Author: Cooper Strange
I have spent the last few days trying to hunt down a shop which processes slides, and it has turned out to be a confusing and lengthy adventure. I expected as much. On top of that, I am trying to find a projector to actually view them, once I have them ready to view. Neither is very easy.
Why would I even bother with slides? Too 1970s for you? Well, for one, the quality still far surpasses digital cameras. And two (the real reason), I have a lot of slides and I actually want to view them instead of leaving them stored forever, lost to all memory.
When we do a shoot for somebody, should we give them all the photos or do we only give them the nice ones? How do we know what photos to pick? Is it more about a technically perfect photo or what the customer wants?
After a few days of topics directly related to wedding photography, this one is a nice transition. It very much applies to wedding photography, but is a helpful topic in general.
When we show our selection of photos to the customer, they will almost inevitably ask, “Where’s the rest?”. They want to see them all. Whether it is a wedding or a soccer game, the photos the customer would pick are not necessarily the photos we would pick.
I just realized, I could probably go on for ages about this last wedding. I felt like I learned so much, and honestly, I do not think most of you even care about all those details. While I am on the topic, though, I do not want to move on till we have taken full advantage of the opportunity while it is still fresh.
Are there questions you have? Wonder what I did to solve this or that problem? Have you noticed certain issues with pictures you have taken at weddings that annoy you? I certainly do not know everything, but feel free to bring up those questions and we can take a crack at solving some of those.
Since the couple did not seem too particular about the photography of the wedding, I decided to pretend as if they were. In other words, I wanted to put the highest expectations on myself, in an effort to force me to stretch my photographic ability and help me learn something in the process. That is exactly what happened.
After the day was over and I had a little time to think through the experience, the biggest problem I had was too shallow a depth of field. The effect was great in a way: the background was nice and blurred and the depth of field really drew the attention to one person the in the photo. The problem was that only one person was in focus, rarely even two.
I think weddings are one of the ultimate photographic challenges. Not only is it one of the most important days of the couple’s life, but also, there is only one chance at shooting those great shots.
I have heard enough friends complain about their wedding photos that I hesitate before saying yes when asked to shoot a wedding. I am more than willing to say that I am far from a wedding photography professional. I love it, and from a purely selfish point of view, I love the challenge it gives me as a photographer. What I (and all of us) have to keep in mind is that we are gambling with somebody else’s “perfect day”, not our own. So, proceed with caution.
I just posted a new gallery, “What the Street Says”. It was an experiment with vignetting. As I looked a the photographs of others, I had noticed more and more photos I really liked which used vignetting, so I wanted to try it out a little myself.
Vignetting (pronounced ‘vin-yet’) is basically a fall off of light on the edges of the photo. Some folks use it to add an antique look to the photo. Some say it draws the eye of the viewer to the center, a tool to highlight your subject. And some just think it is cool. I guess I best fit into the last category, because I do not have a reason, per se, to use vignetting. I just like the way it looks. It adds another dimension to the photos.
I had someone ask me how to choose the right angle from which they should take their photo. Well, that was not exactly a question out of the blue. We were talking about angles, trying new angles, and using new angles as a means to adding a new dimension of interest to our images.
Absolutely, we should try different angles, but there is no answer to the question of which angle is best. There are pointers, to be sure, but I even hesitate to mention those, for fear that we will find the key to making our photographs look just like everybody elses or possibly never attempt to excercise our creativity in the first place. Forbid!
