Hello. This is my first post here. I really look forward to getting to know you all.
I just did my 20th wedding. As i learn and develop my business i am finding family pictures to be the most unsatisfiying part of the wedding day. So much time and energy for pics no one seems to care about. I would like to hear how you handle them. What do you do to make it creative and fun? Thanks friends.
- Bobby
It may not be the most rewarding or creative part of the day for you as the photographer, but i assure you your clients care about them. These pictures are often the most important part of the day for the family members. There are not many opportunities on the wedding day to get pictures together. That might be the only shot you get with bride, groom, and whatever family member. I have had clients loose family members shortly after their wedding day and it may be one of the last images they have of them. Sure, it may not be in YOUR portfolio, but to them it's a priceless photograph.
agree, they are important and they need to happen but i never post them. I treat all formals like a cookie cutter set of images. You cant really get to creative with them because they are not that type of image. find a process where you can knock them out as quick as possible so you can spend more time on the creative images that i like taking.
I agree with what these other guys have said Bobby. One thing I have noticed when out watching other photographers work on weddings is that there is not a lot of variation on how people approach this part of the shoot. Always look to be a bit creative with those shots even though you might find them tiresome. Some tips. I always have a timetable that has allocated time on it for the family shots. I get first names on my running sheet of mums and dads,wedding party members,brothers sisters etc who will be in the shots.Even if I can't memorise all the names I can get my assistant to help me with setting people up. I also makes sure both lots of parents and the drivers have a copy of the shoot time sheet.I find I can memorise first names of all key people pretty well during the day but 10 mins after the shoot I will have forgotten them all.I check out names in the few days prior to the wedding and then immediately before going into the brides or grooms location, whichever is first, I spend about 5 mins memorising names of the key people I am about to meet. I use name association memory methods by saying for instance "the best man has the same name as my oldest son". This seems to work for me fairly well.Having an assistant that is on the same wavelength as yourself is very helpful too.Aim to impress the parents so much that you might get an excited phone call on the monday from a mum who says "That was such a great time,I can't wait to see the pictures." I even had one mum ring up to see if my 2nd shooter was accounted for as she was looking for a match for her unmarried son.Decide to make family shots a strong point of your repertoire and you won't look forward with dread.You will like the others have said be impressing lots of potential marketers for your business.And yes I have shot weddings when people have come home from a honeymoon where a family member has died while they are away. These photos can be priceless.
I'm just trying to spice them up a bit. If we're going to spend so much time doing them. .. And they are important to the family, I wish I could make them less snap shotish ya know?
work on good lighting for them. not many things during a wedding day happen over and over again in the same exact spot with everyone looking at you. These portraits are pretty cut and dry, but if you can light them well, then they will stand out and maybe make you enjoy them a little more by making them a little more technical.
I usually have a two light setup for mine. You can over complicate it if you try to hard. it still needs to be a fast setup and tear down, but a couple lights plus the ambient light can add a good dimension to everything
Modern wedding photographers are happy to #modernise their style for most parts of the day but when it comes to the group shots they fall back into the tried and true safe shots but this part of the day can be approached creatively as well. Small group why not pack them tightly and shoot from 45 degrees like a super hero poster, Got heaps of room, why not get as far back as you can with a long lens and have the group walk or run towards you, unique landscape/difficult light why not stagger guests to accentuate it (see pic).
But most of all go into it with a couple of ideas to try and it wont seem like such a chore :-)
your comment made me think of this video at the 3:30 mark
https://vimeo.com/77337272
Not that your ideas are invalid, because they are good ideas! Just something to think about.
Yeah interesting thought!
I've shot multiple weddings and this is pretty much my attitude when it comes to family pictures as well. I understand the value of family photos, however. I think Thomas Hansen hit the nail on the head. They can certainly be priceless photographs to the family members (even if its a mundane shot). I hired my favorite photographer in my area to do my wedding. The thing my wife and I cared about most were the bride and groom portraits. We wanted more focus and time dedicated to those and less to traditional family portraits, etc. All of the photos we had printed to decorate our home were in fact bride and groom portraits. However, 3 days after coming back from our honeymoon, my grandfather died and I didn't get a picture with him on my wedding day. There were a couple candid photos taken when I was talking to him, but you couldn't see his face well. On a day that was perfect for my wife and me, my one regret was not getting a posed picture with him. I've since learned the value of family pictures and try to keep this in my mind as I take them for clients.
Try looking up some family photos from weddings and see if there is any you do like. I enjoy creatively taken family sets from weddings. People who are engaged with each other and connecting on camera really pull me in, and families can play off each other if encouraged to do so. People jut standing there smiling blandly at the camera in a line certainly can be boring, but my favorite wedding photographers find ways around this and produce images that the couples want to buy as Christmas presents they cherish them so much.