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Wedding Photography Tips
for Amateur Photographers
(Article 3)
By Christopher MaxwellThis is part three in a series of articles I am writing to help beginning wedding photographers. Part one focused on learning lighting and exposure; part two discussed getting your equipment ready for the wedding.
This article continues the “preparation theme” by focusing on additional ways you can prepare for the wedding.
Spend Time Online
Search the internet for “wedding photography tips for amateurs”. You may also want to visit my web site (the link is below, I have an extensive FAQ and also link to three other pages that have tips for beginners).Consider joining a message board or forum that is dedicated to professional wedding photography. If you do, be careful to not ask too many questions at the beginning! Instead, spend hours reading through old posts and learning as much as you can. Once you’ve read several months worth of posts you will be in a better position to ask proper questions. Digitalweddingforum.com has a special “starting” section for beginner photographers – but there are other resources online as well. And be careful to not just READ the information, print the information out, shut your computer down, get your camera, and practice!!
Search for wedding photography web sites and view the sites of photographers in the big cities that are near you. Find the ones that are good. Analyze their best photos. Make a folder on your computer and save copies of the best photos you find online. Try to figure out what makes them so good: what is the posing like, the lighting (natural or fake), the location (can you find and use the same locations?), etc. etc. Then, go out and attempt to recreate some of those "best" photos.
Buy Several Wedding Photography Books
There are a number of good books about Wedding Photography. I have yet to find one that does an excellent job explaining the basics in a practical way, but you can pick up a lot of good pointers from various books.I review a number of wedding photography books on my site (see the link below), and Amazon.com also has reviews of wedding photography books (go to Amazon.com and search for “wedding photography”).
My current #1 book recommendation is Steve Sint’s book: Wedding Photography, Art, Business, and Style. He covers a lot of the basics and has an excellent section on posing (using studio models). I remember purchasing a new book or two before each of my first few weddings.
Spend Time with the Couple
Volunteer to take engagement photos of the couple. Doing so gives you the opportunity to see how the couple interacts and how well they do in front of the camera. It will also give them a chance to see the types of photos you take. This is important as you need to be setting proper expectations! If the couple is looking at wedding photos online, they are probably looking at really nice photos. Make sure they know this is the first wedding you have photographed!Work with the couple to create a “photo schedule” for the day and try to include lots of extra time. Be careful not to make the day’s schedule about the photos -- the day is a wedding!
Part four of the series will continue discussing preparation by discussing “shot lists”.
In the mean time, get your camera out and take more pictures!
Christopher Maxwell is a photographer in the Kansas City area. He has a web site that includes Introductory Wedding Photography Tips for beginners. He shares practical advice and information that he has learned from photographing weddings.
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