Thanks for the input. Directing and posing seems to be the common thought. I will be practicing that on unsuspecting guests to my house before the wedding. The only other area that I really dwell on is my lens selection for the ceremony. It's in a very dim conference type room. No natural light, just a dozen 40W bulbs overhead. My 1dsiii is my primary camera and my 7D will be in the holster. My first thought is to keep the 50 1.4 on the 1dsiii and 85 1.8 on the 7D and stop thinking. Then I think I should put my 28-70 2.8L on the 1dsiii and 70-200 f4 IS on the 7D. I'll try all at the rehearsal and then choose.
I hated the formal session. Directing definitely was an issue. I was nervous before the wedding but once I got into it, it was just another job. I got lots of great shots but afterwards I realized that I was probably a huge distraction to the guests. While I did try to not be in the view of vision, me running all over the place probably was distracting.
There's several posts here that I would second... Posing is still my biggest weakness. All the technical gobbledygook is like second nature to me, but posing is one of those thing that just doesn't come naturally (at least to me). One quick piece of advice nobody has probably told you--when you shoot formals, shoot them on the loose side. If you frame them perfectly in your viewfinder, you'll probably find out that the 8x10 they want made from it will chop the people off on the sides (different aspect ratio). You can always crop later if you give them some extra room on the sides...it's a lot harder to add room later .
gravygraffix wrote:
I think mine was... not knowing the flow of the wedding... had only been to like two in my life before hand.
That and posing (not formals) and being assertive/confident in what you need them to do. That will fix itself down the road.
Ditto. My first wedding was my first wedding... Being assertive/confident definately built down the road.
Although I'm still just starting, my advise for the first few would be to make sure you find the right people to work with, make sure you enjoy it, make sure you have fun. It will rub off on people around you, make them more relaxed, make you more confident. A small mistake I made was jumping at any opportunity (not always a bad thing) rather than being more select and going with people who understood/appreciated what you were doing more.
Corojo wrote:
getting a good night's sleep before the wedding day - to much stuff rolling around in my head! really...
Oh yes! I really had such a poor nights sleep on the first one, although I didn't feel too tired in the end, it definately didn't help. I'm so foul when I don't sleep well too, so yes, that would be right up there on my list of priorities!
Scott Clark wrote:
There's several posts here that I would second... Posing is still my biggest weakness. All the technical gobbledygook is like second nature to me, but posing is one of those thing that just doesn't come naturally (at least to me). One quick piece of advice nobody has probably told you--when you shoot formals, shoot them on the loose side. If you frame them perfectly in your viewfinder, you'll probably find out that the 8x10 they want made from it will chop the people off on the sides (different aspect ratio). You can always crop later if you give them some extra room on the sides...it's a lot harder to add room later . ...Show more →
Scott,
Good reminder on the framing. I learned that in my lanscape work as I used the same image for multiple sizes and aspect ratios. Fortunately, there are plenty of pixels these days. Always good to be reminded to leave a little room. The desire is great to get in camera framing as close as possible, which as you say may not be right in the end.
For me it was setting up the formals, quickly arranging the groupings with not a lot of time to think about it. You have 20 to 30 or more people to setup quickly and this is much different than posing a person, a couple, or a family. It takes some practice to both manage the people effectively and know how best to place people for each grouping.
What helped a lot was using a tripod with a Custom Bracket so I could keep the camera in one position and if I needed to alter an individual's position or switch a couple people I could go up to the group and then back to the camera and quickly take the shot. The Custom Bracket helped as I could quickly go from a horizontal to a vertical framing and know that the camera was perfectly level shot to shot which saves time in post processing.
I quickly went to having the couple appoint someone as the wrangler who was responsible for managing the shot list and getting the right people to the area for the pictures. If aunt Mabel had gone walkabout I did not want to be the person trying to find her or make sure she was available for the next grouping. This enables me to concentrate on one set of people at a time while someone else is getting the people together for the next one. This speeds things up and takes a lot of pressure off the photographer.
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