Recent Wedding Articles

Keeping the Creativity in Your Photography Business

This is by no means a new topic, but a recent poster in the Fstoppers Wedding Photography group lamented that they felt they were stuck in a creative rut, and it got me thinking about the problem of trying to be experimental within an industry. Chances are if you’re shooting for a client, they have a preconceived idea of what you're going to provide, even if that’s just a ballpark “these kinds of colors, this kind of emotion.” If you rocked up to a wedding with the awesome idea of only shooting macros of toes, you’re going to have a hard sell when it comes time to deliver the finished product; they’d need to be really good foot shots.

engaged couple embracing on rocky beach at sunset

One of the challenges wedding photographers encounter is how to structure pricing for their services. One common mistake is to include a free engagement session in all wedding packages. There are a few reasons why you should offer engagement sessions only as an add-on to wedding packages.

The Master of Wedding Photography Degree From PPA: Do Photographers Need Another Degree?

Professional Photographer’s of America (PPA) has been the foremost association campaigning for photographers for over 150 years, but is still growing with its membership even today. With over half of photographers in the non-profit association capturing weddings as part or the majority of their income, PPA has moved forward with creating a new degree that specifically evaluates and promotes wedding photographers. With the Master of Photography degree and Master Artist degree already part and parcel to the education options in the association, does qualifying photographers with a new set of rules make better artists or lessen the value of the other degrees?

6 Tips from Two Mann Studios Will Challenge You to Up Your Wedding Game

Canadian wedding photography super-duo Two Mann Studios recently handed out six tips for wedding photographers that should not be ignored. In the 40-plus-minute candid video made for ShotKit, Erika and Lanny Mann give other shooters an honest, thoughtful take on their own successes and struggles as one of the most sought-after wedding studios in the world. It's well worth the time.

Wedding Photographer Has an Unexpected Guest at Engagement Shoot: A Black Metal Band

With Halloween just a week away, it seems fitting that I’ve got an article for you today that involves a black metal band. Last week, Wedding Photographer Janet Wheeland was out with a couple for an engagement photo session. While they did have a theme of "Forrest Gump" going in to the day, later that evening things would take a black, leathery, face-painted turn.

AlbumDraft is the Perfect Tool for Wedding Photographers

As a wedding photographer I am always looking for tools that make my job easier and the experience for my clients better. For years one of my least favorite parts of my job was getting feedback and approvals on wedding albums I designed for my clients. Fortunately all that has changed since I have started to use AlbumDraft. There are a number of programs that compete with AlbumDraft as software for album proofing - I've just found theirs to be the most convenient and easy to use.

5 Common Traps New Wedding Photographers Fall Into

Wedding photography is a challenging genre that requires you to be at the top of your game in every facet. If you are new to it, it can be easy to make mistakes along the way. This excellent video tutorial discusses five common traps new wedding photographers fall into and how to be better by avoiding them.

Quick Lightroom Tip - Import Multiple Cards at Same Time

As a wedding photographer I often fill up 3 or 4 memory cards at a wedding and it is important that I get those images downloaded and backed up as soon as possible. Rather than download one card at a time I like to do them all at the same time using multiple card readers. I usually use Photomechanic to do this but recently discovered that it is actually very simple to download multiple cards at the same time in Lightroom as well. I put together this quick video tip to show how.

The advantage to downloading multiple cards at the same time is so one doesn't get...

A Fujifilm Camera and Lens Kit for Wedding Photographers

Fujifilm's mirrorless cameras are highly respected for their design, capabilities, and innovative features, and they have become the system of choice for many wedding photographers. This great video essay features a wedding photographer taking you through the Fujifilm cameras, lenses, and accessories he uses for the big day.

A Simple Tip to Get More out of Your Golden Hour Portraits

You’ve covered your bases for that ever elusive amazing sunset shot: you’ve checked the time for sunset, mapped the exact location of the sun, and have composed a few frames so you know what to do when you get to the location. But what about the location itself?

How to Make Great Wedding Images in Not so Ideal Conditions

If you are a wedding photographer, then at some point in your career you will be faced with the challenge of making great images with conditions that are less then ideal. These tips can help you make the best of any situation.

Wedding Photographer Falls - How Often Does It Happen?

