My First Wedding

Hi All,

I was asked to shoot my sisters wedding a couple of months ago, it was my first wedding shoot and after much preparation, reading, forum browsing and looking at other wedding shoots i gave it a go.

It was a hectic day but everything ended up going well and i was pleased with the results and so were my sister and her new husband.

Here are a selection of photos from the day, i would love the hear what you think:















And lastly my favourite:



Be gentle

 

It looks good, did you get many reception shots? Although we got nice ones at our ceremony, some of the best were random ones taken at the reception.

[edit]I was looking at composition alone on my phone, so not as good a view as on a pc[/edit]

 

Are you sure? There are things I would like to say but you throw me off by your last comment. Do you want constructive feedback or not? There's nothing more skills/character building than having your work critiqued the shit out of by people with not emotion ties.

 

By all means let me know what you think, good or bad, everything helps.



I got lots of reception photos of people dancing/drinking/partying, i just wanted to get some feedback on the more "creative" photos.

 

2 is really blown out, not sure what you were going for, but it doesn't really do it for me at all. All definition on the edges is lost.

The lighting on 5 is really harsh and the high contrast has blown out all detail in the bride's dress.

Really inconsistent skin tones across all the shots and the groom looks like an orange in 6. Needs a lot of work.

Tone mapping in the last (b+w) shot needs some tuning. Any chance you can post the original shot to compare?

How much of the soft focus or DOF in 3 & 4 is photoshop? Something just doesn't look right there.

 

Nice set but for your highlights are really blown, no definition or texture.
The groom's skin tones are out of wack the saturation/vibrance is way too high.

But the main thing for me are that the blown highlights just ruin the photos.

 

I would suggest posting up some shots SOOC (for critique) and then look at batch editing with same processing styles in something like Lightroom, if you cannot achieve consistent processing with PS.

Others will cover other stuff.

 

Hi all,

Thanks for the thoughts so far. Im taking it all on board and will revisit some of the photos.

In regards to some of the specific photos:

2. I intentionally blew the highlights in post processing. I liked the idea of having it "White" to look more pure and bridal i guess. I wanted to get a dress hanging photo and was limited with window choice. Here are the 2 originals:


_MG_3532 by Rib!, on Flickr


_MG_3533 by Rib!, on Flickr

3 & 4 had a very shallow DOF, that was my intention also. I did soften 3 a bit, i know us photographers love a good sharp image but most girls seem to prefer the softer feel. Here are the SOOC images:


_MG_1264 by Rib!, on Flickr

I agree that the skin tones are off, this was due to changing lighting conditions and using different cameras (i think). I tried to give some of the images a warmer feel to make it feel more "country", but looking back at it now it is a bit too orange.

5. The light was harsh, i tried to compensate with a flash and reflector. I have attached the original, most of the dress is recoverable, i think i overcooked the edge a bit though.


_MG_3930 by Rib!, on Flickr

8. Here is the colour original:


_MG_3980 by Rib!, on Flickr

Id love to have another shot at a wedding sometime, practice makes perfect.

Thanks for the comments so far, feel free to reprocess the originals if you want, will be interesting to get other peoples takes on them.

 

I don't see a single cut off head, or tiny tiny couple in a vast wide field of view..

Good job, and thank god..

 

Each to their own. One person's weird is another's "interesting", and one person's "good work" is another's "uninspired".

To the OP: Personally, I think your shots could use a little more subject isolation. I understand the importance of providing context, but #5 doesn't benefit from being sharp to infinity, and the grass and background shrubbery distract from #8. I'm not saying that you should shoot wide open all day, rather that where you can step back and use a longer focal length, do.

Obviously your lighting needs work, too - basically, to avoid blown highlights, you need even light, and that means one of two things: Shoot in the shade and add flash to taste, or shoot in the sun with enough flash to overpower it. I suggest the first - can be as simple as turning the subjects back to the sun and allowing the background to blow out, or you can get fancy and find an assistant to carry a scrim.

 

They look ok to me, however I am not a wedding tog, I have however been asked to do one in march!

 

I think your unprocessed photos look better than your processed ones.

Don't be concerned about looks, or fads. Process the images to the highest technical standard you can. Don't blow your highlights intentionally - and definitely lay off the soft focus. Get your exposures and your skin tones right and you'll be fine. If you want to soften the skin tone, go for it - but don't do it at the expense of the rest of the photo.

For a first time - they're perfectly acceptable photos - and I'm sure they'll be happy. Just make sure you start out the right way. Technical quality beats artistic trickery every single time.

 

Agreed, I prefer the SOOC shots, especially for the last one.

 

Nice work for a first attempt. No doubt your sister was well aware of your abilities.

As others have said, they're not technically perfect but I've seen much worse from people claiming to be pros. A client thinking soft focus looks good is quite different to a photographer willingly going nuts with the diffuse filter.

 

Style is style, shoot for what your clients want. KB warriors dont pay you

 

And yet food for thought is food for thought. Although opinions and critique don't pay, keeping an open mind never hurts

I agree with much of the critique w.r.t. the saturation, blown highlights and colour tone imabalance across shots. The composition is generally good though.

 

Processing is in the right direction, but overdone. This is common for people without a whole lot of experience.

Good job. Over time if you decide to do more of it you'll develop a style and if people like it they'll hire you for it.

Or, just take boring pictures that are correctly exposed and 'sharp' of nothing and see what happens?

 

Like others have said, I like your composition and shots, just think you've overblown the whites/over-processed a bit - it works on the ring/dress shots, but not so much on the people shots.

 

Thanks for all the comments guys, i appreciate it

Im glad that the composition is liked by most, as its the hardest thing to change after the fact! Once i get a bit of time i will try and reprocess a few.

I just reviewed the images on my work laptop (crappy lenovo thinkpad) and they look really WHITE, alot more so than on my home PC (Dell IPS 23inch - not calibrated), the Dell looks very similar to what i see when viewed on iPad/iPhone though.

 

Calibrate it. So worth it. A 2nd hand spyder express will set you back less than $50.