Tips for Amateur Wedding Photographers

When we speak about wedding photography, there are generally two distinct styles that wedding couples adopt - traditional or photojournalistic. Black and white wedding photography is also very popular, adding an old-time romance to your wedding photos.

With all the reality shows on television these days, it is no wonder more couples are using photojournalism wedding photography to document their wedding day. Photojournalistic wedding photography goes beyond the posed photos and adds life to the wedding album, offering a much less stilted wedding album.

In the timeless (traditional) style of wedding photography, the photographer plays a very active role. He or she orchestrates virtually the entire wedding according to a pre-planned shot list. Every photo is carefully posed. Depending on the length of time for which he or she is hired, some of the most personal wedding moments, such as cutting the cake or throwing the bouquet, may have to be re-enacted or faked for the camera.

In other words, a traditional wedding photography allows couples to customize their wedding photographs freely to match the feel of the wedding ceremony. The traditional posed wedding portrait is quite appropriate to the old-fashioned formal wedding. However, this is only one of a myriad of wedding styles from which couples now may choose. From jumping out of an airplane or exchanging vows on a roller coaster to highly themed custom ceremonies, weddings in general are much less standardized. It is only fitting that wedding photography should also change with the times.

Tradition isn't such a timeless style when there are guests waiting around for the bride and groom to arrive at the reception hall. The time between the ceremony and the transition to the reception hall generally belongs to you as a photographer, as you work with the bridal party to have the best shots for a photo album. A session of posed photos could take up to two hours while guests are left waiting.

There are a few major advantages to timeless wedding photography. Since the shot list is preplanned, couples can be sure that no event or family member is left out. The posed photos also look beautiful in a wedding album, creating a classic memento of the big day.

Photojournalistic wedding photography takes the opposite approach to the timeless style. Rather than posed photographs, the emphasis is on candid photography. The wedding photographer takes a much more passive role, capturing the day as it unfolds naturally rather than directing the show.

Many engaged couples feel that photojournalism wedding photography captures the big day in a more realistic way. They also prefer the low-key approach of the photojournalistic style, feeling that the photographer should document what actually happens rather than faking events for the photographic effect.

Photojournalism wedding photography does have its own downside, however. Since there is no shot list, it is possible that key relatives or friends will inadvertently be left out of the photos. The photographer's instincts must be top notch as he or she decides what to cover during the busy reception. Ambient rather than photographic lighting will generally be used, which can lead to some less than perfect photographs. Finally, the wedding album will contain little or no traditional posed photos. Although wedding photojournalism is a well sought after style by most couples nowadays, some parents feel that their child's wedding album is incomplete without some traditional photos. Wedding couples, too, may regret the lack of posed photos one day.

Photojournalism wedding photography is a great way for the bride and groom to see all the little things they might have missed during their wedding. Most couples don't realize how much of the wedding they missed until they see the video of the event. A video of the wedding makes the wedding day a completely new experience.

Some photography studios offer both photojournalism wedding photography and traditional timeless photography to their clients. The bride, groom, and wedding party might be required to show up at the studio before the day of the wedding to have the formal wedding photography portrait done. The bride and groom might also submit a list of specific posed pictures they would like to have and thus cut the downtime between ceremony and reception. This approach pleases many people, since no one is left out of the wedding album, and the bride and groom get to enjoy more time with their guests.

Many couples feel that they won't be able to get both affordable wedding photography and the style they want in a cost-conscious package. It is therefore very important for you as a wedding photographer, to be more aware of the financial dilemma that couples have. As much as you want to please your customers, you should take all effort to offer the best packages at an affordable price to allow yourself to rise above the rest of the competition.

One of the most hotly debated topics among professional wedding photographers is whether digital wedding photography is as good as or better than traditional film. This is a natural debate as our world becomes more digitized. There is a division among professional wedding photographers. Some think that traditional film photography has more warmth, while those that use digital photography feel it is as versatile as film. The majority of the population owns or has access to a digital camera and we enjoy the extra features and enhanced functionality that our personal digital cameras provide. When the time comes to decide on our wedding photography, it is only natural that we would consider digital wedding photography.

It is only recently that the quality of digital photographs has caught up to the quality of film. Earlier digital cameras had technological limitations that prevented the photos from looking truly lifelike. With more options available that are comparable to traditional 35mm cameras, professional wedding photographers are willing to take a chance with the new technology. Today's digital cameras have broken through the technological barriers and now offer photographs that stand up well against film even in poster sized reproductions. Digital wedding photography has come into its own. With the advances, digital wedding photography has gained some credibility among professional wedding photographers, and as time goes on, it's possible that you won't be able to tell the difference between digital wedding photography and traditional film photography.

