5 Tips For Wedding and Portrait Photographers

Hey guys! I wanted to go over five tips that I think are great things to carry with you to a wedding photographers  are really & honestly for any of shoots. This is kind of stuff that really applies to most any kind of photography not only weddings but more portraits and family sessions and stuff like that you learn something hopefully so stick with me here’s five tips of what I think are just some essentials that I’ve that have picked up over the past couple years.

1. Details

That’s simple but when I was starting on my career and mainly that was shooting weddings. I found that I didn’t shoot a lot of details and if I did shoot details of the day, they kind of sucked and usually it was something like a picture of their ring.

All right! You know I used to be adamant about grabbing their rings and doing a lot of ring shots and doing a lot of macro ring stuff and I don’t really do much of that these days, but I have been focusing a lot on detail I think details are very important in weddings.

Currently I’m playing in my own wedding and so of course we have so many things that we bring to the wedding so many it just it’s a lot of planning it’s a lot of everything resources money and so you want you want stuff to be remembered in this case that’s going to be details so flowers arrangement stuff like:  that just whatever they bring to the wedding so that’s,

it’s pretty simple details like for an example: I want to kind of show you a bunch of examples from one wedding that I had this year awesome couple they were fun she had some beautiful details and this is one of them this is of course just her bouquet and now when I start shooting I realized that I notice things while I’m shooting like these kind of detail shots that I normally had it before so right before this we were just taking photos of course of the couple behind her is her husband but in the midst of shooting them I realized like wow!

This is awesome light I’m really loving how her bouquet looks so I’m going to squeeze in really quick a little closer and snag a couple shots of that as a detail and that stuff kind of throughout the day turns into just a lot of awesome detail shots but got to get in the moment sometimes it’s kind of hard to re plan just grabbing her and taking her to a window just for detail shots kind of nice to just do it.

When you’re in the moment you know and so this is one of them just kind of a cool awesome bouquet beautiful just look at that if it loads of course but you get the hint awesome stuff some eucalyptus that’s been big small things like this is not anything fancy kind of just a silly shop.

I think we were out you know shooting photos of the whole group and I saw some of these weird flowers while they were all getting situated or something take a couple shots give that to them in their wedding set and it’s just kind of again just details of the day that they might have missed or maybe that they want to have who knows here’s another one of bouquet you could see that before this I was shooting a close-up of them are just a photo of them too and again I realized this is awesome light let’s take a photo of this bouquet kind of same thing here they’re in a pose but again kind of like the bouquet in the slide a little harsher back lighting just beautiful amazing stuff same thing like this is inside the venue these are some details that they brought.

I think they hung this chandelier so it’s kind of just one of those things take some photos of it I was shooting it 1.4 on the fifty millimetre and sometimes for detail shots I go pretty crazy my aperture just get really a lot of depth of field and such but you know play with it have fun closer one of that just stuff you know again this might mean something to the couple we don’t as photographers really know there might be something from the grandmother who knows so taking stuff like this you never know it could be!

One shot that they’re like oh my gosh! I really wanted that how did you know detail stuff of their table this is kind of just a weird shot of their main table head table and some Centre arrangements so you know you get the you get the point but of course detail shots are important I think, and couples love them.

I do a lot of my details when we are done taking all the portraits and right before the ceremony starts if I have time I’ll go jet over the reception if it’s set up and just kind of take all a lot of shots and then during the actual reception I’ll make sure to take a lot more once there’s people in there and all that kind of stuff.

2. Window light

Another point is window light utilize that beautiful window light and this could mean of course you know a lot of things but I tend to stick my couples in window light if I have it if we’re inside of course and so that could look like a lot of things in this case we were in this old mill was an old wool mill and to the left of all these folks right here these two folks there wasn’t much light it was kind of dulls kind of boring it was pretty cool in there but you know I wanted to do something more with more with more life and more characters so I stuck him in front of the window this is for their first look this isn’t a photo that I had posed them like this it would be kind of odd but this was her walking up on their first look and so he’s of course anxious and it did exactly what I wanted looked out the windows awesome but yes you can utilized that window light window light is beautiful indoors.

