Follow a Wedding From the Viewpoint of the Photographer

Wedding photography is a notoriously difficult genre, full of fast-paced action and challenging scenarios. This fun and interesting video shows a wedding photographer's point of view on the big day and offers some helpful tips and tricks along the way.

Coming to you from Taylor Jackson, this great video follows him as he photographs a wedding from start to finish, offering some helpful tidbits along the way. Weddings are quite difficult, as the pressure is on to capture competent shots in quickfire fashion, and of course, you don't get second chances. I found this video particularly interesting, because Jackson chose to photograph the entire wedding with nothing but an 85mm lens. Certainly, the 85mm focal length is one most wedding photographers are highly comfortable with, but shooting an entire day with only that lens is definitely a creative and technical challenge, which is why so many wedding shooters tend to rely on zooms or at least a few primes. Nonetheless, it seems like Jackson was quite successful in the end. Check out the video above to see it all.

Also, if you really want to dive into the world of wedding photography, check out "How To Become A Professional Commercial Wedding Photographer."

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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8 Comments

Great video ! Needs guts and skills to shoot a whole wedding with only a 85mm !
I'm still amazed also by the discipline of the audience. During the few weddings I had to shoot, I constantly had to struggle (gently) with guests taking photos with cameras and smartphones, stepping in the frame at the crucial moment.
Maybe it's a european (or French) thing :-D

Please jeff walsh don't call him a piece of shit, let's be respectful to the author.

Hey everyone, look, someone acting like a piece of shit on the internet. I've never seen this before.

classy

one lens any one lens would be a scary way to shoot, kudos to you looks like it turned out great. I do love the idea from a weight stand point though, my back feel better just thinking about that.

What happens when you're stuck in some small room with no ability to back up ?

I’m sure he scoped out the venue beforehand.

Video title is a bit misleading, he had a 24mm as a back up. No sane photographer would risk shooting everything with an 85mm, indoors especially. Its a great shoot but many photographers use the 35/85 combo, if they only chose to share the shots from the 85, would it constitute as shooting with that lens solely? I'd say the most interesting shots came from the 85 so that was worth highlighting.