For many situations, digital cameras offer a number of significant advantages. A digital camera provides immediate feedback to the photographer. This enables you to risk tricky or difficult shots, knowing that if anything needs to be corrected it can be. While any professional photographer will be able to take excellent photos without the immediate feedback, couples whose wedding photography includes difficult action shots may feel more secure knowing that you are able to preview and re-shoot photos as necessary.

This is especially important for photojournalistic wedding photography, in which many of the shots will be taken in ambient light conditions. You don't want to end up ruining a couple's big day if the photographs taken with the traditional film do not turn out well due to technical faults or otherwise. A related benefit is the ability to take a greater number of shots. The photographer can shoot as many pictures as time and memory card will allow, without worrying about the cost of film.

Another major advantage of digital wedding photography is that all of the settings are internal. Rather than having to interrupt the proceedings to change film speeds or simply change out a film roll, the photographer can make changes quickly and easily.

Most couples today want their photos in a digital format as well as an album. While film photos can be scanned, moving digital photos around electronically is less labor intensive and therefore less expensive. In addition, digital photos can be easily manipulated if the couple wants copies of certain photos in black and white or sepia tones, for example.

The major drawback to digital wedding photography at this time is that many wedding photographers are not yet completely familiar with the new style. Digital photography is in many ways a completely different animal than film photography, and some very talented professional wedding photographers are simply not at their best with digital photography.

More and more photographers are starting to turn to digital photography as their preferred medium. Digital photography gives you the freedom to experiment with tricky shots, as you will know immediately whether the shot was a success. It also allows you to snap virtually limitless number of photos rather than being tied to a certain number of rolls for budgetary purposes.

Digital photography is the wave of the future. As time goes on, advances made with the technology will only serve to improve the quality of the photos. Already, many digital cameras have the ability to use different types of lenses and other accessories that previously were only available for traditional 35mm cameras.

However, the medium to adopt will be determined by many factors, including your own personal style, the comfort of your customers, and the look that they are trying to create for their wedding album. Couples are now designing their own wedding photography as part of the full package of wedding customization. As a wedding photographer, you should try to mesh your style to your customers' requirements, and then work together to create wedding photographs that truly make them happy.

The Wedding Photography Blueprint is being described as the most in depth and informative wedding photography tutorial system for sale on the web. It comprises of footage taken from a full, 2 day wedding photography course as well as an actual wedding in order to give you a full and comprehensive understanding of what to expect and what to do when shooting weddings.

Also intertwined at various and well timed intervals throughout, are screen recordings of sometimes problematic images being worked on in Photoshop in order to salvage excellent looking wedding photos from somewhat mediocre RAW files (basically, cock-ups). These are placed alongside many other traditional Photoshopping tutorials which includes the use of recommended software and add-ons to make your images really stand out from the crowd.

The author and professional photographer behind the Wedding Photography Blueprint is Nick Stubbs, a seasoned, full time professional with over 25 years experience using Medium format, SLR's and DSLR's to shoot weddings, portraits, stock and commercial work.

Nick understands the fears and reservations people may have about going it alone as a wedding photographer (either part or full time) but also understands the buzz and excitement this career path can take.

As well as the above, the Wedding Photography Blueprint DVD set also includes:

- An in depth 99 page eBook with set tasks and "homework" to keep you on your toes

- All you need to know about camera and flash settings needed throughout the day to ensure you get the "safe" shots before playing with natural light and more artistic shots

- Editing Tips and tricks to salvage poorly exposed, must have shots

- Low light photography

- Flash and natural light photography

- Group shots

- Interviews with other successful wedding photographers

- An interview with a wedding couple about their wants and needs from their wedding photographer

- Plus much more including bonus eBooks

Check out the Wedding Photography Blueprint now to shorten your learning curve in wedding photography!

Digital Wedding Secrets is an online course on wedding photography developed by Nick Smith. It is a comprehensive easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide on the various tips and techniques that every wedding photographer should know.

Wedding photography is no doubt one of the most lucrative and challenging photography niches to go into. For an amateur wedding photographer starting out, one would usually be overwhelmed with an extensive amount of knowledge that he or she needs to learn to succeed. Although you can easily find some information online, there is only so much you could find, and most likely in bits and pieces. What an amateur wedding photographer needs most, is to have an in-depth resource containing everything he or she wants to know about wedding photography.

