My first wedding...Jasmine and PVC George

camarochick · December 14, 2009

This was my first wedding. I did this as a present for a coworker of my sister since they were on a budget and he was being deployed Jan 4. The wedding was to start at 330pm but was a little late making the sun in a bad spot. The bride also asked to not have to look into the sun for the photos so you can see that in some of the photos. These are unedited but I am working on that.

Here are a few of my favs. Any comments and/or tips would be welcome.

10412505_yBVgy#740507091_jCYgs

1)

the bags will be edited out
2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

this was a "Do you Jasmine take George to be your wife..."
7)

husband and wife (or as the joke goes...wife and wife)
8)

9)

Trying to talk the flower girl into taking photos
10)

11)

12)

girls copying the guys photo I took before the wedding. This was after so the lighting was worse.

13)

14)

15)

groom was a little hidden by the booth...not sure how to correct but this is my fav photo

16)

the boys look like a magazine ad
17)

my other fav. This was one of the first shots of the day.

Thanks everyone. Sorry for so many. I had to pick a few to put on here. Here is the entire album.
http://lizseventphotography.smugmug.com/Everything-Wedding/Weddings/121309/10412505_yBVgy/1/741055019_nEn52

Darren Troy C · December 14, 2009

For your very first wedding I would have to say not too shabby.

One word, however,.....

FILL FLASH

fill flash

FiLl FlAsH

Just becasue she didn't want to look into the sun doesn't mean you can't compensate. Actually, it does. Unless you have FILL FLASH. Just some food for thought.

camarochick · December 14, 2009

Darren Troy C wrote:

For your very first wedding I would have to say not too shabby. One word, however,.....

FILL FLASH

fill flash

FiLl FlAsH

Just becasue she didn't want to look into the sun doesn't mean you can't compensate. Actually, it does. Unless you have FILL FLASH. Just some food for thought.

What is a fill flash? Thanks. I have 2 more weddings booked because of this one. I am ready to learn what I can. I cater to budget brides but want to give them great photos.

Darren Troy C · December 15, 2009

http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/

Start with Lighting 101 and never look back!

wadesworld · December 15, 2009

I'm not a wedding photographer, but I'd agree with Darren. You need to spend lots of time learning the nuances of lighting. While you did a nice job of capturing the event, a lot of the pictures have poor lighting or composure. That's two of the major elements that separate professional wedding photography from snapshots that anyone at the wedding could take.

(Note - I'm not claiming an expert - but there are lots of them in this forum from whom you can learn)

Qarik · December 15, 2009

camarochick wrote:

What is a fill flash? Thanks. I have 2 more weddings booked because of this one. I am ready to learn what I can. I cater to budget brides but want to give them great photos.

I am gonna sound harsh here but you simply aren't ready to shoot weddings camarochick. The quaility of your shots are rather poor and from your previous posts on dgrin I gather you are very much a begginer and do not have much in the way of good equipment. Doing a favor for a friend in pinch is one thing but weddings are not place learn the basic of photography.

lilmomma · December 15, 2009

Just wanted to point out that since that is a public gallery, you might want to hide the photos of the marriage document with full names and ss numbers displaying in full resolution.

Surfdog · December 15, 2009

I must agree with Qarik on this one. Before you start taking paid wedding gigs, you really need to get some experience under your belt, learn lighting, join PPA and get insurance, and be sure you have back-up equipment (at least 2 of EVERYTHING). You don't get "do overs" with weddings, and it only takes one equipment failure or other disaster to ruin your reputation and possibly even end up in court. I did alot of practice shoots and free event shoots before I ever took a paid gig.
On the positive side, you seem to have a really good eye for catching "those moments". The images just lose alot with the lighting issues. A fill flash would prevented your subjects from just being sillouettes.
Best of luck to you!

pwp · December 15, 2009

I can only echo what the others have said. And I *think* you mean PFC George.

esc2476 · December 15, 2009

lilmomma wrote:

Just wanted to point out that since that is a public gallery, you might want to hide the photos of the marriage document with full names and ss numbers displaying in full resolution.

camarochick · December 16, 2009

Thanks. Photos of MC are hidden now. I don't know how they got in there other than I just did a mass upload and did not realize they were there. Thanks so much for letting me know.

