor setup. One monitor is calibrated and the other is left to its default setting. Once my images are converted to jpegs, I check them on a few different browsers. I also check the images I shoot on my smart phone. Lastly, order a print from the lab you use to see if the white balance corresponds to your monitor images.
...and just a word about flash. It still amazes me that most of the major on camera flash makers can't come up with I higher color temperature strobe. I believe I recall Metz made a manual 6000K flash, but most fire out light out 5500k. This is way too warm(yellow) for my taste. Look at photos of people outside with flash and you will see they are overly warm compared to the surroundings. This is true for full sun and of course partial shade and full shade. I cringe each time I read or see someone using 1/4 cto or greaterr gel on their flash. The resulting photo is disgustingly yellow!
OK off my soap box. There it is for what its worth.
Comments
Generally...I think the processing on your natural light stuff is very good. Your flash stuff looks like you learned a valuable lesson in what happens if you bounce off of a not white ceiling. When I first started photographing weddings with a medium format camera, we used un diffused direct flash for EVERYTHING. It is much harder to blow out film with flash, and we used brackets, and never turned the camera vertical (it was a square so it wouldn't matter). The person I learned from HATED bounce flash, it leaves the eyes without a catchlight, and they end up looking dead. Diffused, forward, direct or partially bounced light is what shooting receptions is about (for most situations). Still even as shot these can be better color corrected. The shoe shot makes kind of chunky looking shoes look...chunkier. The bridge shot has a pictorialist quality to it, but shows some inexperience in composition. The embroidered dress shot should be pushed for exposure, it is a good shot but drab. I hope that wasn't the only shot you did with the bridge, because there is ton of potential with a structure like that. The rest is just timing and experience. I hope your clients are happy, you have some good shots.
Photos 1-4 all have a distracting element to it.
1. Has a woman in a pink shirt in the background 2. The DOF is nice and shallow, but if you had moved just a tad to the left I could see more of what you're focusing on. Right now the view is obstructed. 3. Another distracting background element drawing my eye away from the shoes. 4. Same as the rest. (Having a few things in the background is fine, but when it looks like you are trying to focus on 1 item in the photo but you have a random object behind it, it's distracting).
5. Needs some color oomf. Warm up the temperature, the lady's hands look dead! A bit more brightness would help too.
6. The bridge is reall cool, I think the cropping is a bit tight (I noticed the line of people first before I found the B&G). This photo needs a lot more posing. The line of people remind me of a firing squad, and I can't tell what the purpose of them being there is.
7 and 8: move the temperature slider more blue. It's a bit yellow.
I was going to type something about each picture but I'll just address the biggest issue to my eyes. It just so happens to be a common theme across your pictures...
Underexposure.
It might be my work monitor but all of these look like their underexposed by half a stop, easy.
That's all I'm going to say. For a first wedding you were miles beyond my first. Good job. Keep improving because none of us ever "arrives".
Hi! I'm Wally: website | blog | facebook | IG | scotchNsniff
Nikon addict. D610, Tok 11-16, Sig 24-35, Nik 24-70/70-200vr
Like others have said, just be careful with over cropping. I still find myself doing this occasionally. Remember, some folks will want to frame the prints so you need to allow for that extra space. The toe of the shoe pic is clipped.
I don't know what equipment you used to shoot but above all, shoot in raw. I know there are many that will disagree with me, however, once you start working with raw files the little bit you lose in workflow speed, you easily make up for in overall image quality.
On to white balance... objects and landscapes are extremely forgiving to white balance and most all technical errors. The reason is because the viewer doesn't have immediate and familiar frame of reference.
Conversely, the most difficult images to take are people and more specifically faces and skin tones. This is true for for any people images; sports, portraiture, performing arts. The reason is because we are so familiar with a relative set of skin tones. A quick way to check an image is to see if the brides dress is white. There are always exceptions to rules so if you were or are shooting for artistic value and using the naturally yellowish ambient light, then you were spot on.
What has helped me is to use a dual monitor setup. One monitor is calibrated and the other is left to its default setting. Once my images are converted to jpegs, I check them on a few different browsers. I also check the images I shoot on my smart phone. Lastly, order a print from the lab you use to see if the white balance corresponds to your monitor images.
...and just a word about flash. It still amazes me that most of the major on camera flash makers can't come up with I higher color temperature strobe. I believe I recall Metz made a manual 6000K flash, but most fire out light out 5500k. This is way too warm(yellow) for my taste. Look at photos of people outside with flash and you will see they are overly warm compared to the surroundings. This is true for full sun and of course partial shade and full shade. I cringe each time I read or see someone using 1/4 cto or greaterr gel on their flash. The resulting photo is disgustingly yellow!
OK off my soap box. There it is for what its worth.
Great work overall!
Mike