Having scouted around for a comprehensive course on digital wedding photography, the Digital Wedding Secrets comes across as a good investment for any amateur wedding photographer starting out. It covers the A to Z of all aspects you always wanted to learn about digital wedding photography. In fact, it's developed for all photographers alike, whether you are an amateur, professional, freelance or full-time photographer. With the in-depth information available in the Digital Wedding Secrets, even the most professional photographers would find something to learn in there.

The topics covered in the Digital Wedding Secrets are as follows:

- Effective tips for shooting candid shots
- Professional frame-filling tips
- Specialized strategies for snapping 'people pictures'
- Secrets to make inanimate objects work photographic wonders
- Foolproof strategies that professionals use every time they want to communicate any theme in any setting
- The 'right' way to balance color and contrast
- All the poses that the bride and groom-to-be is going to demand to pose for
- Hidden secrets for shooting beautiful wedding portraits
- Equipment checklist for the digital wedding photographer
- Techniques on creating the right kind of indoor and outdoor lighting effect
- Advertising sources in getting customers for your photography business
- Super-strategies for running a successful business that any wedding photographer should follow
- Keys to make and present your portfolio to potential customers
- Common mistakes made by professional photographers to avoid
- Super hot strategies to completely destroy your competition
- And lots more!

What I find most appealing about the Digital Wedding Secrets are the bonuses which Nick has included with purchase of the course. He has added a detailed wedding photography checklist which outlines over 75 poses that you must take on a wedding day. That creates an idiot-proof plan to make your photos turn out like a professional even if you are just an amateur wedding photographer.

Nick is also giving away five printable checklists with the Digital Wedding Secrets so that your wedding shoot progresses without a glitch. They include a checklist for all your initial business expenses, a pre-wedding checklist so that you know that you are fully prepared for the event, an equipment checklist so that you don't forget anything, a checklist of all those things you must carry in your car to the wedding ceremony and last but not least, a checklist of sites you must be on to generate new business.

Best of all, when you purchase the Digital Wedding Secrets, Nick is also going to throw in over 10 specially designed wedding photographer website templates which are highly optimized for search engine rankings. These would save you the trouble of having to design your professional-looking website from scratch and allow you to setup your own wedding photographer website with a breeze to fight your competitors. Not forgetting that they also come with four months of free web hosting on their servers.

Just to sum it up, the Digital Wedding Secrets is a must-have resource for all wedding photographers for the following reasons:

- You'll feel professionally equipped at a wedding shoot, with a confidence of knowing how to handle your clients better

- You'll improve your digital wedding photography skills and create lots of happy customers

- You'll increase the profits of your wedding business with your new found skills, allowing you to increase the charges of your wedding packages and finding more clients

If you are not earning from your wedding photography business and are looking for a way to move your business to the next level, then the Digital Wedding Secrets is the way to go.

A wide-angle zoom lens is one of the most important lenses that every wedding photographer should have, typically 17mm to 35mm in length with a fixed aperture of f/2.8. It provides a large depth of field, making it simple to have foreground and background in focus. It is an indispensable lens which allows versatility in confined areas such as a small banquet room or crowded dance floor. While a shorter lens allows you to capture more details, a wide-angle zoom lens allows you to capture more reactions and atmosphere to tell a richer story.

To elaborate further, a wide-angle zoom lens allows you to shoot a wider perspective of moments happening around the major subject, hence providing a bigger picture of the entire event. For example, wide-angle photos have the capability to tell "stories within a story", allowing you to reveal more of the story behind the shot. This is essential for a good photojournalistic shoot. As events surrounding weddings are so time sensitive, you want to be able to capture as many actions or emotions in the quickest time as possible.

When used in a venue such as the church or ballroom, it also magnifies the grandeur and spaciousness of the area, which encapsulates the creative feel for photojournalistic weddings.

However, you need to be selective of the scenes or actions using wide-angle, as a caveat to shooting wide is that it creates some body distortion, particularly when a subject is photographed close-up. Generally, people tend to look heavier and shorter on the edges, while arms can look huge. The last thing you want is to have the bride cursing you for making her look like she has put on 10 pounds! To get around this problem, you should as far as possible avoid putting the bride and groom at the edges of the wide-angle distortion. In addition, wide-angle lenses might also introduce distracting or unwanted elements into the frame, which would otherwise ruin a picture perfect moment.

