Preparing for the wedding shooting session - how I have dealt with uncertain situations

This is the second post about my big photo assignment I have taken couple of weeks ago. As usual, when doing unusual photography assignments I always prepare as much as I can. For the wedding I had couple of special reasons:
- for a number of scenes I had only one chance to take a photo (the bride and groom say 'yes' only once),
- wedding photography was (and still is) quite a new territory for me,
- I was not so familiar with the ceremony and the rituals celebrated in the church,
The most important reason was to deliver the best possible photos I could make. And good preparation would help to minimize the need of improvisation.
Sure, I know that it is impossible to plan everything. There would always be surprises and unplanned situations. And that is fine. But by preparation I'd like to create a room for improvisation (if needed) to get an excellent picture. And not to improvise to get the picture at all.
So here comes my list of preparations I took. All of them helped. There are also some things I could have prepare better. Something to remember and apply for next time.

1. Get to know the program of the day. The easiest but the most crucial part of the preparation. Talk to the couple, make a list of events during the day, but don't forget to note the times. For me it was kind a frame where I could put my photographic activities. Having that I could see for myself how much room I had for shooting. In case of this wedding it became clear that there will be no room at all for a real shooting session with the couple alone. After some consultation we agreed not to push for it and accept if such photos couldn't be made.
2. Scout the locations. I did it twice. First, by studying the church and the wedding room based on the pictures available on Internet. Then, a day before wedding I have been on both locations with my camera to see the places in 'the real'. It gave me answers on a lot of questions. For example: how the light is distributed along the aisle and where to take the position for the 'walk-in' photo. How the altar is lit, is there enough light for shooting without a strobe? 
   
   The same held for the place of reception. Short inspection of the surroundings gave me new inspirations for a shots of the couple. I discovered a nice pier that almost always opens nice possibilities of a good, moody shot.
   
   
   
   
   
3. Learn how the ceremony would look like. In this case it was double important: first of all I was quite unfamiliar with the order of events during the ceremony. Second, this specific wedding was extended with a lot of elements that are not normally present. Again, talk with the bride and groom helped a lot. Next to that I studied the Internet and the official prescriptions of the Catholic Church. And I visited the real ceremony short before the wedding to get a better feeling on how it looks. This gave me eventually a lot of confidence and also a little extra time that I could use to take some less conventional shots, like this one:
   
   
   
   
   
4. Check local laws and customs. It does not have to be an issue, but I was aware that the Catholic Church in Poland officially requires a kind of certificate from the photographers who want to take photos during the devotion. And formally a priest can even refuse admittance of a photographer who doesn't have such document. For me it was not possible to arrange such document in a short time. Again, the couple solved it for me, by talking to the master of ceremony. But in general case it could be a 'show stopper'. How did I know that it might have been an issue? Well, simply by thinking ahead about things that might go wrong. 
5. Make an overview of photos that are compulsory. For an occasional wedding photographer as I am it is really a 'must have'. Since just a list is rather boring and uninspiring, I have created a 'mood board': quite large sheet of paper with the characteristic wedding pictures that I found on Internet. I put it on the wall in my living room for a couple of weeks and each day I studied it a little bit. Next to that I also drew a lighting setup for the specific photo and discussed it with my assistant.
6. Get to know people involved in the preparations. This is something I need to organize better next time. The biggest mistake was not to talk in advance to the master of reception. As a result the program of the reception was to me totally unknown and I had to follow the flow of events quite blindly. In the course of reception we have aligned 'the agenda' several times so it was corrected somehow, but in the beginning I was rather walking behind the facts. That was the part when I had to improvise to get decent photos. I think I delivered the results, but it was not fun and not very professional. 
7. Talk with someone about the plans. Here I used great help of my lovely wife (who was also my shooting assistant during the day). We have discussed different aspects of the day, pointed the possible risks and limitations of the different ideas.
8. Study, study, study. I cannot stress it enough. I have watched and read quite some amount of materials available on Internet or in the books. There are dozens of places where I could find the information, so it is impossible to mention all of them. Let me just mention Kelby One, who hosts video courses of great wedding photographers, like Cliff Mautner, David Ziser, Jerry Ghionis. Photography Life is another source I visit regularly (btw, their scope is much broader than wedding photography only).
9. Practice, practice, practice. Here I mean not only photography skills (it is obvious - I have to learn the craft to deliver (at least) decent shots and deliver them repeatedly). But shooting a  wedding involves a lot of communication with, well, mostly strangers. During this communication I had to guide them, to pose them, simply to become a 'director' of the scene. Since I am rather an introvert person, this kind of interaction is not the easiest thing for me. And it is not something that one can learn overnight. To me it took some time to learn at least the basics and I had different occasions to exercise it in the past. But is it enough? To check it I had to be creative and opportunistic. Couple of weeks before the wedding our friends came to visit us. One of them is a trainer specialized in interpersonal communication and development of communication skills. So I simply asked her for help. I offered her and her partner to make couple of nice photos of them but asked her to observe me during the session and point out the things that I could do different or better with respect to communication and guidance. It was simple, but very efficient. I got some very good tips, they got nice photos. And I felt much more comfortable during the wedding.
10. Prepare the gear properly. This will be the topic of one of the next posts, so I let it here.

