We can argue back and forth for days about if guests should have the right to take photos as they please at weddings, but when it comes down to it, if the happy couple can't experience their special day without a guest interfering, haven't we gone too far? Photographer Thomas Stewart thinks so.
Having the right gear for the job is essential in being able to handle the barrage of lighting scenarios that a wedding photographer will encounter on each outing. I, like many others, am constantly thinking about the next piece of gear. What lens, what camera, or what lighting system will allow me to take higher quality images and provide a better experience to my client? This led me to think, what do I really need to shoot a wedding? I mean in reality, to walk out my door and provide my bride with the images she expects, what are the bare essentials I really need?
You have your gear, you have your shot list, so you're ready to go out and shoot the perfect eight-hour wedding, right? Wrong! Being prepared for a wedding day is about more than just having your camera ready to go. Before leaving for your wedding shoot, you need to be prepared to perform at your best. A big part of that is developing a routine, similar to an athlete, that places you in peak performance and the best position to succeed. When I walk out the door for a wedding I have two main things on my mind other than the images that my client needs. One is that I am now a living breathing ambassador for my brand and the other is that the content for this shoot, and every shoot, is future marketing material.
This week, I was able to watch Karl Taylor's "Making Money From Your Photography" tutorial. As a young photographer, I learned a ton from this three-hour tutorial and believe that any photographer, regardless of age or experience, could learn something new.
A few months ago I wrote a two part article on branding for photographers. In this article I will continue with branding for photographers, and why you should keep your brands separated. The most common thing I see are wedding photographers combining their wedding work with their family, baby, senior, and even commercial work. While I completely understand the tendency to not only simplify your marketing, but also the concept that by showing your multiple talents you will increase your value to clients, combining genre's is one of the biggest things hurting the growth of your business.
October in New Orleans means wedding season. This weekend was a double wedding weekend just like most of the next few weeks will be and I just finished what would be considered a timeline disaster, but the marquee images were not missed in large due to experience and meticulous planning. In this article I will go over methods to prepare for the unexpected and how to make sure you get everything you need despite the inevitable busted timeline.
I’m sitting at my desk on a Friday and I get a phone call. It’s Saturday’s wedding venue, and they’d like for me to sign my life away. In what’s becoming an all too common practice, the venue has decided that for me to be allowed to photograph my client’s reception I should grant them a waiver of liability that allows for their potential future negligence to go unchallenged in court, even if it results in my death. Seems like a pretty fair deal for the guy showing up to take pictures, doesn’t it?
Wedding photographers would like to hold their clients — or would-be clients, for that matter — to certain standards. As a collective, we’d love to see them shop for the best vendors, spend good money on photography, and have unplugged weddings with nary an Uncle Bob in sight. The list goes on. It would stand to reason that most of us in “the business” would probably find the idea of a bride acting as her own photographer to be pretty abhorrent. We’d chalk it up to selfie culture run amuck or DIY gone wrong, wouldn’t we? Would you? I probably would have, if I’m being honest. However, we might be wrong.
I came across a web app for scheduling appointments that was a complete game changer for my business! It's by far my favorite productivity tool. Every wedding photographer needs to check this out. It could be the missing link you need in your business to book more wedding photography clients. In my first week I was able to arrange seven meetings and book two clients. Wow! This changes everything.
Have you heard of Drunk History? It started out as a hilarious Youtube series and now it has become an actual show on Comedy Central. Well, this fun couple decided to skip the standard engagement photo session and create their own drunk history video which covers the story of how they met.
Night photography is something that every budding photographer will play around with at some point in their learning process. It’s a great way to get star-filled nighttime landscapes or to capture the light-painting shots in which you write in the air with sparklers. Most people don’t associate night photography with wedding photography, though, which is a shame, because it can be a good way to capture some non-traditional wedding images. These nonyraditional wedding images can help you stand out in the sea of wedding photographers and can help you book more weddings.
Through September 13th, you have a chance to submit any un-posed wedding photos to be critiqued by the Fstoppers team in a new episode of "Critique the Community." What do I mean by un-posed? Your submissions need to be candid moments of people that you captured, detail shots, locations, or any other picture where you did not position or pose your subjects. This episode we promise to critique EVERY submission, even if it takes a few videos to do so. However, to qualify you must follow the submission rules below.
In B&H's latest episode of "Wedding Photography Tips" wedding photographer Susan Stripling offers up some solid nuggets of advice for you to chew over before taking on your first wedding gig. Susan addresses some really important issues, that a lot of shooters wouldn't even consider, prior to embarking on a career in wedding photography.
Since fall is the biggest and busiest Wedding Season for most photographers, we want to see your best wedding images for our next episode of Critique the Community. Lee and Patrick will select 20 images to critique; upload your wedding image of choice to your Fstoppers account, then paste the URL of the image in the comments below. We are anticipating a lot of images, so you have until August 25th to submit your best image.
