Fake e-shoot

I'm just starting out with wedding photography. A friend of mine had asked me to shoot her engagement and wedding. I wanted to get some practicing in before her big day, so I'd asked another friends of mine to help me. Here is what I got. Please C&C. The only way to get better is some practice and heard what all of you have to say about it. Thanks and enjoy.

1.

They look great. I like the uniqueness of #3

great job!

1. If you want to take advantage of those repeating lines and columns in the background, use a telephoto focal length to create more of a 'tunnel' effect. If you took a step to the left the perspective of the 'tunnel' would lead your eyes right to them.

The knees are a really awkward place to crop people at.

Engage his hands. Have him hold her waist or something.

Get them to snuggle up closer in; they look a bit too separated.

2. There is some crazy background distractions going on. Get far away and use a high focal length like 200mm. This is to minimize the amount of background that gets into the shot. If you took this shot at 200mm but kept the people the exact same size in the frame as your shot, you probably wouldn't even see the huge building in the background, nor the weird stump on the right, and it would mostly get blurred out because none of these items (except the pathway) are really contributing to the shot.

The contrast seems a bit low. Try playing around with channel mixing. It looks like it might be a straight desaturation?


3. This type of shot seems to be popular. But you're not close enough to the ring. Get really close to it in order to make that ring really in-your-face for your shot. Then there will be NO mistake as to what you are trying to showcase. Although the people are blurred, it would be more interesting if they were both engaging each other, rather than her looking at her ring. Since your focusing distance would be much closer, it would also improve the bokeh on the people, which is rather ugly in it's current state. The exposure on the people is also rather low, even though the exposure on the ring is good. Either flash to balance them, find a natural light angle that will light both them and the ring, or bring up the exposure on them in post.

4. it is nice... but again, get closer to that ring for a stronger effect. Use a lower focal length. A lot of these (if not all) look like a 50mm focal length if I were to guess.

5. almost worked. The composition is great and the exposure balance between people/background looks nice to me. But the posing/positioning is awkward. They need to be much closer in together. Engage her hands... put her hands around his neck or something. If she wants to put a foot on the wall, get her to use her other foot so it doesn't obstruct him.

6. the white balance looks off. She looks like she is in the middle of a blink. Take at least a couple shots of the same pose just in case of blinks. Have her move her head forward towards him more and lean in a bit closer. A slight change in torso and neck angle will do wonders for her chin/neck.

There is a lightpole growing out of his head.

There is so much space around them in the shot. It could have been nice if you got it in focus to show them in their environment, but you chose to blur the living snot out of it so you cannot really enjoy the beauty of the garden. If you want to show the garden, let us see it. If you wanna blur everything in the background out, then fill the frame up with the people more. People surrounded in tons of blur can work in some cases, but it doesn't in this case.

Overall it's a good start. Keep practicing and you'll get the hang of it in no time. Thanks for sharing!

Lloyd your advice is spot on! Perfect example of good cc.

That is exactly what I want to hear. I really appreciate your C&C. Of course this means more work and more attention to details. For the most part, I think I understand most of your comments.

Can you give me an example of the "tunnels" effect? I'm not quite sure what you mean by that.

Again, thank you for the feedback.

in both of the photos where you show off the ring.. her ring is on the wrong hand.. im not sure if you noticed that...

Oh yea, that's why its called fake e-shoot. She is not really engaged and she felt strongly not wearing it on the left hand. I got to respect that.

quachro wrote in post #7535941
That is exactly what I want to hear. I really appreciate your C&C. Of course this means more work and more attention to details. For the most part, I think I understand most of your comments.

Can you give me an example of the "tunnels" effect? I'm not quite sure what you mean by that.

Again, thank you for the feedback.

The tunnel effect is just when there is a pattern of repeating columns or something like that. Using a low focal length, you see just that... a bunch of columns. If you use a high focal length and move back a lot, all the columns will begin converge together to make it look like a tunnel. The result is you have created a cool 3D space with definite vanishing points and lines that you can use in your composition to lead your eyes to the subject.

Here is a (rather poor) example of it. If an even higher focal length was used, the effect could have been more dramatic. But do you see how all the repeating patterns converge and give it kind of a 'tunnel' look? Depending on your angle you can place the vanishing point anywhere within the tunnel and place the couple anywhere within that leads the eyes to them. In this case I did everything totally centered, but it could just as easily be off to the side or something.

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I see what you mean by drawing the eyes to the subject. That's for the sample pic. It does make a lot more sense.

quachro wrote in post #7536211
Oh yea, that's why its called fake e-shoot. She is not really engaged and she felt strongly not wearing it on the left hand. I got to respect that.

yeah you should respect that.. but you are decieving people if you happen to put these in your portfolio as an engagement photo.. plus it being on the wrong hand kills it for me...

#3 looks great!
#5 looks like she's kneeing his ballss....... jokes.........