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. 

First communion session: part 1. The preparations.

Couple of weeks ago I was flattered by a request of my acquaintance who asked me to take 'a few' pictures of her daughter, who would receive her first communion these days. The euphoria however was diminished quite quickly, as soon as I realized how serious the assignment actually would be. First communion in the catholic church is one of the most important sacraments and in some countries (like Poland) it is a big celebration for a child and his/her family. So I need to do a good job as photographer.
Another issue for me is that I am not so acquainted with all the nuances behind this ceremony and the day of communion. Sure, it takes place in church, children are dressed nice and tidy, but what are the sacral attributes used nowadays during the ceremony? What is important for parents?
Finally I took the request, but I knew that I had to make quite some preparations and precautions to make the session a success.

Talk to parents, discuss the expectations

This is actually most important part of the preparation. I have talked to the mother several times to discuss the time of shooting, expectations (of her and of mine), to share initial ideas.

I believe it helps both sides. Her, because she can do some preparations and me because I can shape the expectations to some extent and check whether my ideas would match hers.

For example, I discussed already my initial plan of the session:

- Duration of 1 hour,

- Start at 7:00 p.m.

- Four parts: portraits of a girl, session with parents, session with the rest of family, session with sacral attributes.

Get inspired - look at others' work

However it may sound lame (we photographers are creative people, aren't we?) looking at the portfolios of people making money by taking photos helped me a lot. As I stated already, in Poland the first communion is a big thing, hence big business. So there was enough blogs and websites to go through and see what people actually sell to their customers. Next to getting some ideas it is good to check what are the trends and what the customers perceive as appealing.

Other quite good source of good photos was 500px.com.

And for gathering the shots that were interesting to me I have used a Pinterest page.

Find the patterns, learn from them

Knowing what the event is about and how people act during such day (e.g. how are they dressed) makes possible to start searching for something similar and again learn from those experiences. To me first communion event resembles in many aspects the wedding ceremony:

- there is a strong emphasize on a main person being dressed like little bride,

- there is a compulsory shooting part involving the family (parents, grandparents, pete parents, etc.),

Obviously there are differences as well. Most apparently, the attention is directed to a child most of the time.

So the pattern to look for would be something between wedding photography and children and family portraiture.

So it is worth some exploration of techniques that can be used in such situations. Therefore I use materials on kelbytraining.com  and discussion forums on nikonians.org. Kelbytraining is a collection of video courses showing different kinds of techniques, tricks and tips used by different (very good) photographers. It is not free but it is worth money you spent in my opinion.

Choose and scout the location

Since there will be several people involved, there should be kind of direction given to them during the session. And the director will be in this case, well, me. So having a location explored a bit in advance helps. I want to avoid the moments of hesitation where nobody knows what to do next and where to walk. For sure those moments will probably come (I don't want and cannot plan everything), but I would like to minimize them and let them, especially in the beginning of the shooting.

Get acquainted with the people being photographed

Here I was lucky twice: I know the girl and her parents and I was able to see some photos of the family on Facebook. This gave my basic idea (or sometimes a couple of questions) about the personalities of people. For example I noticed that the little brother of a girl was not present on the photos published. Doesn't he like to be photographed? Or had just not a good day? After some talk to the mother I know that he was just not in the mood on this day but he loves to pose for the photos. Another example: I saw that the grandfather of the girl looks very seriously on all pictures. So it will be a challenge to cheer him up a bit during the session. Whether I will succeed I don't know, but at least I am aware of the challenge.