Grandhouse Wedding Photography & Videography<br> Sydney, Australia
There are a few things you should know before beginning wedding photography because weddings may be enormous and demanding, and it's never a good idea to jump into wedding photography without checking out all of the essentials; check out the list below:
Don't worry if you don't have enough ticks on the above list. You can always learn by practising regular street photography, which gives you many opportunities to learn and expand your horizons. If you've accomplished these tasks, here are a few things to bear in mind as you begin your career as a wedding photographer.
According to the experts, this is one thing that has nothing to do with your camera yet can take you places. If you meet with your clients a few times prior to set expectations and explain what you're about to do and how you prefer to approach photography, you'll have a better chance of impressing them. They'll know what to expect on the day of the event, avoiding a lot of misunderstandings and disagreements.
Try to meet your couple at least two times, either during the pre-booking process or in the middle when we're about a week away from the wedding or a few days before the wedding.
This way, you can set expectations and simply communicate over the day to ensure that everything is fixed and they understand what you want of them and what they expect of you.
This may be something you didn't expect; photographers usually delegate that responsibility to the planner, but you should establish your own timelines so that everyone knows where you are and what you're up to. If you have a wedding planner, make sure you don't step on any of their toes while making your plans for the big day.
Write your timeline to fit inside theirs, and if there's anything that contrasts with how you usually manage wedding shoot day, chat to your planner about it, see what they want, see what you can accomplish, and discuss it with them. Nevertheless, you should always make your own schedule so that you and the rest of the crew know what to do at any time of the day.
Make sure the planner is aware of your timeline as well so that everyone is on the same page. For example, everyone should be aware that you are doing the couple’s portraits here and family portraits later, and so on. Never show up at a wedding location and start dragging things and people around.
According to many expert photographers, one of the most challenging things in the entire wedding photography process is the time for family portraits. Mainly because you have so many family members and you want to bring them all together, but you have no idea who they are. Then there's always someone asking for more and more images in various combinations, which can be overwhelming.
So, get creative with your family photos by asking your couple for a list. You'll need to approach them and find out ahead of time who they are particularly close to and who they don't want to leave out of their wedding album. Make a list with their names, relationships, and preferred combinations. So you'll know what to do when it's time for the family portraits.
It's all about your f-stop or aperture, in essence. When you narrow down your aperture, objects get sharper all the way through, and your depth of field isn't as shallow as it once was. As a result, the images will be sharper when people are not in the same depth of field.
Now, you want to do this in group shots because when you ask people to stand next to each other, they don't usually stand where you want them to. Some people may go out of focus. As a result, make sure you take a break and refocus in someplace to keep everything nice and sharp.
Make sure to slow down a little when taking group portraits, but couple portraits are great as they are because they're usually close together, kissing and hugging. So you don't have to bend down as much for that, but you should absolutely do so for group shots.
They say this because we seem to rely on our cameras a little too much these days because they are so fantastic, and then we complain when the focus isn't where we want it to be.
Professionals advise that if we have this idea that we should shoot everything in manual and not in the auto, we should go on with that approach for focusing as well. You don't have to shoot in complete manual mode, but you should move your focus point. We advise against relying on continuous auto-focus, particularly on wedding days, because there are a lot of faces and people to photograph during the ceremony, and your camera has no idea what's going on.
Generally speaking, you should set it to a single point. Focus and recompose or autofocus and adjust your focus square. That may sound absurd, yet it works. Simply try it out; it works, is faster, and never fails. Continuous auto-focus, on the other hand, occasionally has no idea what it's doing. However, if your couple is heading towards you or away from you, that's a fantastic time to use auto-focus.
We understand that photography is all about capturing moments, and we admire that, but if you have the freedom to move some things around, do so. There are simply too many photographers who arrive at weddings and take shots as they are, rather than adjusting things around to make them appear pleasant.
If all that extra stuff surrounds your bride like bottles, makeup brushes and wipes or tissues, then just clear them up from the background or take her somewhere else, especially for those getting ready shots. Always compose your photographs with the best lighting and backdrops possible.
Take command of your wedding day, make decisions, change things about it, and tell your couples why you want it. It's fine to have a few images like that with stuff in the background, but not all of them, so politely say, "Hey, let's clean up this place before we take a few shots" or show them samples of how bad the pictures are turning out.