The wide-to-telephoto lens is the single most important lens that a wedding photographer cannot do without. It should ideally be a lens that covers somewhere around the 20-70mm focal length range with an aperture of f/2.8. This ideal range lets you get wide enough to take a group photograph and close enough to capture facial emotions in your candid shots or a three-quarter portrait of a couple without the undesirable effects of wide-angle perspective distortion. It also doubles as a good lens for portraits. Given just this lens, you would be able to capture most of the shots needed for a wedding decently well.

The 70-200mm focal length is an important range for wedding ceremony photos. It allows you to give your subjects more space in situations where you don't want to get in the way. As you will often be photographing down the aisle from the back of the church, an image-stabilized telephoto zoom will come in very handy. 200mm is long enough to be able to take 3/4 length images of the bride and groom exchanging their vows while staying at a reasonable distance away from the action and 70mm is wide enough to take in the bridesmaids or groomsmen as a group without switching lenses.

A good point to note is that nice blurred background can be achieved with maximum wide apertures of f/2.8 and long focal lengths of 200mm or 300mm, whether you are using a full-frame or a small sensor body. This allows you to isolate the subject from its background, and to focus attention on the image as the main subject you want to portray. Such lenses are especially useful for shots where you are unable to get in close and for intimate and private moments, where you want to be an unobserved stranger at a distance. Some examples include a stolen glance, a mischievous grin, a kiss - the details that are effectively conveyed by the emotions.

These image-stabilized telephoto zooms aren't only good for blurry backgrounds or shooting events from a distance. They could also be used to photograph stunning facial close-ups from creative angles above or below the subject that don't exhibit the normal distortions of large chins or shrinking heads that come from wider lenses.

Yet another advantage is that you can use the small-sensor camera's 1.5x crop factor to your favour. The 200/2.8 long end of the standard zoom effectively becomes 300/2.8, a lens that would cost $4000 for a full-frame camera. The effective 300mm length allows for more creative photo angles than a shorter lens, such as tightly cropped images of the groom's hands lifting the bride's veil or the bride and groom's hands while they put rings on each others fingers.

The obvious disadvantage is that in many cases, a long lens tends to disconnect the subject from the main scene and there might be little to no context as to why the subject may have had expressed how they were feeling, the whereabouts of the subject and who else was there.

When using a small-sensor camera as your primary or backup body, the other disadvantage is that neither Nikon, Canon or Sony make an f/2.8 lens that gives you an effective 70-200mm focal length. Hence, you would have to pay the high price and carry the weight of a lens designed for a full-frame camera.

Canon's Image-Stabilization, Nikon's Vibration-Reduction and Sony's SteadyShot INSIDE systems are indispensable in allowing you to hand-hold these large and heavy long lenses, especially in low light situations. Every wedding photographer should ensure that the image-stablization and vibration-reduction features are available on their long lenses. You might also want to consider using a tripod to ensure continuous, accurate subject placement and sharp photos. Such telephoto zooms are huge investments and if you have a budget constraint or an amateur just starting out, you might want to consider rental instead.

A prime lens is essentially a lens with a fixed focal length, as opposed to a zoom lens, which has a variable focal length of say 24-70mm or 17-55mm. A prime lens generally has a better optical quality than a zoom lens, and usually comes with a wider maximum aperture such as f/2.8 or f/1.8.

A good prime lens is a must-have item for any wedding photographer, as they are excellent for taking good portraits. Although you will be adequately equipped for a wedding shoot with the three zoom lenses in your lens kit as discussed above, it is worth including two to three fast prime lenses in your bag as well. These lenses are compact, light, and fairly inexpensive and would probably be needed in about 10 to 20% of a wedding shoot.

Faster prime lenses are ideal in situations where f/2.8 aperture is not enough to get the motion-stopping shutter speed or shallow depth of field desired, whether for artistic or technical reasons. For example, an image that requires a 1/20th of a second shutter speed at f/2.8 will only require 1/60th of a second at f/1.8, forming a distinction between a sharp image and a blurry one. Many professional wedding photographers actually include prime lenses in their gig bags as an economical backup to their zoom lenses. Not many people could afford to purchase an additional 70-200mm f/2.8 telephoto lens as a backup and you also want to prevent a frantic situation whereby your lens fails on you during a crucial moment.

There are many prime lenses available on the market but most photographers would include a 28/1.8, 50/1.8, and 85/1.8 in their prime lens kit to be used on a full-frame body. The 28mm is wide enough to cover most ceremony locations and confined spaces, the 50mm is good for small groups or a priest blessing a couple, and the 85mm is long enough for ceremony vows and exchange of rings. A wedding can be successfully photographed with just these three lenses..