Qarik wrote:

I am gonna sound harsh here but you simply aren't ready to shoot weddings camarochick. The quaility of your shots are rather poor and from your previous posts on dgrin I gather you are very much a begginer and do not have much in the way of good equipment. Doing a favor for a friend in pinch is one thing but weddings are not place learn the basic of photography.

I have 7 cameras (2 XSi's, 2 35mm, and 3 other digitals), 2 of each len, and now flashes. I bought all of them outright and working on more lenses. My second shooter also has all his own equipment. I know that I am getting all new equipment for Christmas too

. Please tell me what else I should have as far as equipment goes.

Surfdog wrote:

I must agree with Qarik on this one. Before you start taking paid wedding gigs, you really need to get some experience under your belt, learn lighting, join PPA and get insurance, and be sure you have back-up equipment (at least 2 of EVERYTHING). You don't get "do overs" with weddings, and it only takes one equipment failure or other disaster to ruin your reputation and possibly even end up in court. I did alot of practice shoots and free event shoots before I ever took a paid gig.

I do not want to be a wedding photographer right now and will not until I am ready. This was as a gift for a friend of my twin sister who could not afford anything and wanted to help me learn/build a portfolio. The reason I posted here was to get tips on what to do better. I thank you for your tips and critiques. That is how we all learn and we all started from nothing. There was another friend of the bride there who was a "professional photographer' and my photos turned out way better than his. All of his were out of focus and more poorly lit than mine.

This was a learning experience for me. I have had others on budgets ask me to shoot their weddings. I refuse to do weddings at this time. Those that I will shoot, upon the bride begging me, will be FREE and the brides will know that I am learning (2 that I have booked for JUNE of next year). Jasmine knew from the start that this was my first wedding. I am actually a sports photographer working with a skateboarding sponsor when I'm not in front of the camera modeling.

Surfdog wrote:

On the positive side, you seem to have a really good eye for catching "those moments". The images just lose alot with the lighting issues. A fill flash would prevented your subjects from just being sillouettes.
Best of luck to you!

Thanks! I knew what I wanted but working with 16-18 year olds (21yr groom) in the bridal party was hard to get them to cooperate. I have been able to correct a lot with photoshop. The bride was ecstatic about the photos and that is all that really matters.

I've been playing around here at home with fill flash and now understand it. My pug has put up with a lot today on me testing the flash and the settings. I also played with bounce flashing (or whatever it's called).

coldclimb · December 16, 2009

Sounds like you're on the right track at least. I second the strobist blog, it's an awesome resource for learning light. I'm still going through all the lessons there, myself. Good luck and have fun with the learning curve!

jotta · December 16, 2009

What equipment do you have? Camera and lens?

Mr_Beach_Bum · December 16, 2009

I'm still learning too - but one thing I do know from my own wedding.... watch out for the "boob folds" in shot #9. Very unflattering on a beautiful bride...

camarochick · December 17, 2009

jotta wrote:

What equipment do you have? Camera and lens?

what I use often off the top of my head: (not including anything for my 2 35mm EOS's)
Canon XSi
18-55mm IS lens
75-300mm lens
430ex flash
working on 1/80 macro from suggestion of a photographer friend
tripod

I have a few items that I'm not allowed to use until after Christmas since they will be gifts

Mr_Beach_Bum wrote:

I'm still learning too - but one thing I do know from my own wedding.... watch out for the "boob folds" in shot #9. Very unflattering on a beautiful bride...

How do you avoid it with DD's in a strapless? I wanted to capture that moment of the flower girl crying and bride trying to convince her. The bride was talking about her BB's the entire time so I know she does not mind but for the future...

