Bride and Groom, pointers?

I'm terrible outdoors when there is nowhere with consistent light, what should I have done to make this better?

Main thing I would have to say is that the bride is suffering some lens distortion, which I try and avoid at all times.

To make it better, I think it is a fine photo as long as it is in company with other shots. ie kissing in the bushes perhaps?

seems the horizon is off a bit as the fence looks at an angle .

12Rock wrote in post #12676915
seems the horizon is off a bit as the fence looks at an angle .

the fence isn't running horizontally. it looks right according to the rail they're holding.

I dread wedding photos as everyone's wearing white so lighting is a pain... I have to learn quick as I have one wedding to go to next month

in short...

Stay in the shadows, which you have done, but try a longer lens with a larger aperture. This will both compress the background and throw it more out of focus which puts a lot more attention to the bride and groom.

No, the horizon is definitely not level. Sometimes that's ok, but could help to be leveled here. Pose isn't great, but that's not a quick answer and you've captured some of their happiness, so it's ok, but this looks more like a snapshot than a carefully posed image.

Delta ... look again ....the focus of your attention in this particular photo should be the people , not the railing they are holding . When you look straight at this photo it appears as if the fence is going uphill, this should not be . If we put into practice what Collier is saying about blurring out the back with a larger aperture then this is not as big a deal.

collierportraits wrote in post #12677283
in short...

Stay in the shadows, which you have done, but try a longer lens with a larger aperture. This will both compress the background and throw it more out of focus which puts a lot more attention to the bride and groom.

No, the horizon is definitely not level. Sometimes that's ok, but could help to be leveled here. Pose isn't great, but that's not a quick answer and you've captured some of their happiness, so it's ok, but this looks more like a snapshot than a carefully posed image.

This was them being silly before the carefully posed photos as he was helping her on the steps. But the lighting was similar on all of them, I think I had a 28-70 2.8 and a 550ex flash with a gary fong modifier, at 6.3 1/250 at 28mm. All the others were much tighter, so the backgrounds have a lot more blur and looked straight since the fence that dropped off down a hill wasn't in view. They just don't look bright enough to me in any of them, and am not sure if I should have taken off the fong for them, changed metering mode, etc to make them pop out more I'm completey lost with on camera flashes. The wedding was in front of a 3 room 100 year old share croppers shack, with 100+ guests, trying to find shade to stand in, while we finished these up, so there weren't a lot of suitable places to take photos with out having to run off dozens of guests.

I think this could have been a great shot, but maybe from a different angle. To me, there is too much of the sky/tree area in the background. If the sky doesn't tell a story, then don't include it in the shot. It looks like you are shooting upwards towards the couple. I think the shot would have been improved if you were shooting on level with the bride or slightly above her. I realize this may not have been possible here, but even recomposing, or moving towards or away from the couple would help. There is a distracting wire right behind them. You could have still shot in that direction, without having it be distracting.

I would definitely have taken that fong modifier you had off....depending on which type it is. The only ones I have seen are the sphere looking ones. (looking at his sight, I see some other ones, like a snoot) But if it is a diffuser, I don't see much use in using it here. I don't think it would increase the quality of your light outdoors. From what I understand, they simply spread light in all directions, thus supplying bounce light. Since you are outside, you won't be getting that benefit. Also, since the size of the light source is not increasing by a significant amount, you are not increasing the softness of the light. You may simply eating light, and making your flash work harder.

Having said all that...I struggle with on camera flash too. with this specific shot, I might stop the lens all the way down, maybe f/22, or close to it, so I could try to get more drama from the sky, and then just use the flash for fill to freeze the couple...that fog snoot makes me wonder what it would look like using that too.