Once more about shooting the wedding (what the teachers don't tell)

Let me start with the disclaimer first. This post is not a rant. On contrary, let me start with saying couple of nice words about people who shared their knowledge about wedding photography online and this way teached me how to start. Cliff Mautner, Jerry Ghionis, David Ziser, Frank Salas are photographers whom I follow via KelbyOne, their blogs and other stuff on Internet. All of them are great teachers and I am sure they are 100% integer. After watching their courses and reading what they publish one can know how they shoot photos they have in their portfolio. They reveal all photographic knowlegde, tips and tricks. So my great thanks to you, guys.

The thing is that they teach about photography. Which is perfectly fine and this is what aspiring photographers (like me) want. A wedding is means not only shooting photos for a couple of hours. It is an enterprise taking 10-14 hours of time on location. So there are couple more things next to photography to think about.

Nutrition

Sounds simple, but it is better to plan the meals during the day. During my assignment I had a luxury having my lovely wife at my side who took care of this aspect. So even if I was busy, she ensured that during short breaks I had a right stuff on my plate. Since I was also a guest of the bride and groom during the wedding, it was quite easy to arrange that. But in general I think it is better to organize things upfront and be prepared. Depending on the place and the local customs I can imagine that it even could require some contractural agreements with the bride and groom.

A place for the gear

Even if I planned my equipment for the wedding to be as lightweight as possible, I needed a safe place to store some stuff that I didn't need at the moment. Again, my situation was comfortable since I had a hotel room just next to the place where ceremony was organized. But in general - it is a good idea to think about it in advance. 

So, why it is not mentioned during the classes about wedding photography?

I think the reason is simple: for the instructors - all being practitioners for tens of years - it is like breathing for all of us. So it is probably just so obvious that it is not worth mentioning. And strictly speaking it is not about photography. 

 

The biggest photo assignment of this year (so far)

Last week I had a pleasure of shooting the wedding of my friends. It was a quite big assignment, since we agreed to shoot the "full package" — from the preparations starting in the morning,  till the wedding reception late in the night.
It was a busy, dynamic and very interesting day — in all kinds of aspects, including photographic ones.
Was it easy? Well, yes and no. An easy part was the contact with the bride and groom - I know the bride for years and it was quite straightforward to establish and maintain a good contact with her during the day. The groom turned out to be a great guy. Since the couple is truly in love I had plenty of moments where the good emotions, like love, joy, devotion were just popping out of them.
There were of course difficult moments I had to deal with. The reception was conducted in a quite high tempo, with a lot of situations to be captured. There was no time during the day to organize a shooting session with the couple. So I had to deal with artificial light in the evening. The wedding ceremony took place in a catholic church with a lot of rituals and moments that were quite new to me. So I had to find a way of making good pictures despite my ignorance of the religious matters.
I still don't know if my assignment is successful (first, I wait for the feedback from the couple about the photos; second — the final product, which is the wedding album is being edited).
Nevertheless I think it is worth spending some time on writing down observations that I have made and lessons that I have learned.
In the coming posts I'd like to write about:
- preparations for uncertain situations,
- lessons that are not taught during courses of wedding photographers,
- technical challenges and solutions
- things that I could have done better

On practicing the "semi-professional" photography - take the chance of an assignment

Doing a 'real', professional photo session is something I always wanted to try. There is however a problem - how to get such assignment not being a professional photographer? One solution is to actively search for them, starting in your own environment. Look for the opportunities by asking your family, friends, close acquaintances. It has some clear advantages: you are known to them, most probably they probably know your work, so you are not completely out of the comfort zone.
I have tried this approach lately. Everything started with an e-mail from my relative, asking for sharing of  a web shop of the jewelry made of glass, amber and metal.
When I saw the page I noticed two things: a real beauty of the offered products and not so good quality of the pictures showing them. So I thought "hey, I can do it better".
So I shared the page but asked if the jewelry maker wouldn't like to have better photos of his products.
After getting a positive answer I had my assignment.
I have arranged the session at the 'customer' premises and spent couple of hours photographing his products. We both had a lot of fun; I learned a bit about his craft, he was really thrilled by the results of my work.
It wasn't the real professional work, since I haven't earn a penny. But it was a "win-win" situation anyway. I have learned new aspects of photography, he got decent pictures of his products.

