My first wedding shoot

Hey everyone! Shot my first wedding as a favor to some new friends.

Comments and Suggestions encouraged! considering branching out and committing to wedding photography a little more.

If you look at my other Albums, there are lots of other photos from the wedding weekend as well.

THANKS!

IMAGE LINK: http://s1089.photobuck​et.com …tled_zpsa0e0074​f.jpg.html

hi there,

congrats on your first wedding,

One thing that I think would make a big difference to the first impression of these photos, that sepia. I'm really not a fan. but.. that's just my opinion. It's almost red and it's just not nice.

Be consistent in your editing. You have way too many different edits in there, varying in white balance etc.

As long as the couple are happy though, that's the main thing

thanks! still really learning how to PP effectively, so i appreciate your feedback!

I'm glad the groom eventually took off his sunglasses.

yeah i wanted to sake them the take off the shades, but they really would have been squinting.

Have you read much on the Mclaren P1?!?!?! saw an MC-12 in my town yesterday. Incredible cars

Yeah, Mclaren makes great road cars. I just hope they get back into the habit of making good race cars.

after looking through them again, I think I agree that the sepia is horrible. Will re edit when i have time. Thanks for the critique

Wow - great job on your first wedding - agree with the other posters - the sepia does not work. Not sure if it is the sepia, but they look a tad dark to me. Can you remove the sepia, lighten them up and post again? Looks like you captured some great shots.

Diane

I'm curious why it seems you let the bride and her father pass you during the wedding processional so that you were mostly photographing their back.

Overall impressions from a quick scan through flickr:
-you've been chastised enough about sepia (which might actually work for some of the shots if done better and more subtly)
-color balance is wonky on a few of the photos
-great use of ambient light when shooting inside
-impressive capturing of candid moments for a first wedding. I didn't get as far as the portraits, though, to judge how well you did at taking charge when required.

Christopher thank you for taking the time to reply!

There are the two shots of the bride and father as they pass, and pretty sure a few more that i didn't pick from the group.

This was done pro bono as a favor. Another of the couples friends was a pro photog, and did the set up shots in the gardens for them. I, and the couple, could tell that his heart wasn't in it at all, and he was being really negative. It makes me feel really good, that although I did this as an amateur, I was able to get them a few shots that are really special to them. I wish i had taken a little more charge and set up some more shots of my own.

If you have the time to look back through them, could you hint at which ones the color balance seems wonky on? I think I need to be better about editing shots taken from the same angle and scene as a batch to avoid this problem. Also if you have time check out the other albums of the weekend, and the ladies getting ready! your feedback really means a lot to me.

Mostly I know that I learned more than i could have imagined over this long weekend playing photographer. I think the most important things I learned are that I have been severely underestimating the amount of storage, both external and SD, that I need to have on hand for a weekend like this. Also, I think I got lucky in that I spent the entire weekend with the whole group, and I feel like this allowed me to really get to know who was who, so that I captured a few moments I wouldn't have even understood had that not been the case.

I feel pretty strongly that If I try another wedding, I will make my best attempt to get to know all the main family involved so that I am once again aware of important moments as they happen.

Thanks again for taking the time to respond

I don't see other albums and only see car and plane photos in the link you have. The photo you posted is of the back of someone's head.

Happy that's not very constructive. I think you are looking at photos I have added to my favorites on flicker, not clicking on the link at the top that says "albums".

As far as the "back of someone's head" comment, that is the bride peaking out a window seeing her own wedding for the first time. I don't see any wedding photos on your website, so is your criticism coming from a place of knowledge, or simply negativity?

It's pointing out that you either weren't in the best place for this photo or you need to crop this photo a lot because the back of that person takes up the most space in the frame. You don't need to do something in order to have an opinion on photo composition, subject, framing. You welcomed comments.

The thing is, unless you know she's looking out at her wedding, you don't know she's looking out at her wedding. You at times need to remove yourself from knowing more about a photo to see the photo independently. Photos need to stand on their own without a back story that nobody can't tell or know.

You're totally right: we often do take photos, filling in important aspects of the narrative with our own understanding and not realizing these aspects are not actually apparent in the photos themselves to independent viewers. That's a really powerful point.

I disagree, though, about every photo needing to stand on its own. That suggestion simply ignores how we often (if not most often) actually view images. In wedding photography especially, we see a series of images and not generally one photo in isolation (a critique board is a non-standard way of viewing images). Given that, there's not really much ambiguity about, e.g., who is in this photo--perhaps about what that person is doing, however. Consider also that the intended viewing subject of a wedding photograph is generally the wedding couple. Whether or not you know that that is the bride seems to be of less importance than how the wedding couple themselves see the photo.

HappySnapper90 wrote in post #17179861
It's pointing out that you either weren't in the best place for this photo or you need to crop this photo a lot because the back of that person takes up the most space in the frame. You don't need to do something in order to have an opinion on photo composition, subject, framing. You welcomed comments.

The thing is, unless you know she's looking out at her wedding, you don't know she's looking out at her wedding. You at times need to remove yourself from knowing more about a photo to see the photo independently. Photos need to stand on their own without a back story that nobody can't tell or know.

The album isn't loading for me? Is it down?