My Third Wedding

1.

I think you did a pretty good job. I'm new too, so I know how hard it is when starting out to think of everything at once. One thing I do think would help alot is using a touch of fill flash to brighten the eye sockets in the outdoor photos. Also the grain in that shoe shot is prettty intense, what camera are you using?

Otherwise good work for a 3rd time, I hope my 3rd turns out nicely as well.

One thing- I was unable to load your website (the blog was fine) it just sat there with a loading 'wheel' and nothing ever happened. I'm using Win7 and IE8

1- I totally see what attracts you to this shot. I like that touch of color. But overall I think I don't like the shot because the perspective as well as the light (where it is) tends to make the bride look larger than she had to look. This may not be completely relevant to this shot, but look up 'short lighting'. In, er, short, I would have wanted her back more in shadow, and for her to have been lit from the front.

2-a slight tilt up and the photo would not have cut across the guests heads.

3-not knowing how limited you were in terms of places to shoot, it's hard to comment on this.

4-a little uncomfortably close crop up top, and also on the sides.


It looks like you missed the kiss shot.

Overall: decent. You've got some good ceremony shots on your site. I think the thing you should focus on improving are the formal and glam shots, where you have control over lighting, posing, location.

I think you're underexposed a bit (in terms of white point). I'm not on a calibrated monitor though.

Also--in the only formal shot you included here the subjects aren't looking at the camera. Did you shoot this wedding or did you assist / second shoot ?

Joey, Thank you for the flash suggestion. Someone suggested a clipboard with a checklist(not one of "Touching photo of bride's mom") which consisted of when what is happening and who is showing up when, etc and that helped me tremendously.

7D or 40D, that shoe pic was processed w/ VSCO Film. I thought I had replaced all of the "super grainy" shots with less grainy ones. Must have missed that one.

Also I'll take a look at why the site won't load.

@Christopher. Thank you very much for the CC. I knew there was something about #1 that I wasn't crazy about but you nailed it. I'll do some reading up on short lighting for sure.

I'll try a different crop on 2.

Got the kiss... but it was photobombed.

^photobombed kiss shots are honestly the norm.

That said, I had one officiant tell me it was totally cool to ask officiants (prior to the ceremony) if they wouldn't mind moving to the side--most in fact don't actually want to be in the shots ! When I remember to do so, I do ask, all have been gracious; and my 'non-photo-bombed' rate has substantially improved.

Great job for your third wedding. Hope you don't mind a few suggestions.

With the first shot, I think I would go with a black/white edit rather than color. The tungsten light (yellow) cast is distracting, bringing focus to hear back, rather than her face/front. For future reference, turn off all secondary light sources that don't match the temperature/color of your primary source. If natural light is adequate, turn off the all the light bulbs/switches. Its good practice to use sources that match, as it makes white balance a lot easier, and reduces the nasty yellow/blue coloring.

Second piece of advice, is to boost contrast just a bit. The whites and blacks don't pop enough.

Last piece of advice... I like the shot against the brick wall. The only thing I would have done differently is asking them to hold hands, or have her grab onto his shoulder. The arms look dead otherwise.

I had a look at the other ones on the blog. I like 1 and 8 of those better than any of these.
First one is cool, a fisheye shot with a fish on the wall! No8 is happy and flattering.

This is a practical point more than artistic - I'd stick with one crop (for me, 3:2) for 90% of your images. Otherwise you make it difficult when someone wants a set of prints and you have to either recrop or add borders. Some at 16:9 to break it up and call it your style fair enough but keep those about the same.

no3 of these, the "arty repeating pattern one colour background" doesn't fit with 1) going full length and breaking up the pattern with the ground 2) camera aware couple (aware of two cameras it seems).
There is a temptation to see stuff online (I call it "style by google") and copy it. If you do you have to understand the essence of what works in a particular shot rather than just finding something that looks similar.

Good luck,
Andrew