Especially if there’s not a lot of light inside of there a lot of artificial light the only thing that was in here was were these lights up here but again that’s so dark that it actually kind of adds to the photo it’s kind of cool but if there was photos overhead that were fighting with the outside light I would say it’s hard it’s you know black and white when in doubt black and white put it in black and white but this is window light I love window lights again same thing this is right after they saw each other for the first time I believe this was my second shooter shot this photo army.

I can’t remember but this window light is beautiful it’s just the best light and same thing right after they saw each other I just moved them right next to that window and all this light on their face is all window light and it’s just it’s gorgeous light it’s very soft and of course you can see here this is where that one bouquet photo I showed you before came from just this awesome window like coming in and I realized whoa look at that bouquet pretty simple stuff here you can see me shooting that photo they’re really jammed up next to that window there was not much Sun shooting through it but just a lot of beautiful soft bright light and again if you stick couples in front of that light.

it’s just it’s awesome when in doubt go to the window light here’s the last one just of her in front of the window you can just see that’s just on her right side of her body just that awesome glow of light from the window it’s very soft it’s very clean this is the kind of light that we wish we could get in the studio every time we’re shooting you know it’s awesome.

3. Close ups

Always focused on some close-ups close-up of the heads close-up of them this is kind of something that a little pose I like to throw people in a lot when I am forgetting, or you know I’m trying to remember put them in a pose or do something this is a great fall-back for me.

I love getting couples really close and intimate and this is kind of one of them I think that I don’t know why but I really love photos where for the wedding couples are just any couple in general where   their heads are touching I don’t know why do but not a big fan sometimes when you’re really close to somebody in the heads aren’t touching because when they do touch sometimes I don’t know it just seems like there’s more of a connection and I like it so this one is close heads you know getting heads close and shooting stuff close to the end of course this rule doesn’t apply to just close-ups but heads touching it’s an awesome thing I don’t know what it is about it but it’s something nice intimate it’s kind of cool yeah!

4. Shoot from up high

I’m going to cut to it real quick is shooting up from a high spot so this these ones were shot from me standing on a bench that happened to be there and it creates a really just an intimate awesome look looking down on the couple I don’t know of course I’ve seen some photographers go to weddings with little step ladders and all the power to them.

Unfortunately! I don’t think I would carry a step ladder so when you get opportunity like maybe a bench jump up on there and shoot some stuff from up there looks you know it’s fun stuff simple stuff gas simple stuff same thing right here heads touch and getting all intimate shooting from a little bit higher this is a great method to if you happen to be a little short same thing with the heads are really close a little bit more intimate a little bit close I don’t know it’s just it’s nice I think on this photo the first one she was probably pulled away a little bit and I didn’t like it as much so I told her head a little closer get him touching and I love it it’s awesome so that was three and four close heads get the heads close.

5. Angles

Get some different angles something that I really fall into on almost every shoot is when I’m posing a couple I never think to try a different angle where they’re not looking at the camera where they might just be like hanging out and getting close with each other this is something where my second shooter which in this case happens to be my fiancée was shooting photos behind me and finding cool angles and I saw this one and I just like I loved it this one in the next one I love this photo it’s just something about.

It’s like whoa!! that compared to my angle is just so different so she reminded me of course you know try different angles don’t get stuck with them looking in the camera all the time move around let them stay where they are and the thing it’s cool is if you move 180 degrees or less the lights going to change so if you don’t like your light where you’re at move around see what happens here’s another one she got from straight up right behind them.

It was like what a cool angle and an awesome old church! and so that’s this point try some different angles get creative don’t get stuck don’t rush a wedding day don’t rush a portrait shoot just enjoy the time have fun don’t move around 5 million times find a spot with some beautiful light and stay shoot it have some good times and create some awesome photos.