Next assignment will be much more challenging - a wedding of a good friend of mine. I'd better do it right, because I don't want to loose a friend :-). So I've been practicing for several months already.

Gearing up for a shooting day - a checklist

Tomorrow I will be shooting photos at the "Sinterklaas" day, organized each year at the school of my wife. As usual there is a lot of things planned for this day, happening at several locations during the day. And as usual I try to capture most of the day with my camera and make nice pictures.
This year there are four events planned: sport games for the youngest children, a meeting with book writer, information fairs for the Polish parents living in the Netherlands, a buffet serving specialties of the Polish cuisine. All in the timeframe of 3 hours.
Next to that I got an assignment to make portraits of parents that actively support organization of such events. Usually there are 6-8 people to capture. And not to forget the "Sinterklaas" walking from one class to another.
From experience I know that coming with a camera and just shooting does not deliver the best possible results. So I prepared a checklist of things that help me to organize myself for such day.

Choose the gear

Since the day will be filled with quite dynamic events, some of them organized in the places with not so great light, I choose in this case for fast, light lenses. It will be more gear to carry, but the alternative would be an universal 18-200mm, f/3.5-5.6 lens which might not work well in all situations. Next to that I will most probably shooting with 2 cameras (I will take 2 and make the final decision on location) 

Prepare lighting equipment

Normally I would just take one speedlight with me, just in case. However, to make nice portraits I will also take a softbox on a stand which should give me together with off-camera flash a nice light source. I will take the backup speedlight as well just to have a backup

Arrange enough backup for the photos

This is something I always consider before the assignment. Will it be enough to take just spare memory cards? Should I take a laptop to dump the pictures during the day? For tomorrow I will go for an option with the laptop. The reason is simple: since the sport event will be photographed, it implies a lot of shots. 

Know the agenda of the day

To move efficiently and be on time during most important moments I have noted the agenda of the day. I put everything in my smartphone so I am sure I will get notified on time about next important event.

Scout the location in advance

This is again about efficiency. For the location of tomorrow's shoot I don't need actually to do it since I know the place very well. But in all other cases I would be on location before the actual event starts to orient myself.

Take some sandwiches and water

It is not directly related to photography, but during such intensive day some nutrition is needed to keep the body energized. 

Self-assignment - ups, downs but dont' give up

Every now and then I try to give myself a small photography assignment. Mostly because I want to learn something new, improve the technique or just to have some fun. It is not always planned. Lately I have created an assignment spontaneously while taking a shot meant for the Nightscapes Google+ page. After setting up the tripod I started shooting. The results were, well - not great:

But then I have noticed quite spectacular light emerging right after the street lighting was switched on. During warming up the lamps get nice, red color (for about 1 minute). And the idea was born: take an interesting shot of this light. Why does it deserve to be called a photo-assignment? For two reasons:
- The scene needs to be composed to let the light be visible and  attract the attention. On the photo above the lanterns are hardly visible. The ability of seeing good compositions with the objects I want to photograph is in my opinion something requiring continuous practice.
- It requires quite some preparations and leaves little time for shooting: the red light is produced by the lamp during warm-up time only and it lasts about 1 minute. Nice exercise to learn how to operate with your equipment efficiently.

So the preparations started. First the decision: how to expose the light. First attempt was to play safe: show the red line of lamps above another (white) line. Simple, but with some potential. The tripod has been setup, camera prepared, some pre-shots taken to check the composition and the ambient light. Then waiting  to for the dusk and the lamps to lit. And then... bummer, the lamps started to glow white immediately! I should have known better, but for this day I was done. It was no time to move to the place where the 'right' lanterns were located.

Next try, new chances. In the meantime I have abandoned the original idea of the light lines and started to look for something different. Remember the first photo? At the left side you can probably notice the industrial constructions. Anyway, such constructions are nice objects to shoot:

The rough idea has been born. To look for the right location I rode along both sides of the channel. Finally I have found it: nice combination of the objects, the silos still enlighten with the day light. And from the position I have noticed that just couple meters ahead of me another possible shooting location. Good - there would be my fallback. And the shot was exactly as I wanted:

Sure, not the greatest photo in the world. But it is controlled and prepared by me and is a result of a design process.

To summarize, the assignment took me 2 evenings, a number of iterations, one failure moment. That's why it is worth practice and continuous improvement: in real life very often there will be no time for 2nd try...