Scott_Quier · December 22, 2009

Hi Beth - nice start ... not great, but a nice start. Here are some thoughts that came to mind as I went through the first 300 or so photos of your gallery and reading your comments here:

Before you start charging for work, get the equipment you need. You have a good consumer kit, but it's not up to the challenges one faces when shooting weddings. The camera body isn't responsive enough to the shutter finger, the lenses aren't fast enough or sharp enough, and with flash it's nice to have as much power as you can get.
Study lighting, especially flash photography. In first part of the gallery, you have a lot of back-lit shots that turned out less then optimal. Fill flash is the order of the day here. The trick is to set your exposure settings for the background (which you did) and then set your flash to propery illuminate the subjects. Done right it works a real treat!
Read all you can on composition and posing people. In many of your shots, you have "bulls-eyed" the subject - making for a shot less interesting than could be attained with a bit more thought about image composition.
In my signature, there's a link to my thoughts on how to photograph a wedding - mostly it's about the preparation and equipment required to get the job done right. Give it a glance and see if there's not something there that you find useful.
Since so much of wedding photography can (and usually does) happen under the worst of lighting conditions, practice in those conditions. Practice! For example, get a friend to put on a white shirt and black pants. Then go outside on a cloudless day and see what works and want doesn't. Put your friend in the shade, in direct sunlight, with the sun behind them, with the sun behind you, with the sun to the side .... you get the idea. Work with it. Do your best not to blow out the details in your friend's shirt. When shooting in the sun, see what you can do to keep the detail in the background sky and, at the same time, get some proper light on your subject.
Something else to think about ... your gallery has 1,339 photos in it and soooooooo many that are nearly identical. Don't force your clients to wade through all that. It's your job to wade through it, pick the top two or three and let the rest fall by the wayside. Concentrate on telling the story of the day, not on showing how many times you pressed the shutter button.
Learn what it is to get a good WB in your shots. Outside photos are a bit cool and the inside photos have a distinct warm cast. You need to learn to "get the whites white and the brights bright!"
Many of your shots that were shot into the sun seem to be exhibiting a some loss of contrast and/or flare. This is commonly caused by not adequitely protecting the front element of your lens from direct sun. Get and use a hood. If that doesn't completely shade the lens, get and wear a big hat or something that you can quickly hold to shade your lens. Then, in post, play with the contrast curves to recover that which was lost during the shoot.
If you are going to use an on-camera flash (nothing wrong with that if done right), learn to bounce the light off the ceiling, the walls, the shirt of the best man (standing next to you), whatever to soften the light a bit. Oh, and get a proper flash bracket to avoid the side shadows as seen in your image #863 (there are many others, this is just one example).

I hope that helps a bit.

Shima · December 26, 2009

You've got some great advice already on here, I'll be more or less repetitive, but these are the two things I think you should work on first.

1) As others have said, learn and understand your lighting better. That means both learning how to use fill flash, learning how to bounce your light properly indoors, learning how to white balance based on your light (or in the last case, learning how to adjust the WB in post processing w/ lightroom or a similar program- if you're not already, make sure you're shooting in RAW btw)

2) Get the lenses and bodies you need to support the harsh lighting conditions. If you're a zoom person, then start saving up and getting lenses with 2.8 apertures... if you're more of a prime person, Shoot for 1.2 - 2.0 depending on what you can afford. Having a higher end body will help with faster response times and allow you to bump up the ISO when you need to without suffering at too much grain as you will on the lower end bodies

In the meanwhile - second shoot a lot whenever possible so that you can gain the valuable experience you need without the risk of being the main photographer for an event (I realize this one was a favor, but to get yourself on the track where you won't be doing them as favors anymore, this is key). Make sure to second shoot with a variety of photographers too as everyone will have different tricks up their sleeve to share with you!

My first wedding...Jasmine and PVC George

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