Snapping away at the bride and groom as they pose, walk, dance, or whatever, and the wedding photographer falls into... you can finish the sentence any way imaginable and then some. This latest example from Estes Park, Colorado saw photographer Nathan Welton fall through the ice at Bear Lake. A fresh layer of snow apparently hid the edge of the lake and Welton got, well, too close. Nevertheless, he's recounted his story several times and says he just kept shooting and got some interesting angles.

Should You Put Your Camera Away?

Thomas Stewart made headlines back in 2015 when he posted a rant about wedding guests and their mobile phones. Fast forward 3 years and things don't seem to be getting any better. So should we put the cameras away?

Wedding Photographers And Videographers Need to Stop Blaming Each Other

Wedding photography is not what it used to be. I don't mean this in a good way or a bad way, it just seems like with any advancement in technology comes a new challenge. Many couples today want both still photos and video of their wedding. This makes sense since it is often the biggest day of their life. Does that mean we now have videographers to deal with in our shots? No, it's a two-way street. We, as professionals, both have to work together to deliver the best possible product to the lucky couple. Saying someone got in the way means you didn't try hard enough.

[Video] Shot By Shot Breakdown Of A Modern Wedding Video

We just received another great installment of video comentary with the incredible wedding videographers at Visual Masterpiece. Even if you hate weddings you will be able to appreciate the talent that goes into each of their videos. Check out the full post to see the BTSV and the finished product as well as a breakdown of the gear that they use on every shoot.
10 Great Wedding Party Poses

Group photos and video of the wedding party are some of the most shots you will need to get at a wedding, but posing a mass of people under significant time constraints can be a real challenge, even for experienced creatives. If you would like to learn about posing wedding parties, check out this fantastic video tutorial that will show you 10 effective poses sure to take some of the pressure off of you and help you make compelling images.

Is Paying to Advertise as a Wedding Photographer on WeddingWire a Waste of Money?

It’s time to answer the often-asked question I hear from many wedding photographers. Is it worth the money to advertise with online marketplaces for professional wedding vendors? I track everything in my wedding business. If you can record it, track it, analyze it, and summarize it, I’m aware of it. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as opening up a spreadsheet of raw, unrefined data and pulling out the hidden truths that lie dormant in the numbers.

How To Trick People Into A Great Pose

No matter if you are photographing people in a wedding, an advertisement campaign, a fierce fashion spread, family portrait, or just a headshot, chances are you are going to need your subjects to show a real human emotion. Throughout my own photography career, I have realized that only about 1% of people can turn on a fake emotion that comes across as genuine in the final photo. The remaining 99% of the population have to experience an expression real time as it happens spontaneously. Jasmine Star is one of the most successful and trend setting wedding photographers on the scene right now and she has created a great video explaining how she strategically fools her clients into "moving into a pose". This technique can work with everyone from normal people to professional models, but where you will really see this sort of coaching succeed is with people who are self conscious and camera shy. Get them to focus on your funny personality or another human interaction around them and let your shutter roll! Do you have any phrases or techniques you have found successful time and time again? Share them in the comments
10 Leading Lines Tips and Examples From Pros

In photography, the term leading lines is a compositional technique used to draw a viewer's eye to the subject of the photo. These lines can be created by any object in the scene like a road or path, a fence or railing, a distant object like a mountain, and any other structure that creates a real or imaginary line in your image.

Leave The iPad at Home, Print Your Portfolio

Every photographer today has a digital portfolio of some kind but only a very few have spent the time to create a printed book. In this video, we look into three very differently designed printed portfolios.

Guess How This Art Director Proposed

We were staying on a houseboat in Amsterdam for three months when I first met Viviane. My wife did a test shoot with her, and I shot some videos that day, and we became friends. She’s an international model represented by Premier Model Management and Modelwerk. Her then-boyfriend and now fiancé is an art director in Amsterdam.

Kristina Hill Wins Copyright Infringement Settlement Against Anti-Gay Activist Group

New York portrait and event photographer Kristina Hill never planned for one of her images to be stolen and used without her permission. Unfortunately, copyright infringement is a concern photographers often need to be more mindful of. Many of us have had our images used inappropriately or even edited without our permission, but having a client’s loving engagement photo twisted and manipulated into a bigoted political attack ad is something altogether different.

Selling: It's More Than Taking Pretty Pictures

To make a living as a photographer, you have to do more than take great pictures. You have to be a photographer, a supply-chain management expert, an entrepreneur, and, perhaps most importantly, you have to be great at selling — selling both yourself and selling your product.