Over the course of a wedding day, you can shoot in countless locations with varying difficulties. Most of the time, the locations will be places you have never been before. If you ask around online for advice, you will probably be told to scout out your locations days or even weeks in advance. You may be advised to know which location you are going to shoot each image in and that you should build a list so you don't forget. When I first started shooting weddings, I would scout locations and build the shot lists; however, the more I would shoot, the more I would realize that this process was actually making things more difficult for me. That’s why I prefer to go into a wedding day with no idea what I’m doing.
Recently I had the distinct honor of being a groomsman in a close friend’s wedding. It’s a lot of hurry and stand while remembering where to look. The pressure really is more on the two people getting married to remember their lines: “I do.” But as part of the wedding party, you also get the full brunt of posing, smiling and cheesing it up for the wedding photographer.
Anyone who has been booked as a wedding photographer knows that this genre of photography can be extremely challenging. Perhaps no other field of photography throws as many variables at you more than those found on a typical wedding day. Whether it is crazy weather, horrible lighting situations, demanding wedding planners, strict church rules, or overall disorganization, there are a many many things that can cause the day to go less than expected. Here is what every bride should know about the challenges of photographing a wedding ceremony.
The website WallPart (intentionally not linked to) claims to be "the world's largest online shop of posters...with over 10 billion images." What they do not tell you is that their database is filled with stolen and copyrighted images from photographers around the world. If this wasn't bad enough, the Poster Shop might actually be using these images to spam photographers who use their copyright take down form in what might be the most diabolical phishing scam of all time.
Much can be said about preparing yourself for photographing a wedding, not the least of which is picking out your kicks. That’s right, finding adequate and stylish footwear to last an 8 to 15-hour workday should be a paramount decision for the successful wedding shooter. For some it's simply about price, fit, or orthopedics. But if we are honest with ourselves (and our egos), some of us also want to make a shoe decision as memorable as Jeff Spicolli’s checkerboard Vans slip-ons. Myself, I’m a Rockport man. The comfort for a wide-footed Michigan swamp-stomper such as myself is unparalleled in a formal shoe. I’m far from an authority on below-the-ankle style, however. Just ask my wife! Let’s see what some of the best guys and gals in the business are putting on their feet, shall we?
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.
You read that right: shouldn't. Wedding photography is a field that many photographers work within at least once or twice in their budding careers. Is it for you, though? Do you have what it takes? Even some of the most seasoned professional wedding photographers have thrown in the towel and moved on to other forms of work. Why is this, you inquire? I asked several of my colleagues – wedding photographers and other professional shutterbugs alike – their thoughts on why they think shooting weddings for a living sucks. These are the top five responses I received.
Only 3 Days Left! From now until June 1st we are running 5 photography contests and choosing 5 separate winners. Simply submit your best portrait, wedding, glamour, fashion, or landscape photograph to win your choice of any Fstoppers tutorial in the Fstoppers store or 3 Fstoppers FlashDiscs. For more details, read all the contest
Ryan Brenizer is famous for his shallow depth of field panoramas known as the Brenizer method. In addition to this, he has photographed presidents, singers, athletes, and has more than 350 weddings under his belt. He was named one of the "10 most sought-after wedding photographers in the world” by Rangefinder Magazine, so when he talks, you should listen. In this video, Brenizer goes through five lighting tips that can help you throughout the day of shooting a wedding.
There is a romanticized dream of what it is like to be a destination wedding photographer. Outside of that idea lies a reality of what it actually entails. It is hard and exhausting work to photograph weddings full-time, let alone fly internationally on a weekly basis to cover them while also hosting workshops across the planet. But what is it that actually drives some of us to quite literally go the extra mile? There is a narrative behind the work you are about to see as well as the individual who has completely redefined the meaning of destination wedding photography.
It's an exciting time of the year for wedding photographers and a time of plenty of chaos. Having a great second shooter is paramount among the necessities of any wedding photographer. If you're new to the genre, second shooting can be a fantastic way to get your feet wet and learn the ropes from a seasoned professional. I've put together a list, pulled from my own experiences and with talking to other wedding photographers, of the qualities we like to see in a second shooter. The better you are as a second shooter, the happier the clients and the lead photographer are, and ultimately, that leads to you being hired again and being recommended to others.
The short days and long nights of winter have finally given way and spring is in full swing. For many photographers, this means one thing: wedding season. While wedding season is great, it can also be physically and mentally exhausting. I recently shot my first wedding of the season and want to share a few tips as well as things I would do differently next time around to help you plan ahead and prepare for any events you have coming up.
May is upon us, wedding photographers. Its the beginning of the season and we need to prepare ourselves for the long haul. Sure, we could brushing up on lighting techniques, talk about new lenses, buy faster cards, or argue about presets, but what we really need to think about are the intangible must-haves. The greens socks, my friends. That's right, I said socks.
This couple took wedding photography to a whole new level when they got their wedding shots taken. They used a series of drones in order to capture their big day. The shots that they created are undoubtedly original and stand out from the crowd... for now. With the release of the new DJI Phantom 3 that we recently covered, drones could be here to stay, but are we at a stage now where we can outsource our photography to machines?
