Spring is the season of love, so you may find yourself at a few weddings this coming season (assuming you’re in the southern hemisphere). Here are some tips to help you take photographs you will be proud of – and the newlyweds will treasure!

Text and photographs by Shelton Muller

Avoid direct sun

Spring and summer light can be very harsh – especially from mid morning to late afternoon, which is the time most wedding photography takes place. In this harsh light bridal dresses reflect highly and wash out, hard shadows form in the eyes and under the chin and grooms in ties and tuxedos sweat in the hot summer sun. Where possible look for softer lighting options – under trees, naturally lit interiors and balconies, etc.

Film and flash

Avoid direct flash wherever possible. Flash is a very harsh form of lighting and if used as the only light source can be very uncomplimentary. If you can, use flash as an additional light source, mixed with sunlight or natural indoor light. Your compact may have a “Night Mode” and this can be used very creatively for more natural indoor shots. Obviously if the ambient light is so low you can’t take a picture for fear of underexposure, use flash. If you’re using a film camera, use 400 ISO film for more successful available light and indoor pictures.

Light is the key

Don’t rely on posing alone to create a sense of romance or to beautify your pictures. Just because you’re using a compact camera doesn’t mean that you can’t be creative. Creative use of light is one of the most successful means by which a photographer can evoke a sense of romance. Back lighting, window light and soft diffused daylight are powerful tools to beautify your wedding pictures. Try to look for other natural light opportunities as the light streams through trees, church windows or arches and reflects off buildings and walls.

Posing

If you’re posing the couple for a photograph, do so as naturally as possible. Highly contrived and overly romantic poses seldom succeed. A careful study of professional wedding photography will usually reveal poses that are natural, yet intimate. A more casual approach to posing usually feels more comfortable to the bride and groom and can be more successful in the final photo. Study the couple as they share moments together and examine ways that their natural interactions can be employed in your poses. Candid photography

Some of the most successful wedding photographs are those that reveal the couple as they really are and the nature of their day as it actually happened. These pictures are captured during the couple’s natural interactions with each other and with friends and family.

Equipment

Weddings are a one-off! Your camera should be in perfect working order and loaded with fresh batteries, your lens clean of dust and fingerprints. And make sure you have plenty of film!

Get close!

You’ll be competing with other guests for the couple’s attention, so move in closer so they’re not too far away in your picture. Their heads should be within the top third of the frame, and not dead-centre, where everyone else will put them!

Consider your composition

For portraits of the couple, try and avoid composing with the camera in “landscape”. Frame the couple using a vertical – or “portrait” - format and remember, try and get nice and close. The closer you get, the fewer distractions there are in your pictures.

Avoid red-eye

Photos at the reception will no doubt require using flash, so you’ll need to be careful of the old red-eye problems that invariably arise. Use your “Red-eye Reduction” mode (if your camera has one) and take some photographs of guests and the bridal party as they look elsewhere – not straight down the barrel. Should your favourite pictures be ruined by red-eye, the people at your friendly Soul Pattinson Chemist can help you remove it from any enlargements you want made.

Make the most of every opportunity

Weddings are busy, crazy days and photo opportunities abound! Look for details and events that the couple have gone to great lengths to arrange, or for moments that others may not think to capture. Other photographs worth taking are of the bridal party, especially cute flower girls and excited pageboys. No matter what their behaviour – angelic or mischievous – they make for memorable pictures the parents and the newlyweds will treasure.

Entry was posted on Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006 at 8:57 pm under .  Print This Post