Photography Styles Explained

 

I have oulined here the most common forms of wedding photography


Contemporary - the contemporary style uses lots of the posing techniques associated with traditional photography but throws in a dramatic background or unusual angle or both. Contemporary wedding photographers will often use a combination of approaches to photograph different aspects of the day. They may shoot the ceremony in a reportage style, then switch to a more controlled and formal style for the group shots. The bride and groom shots will generally be quite heavily posed but with your attention focused on each other rather than looking at the photographer. The finished results can look like pages from a glossy bridal magazine.

Traditional - Although slightly outdated there are still lots of photographers that offer this kind of photography and indeed many couples whom seek this style out. Traditional wedding photographers generally shoot staged and very formal images. Each shot will be carefully arranged and the results may be stiff and have that ‘seen it a thousand times’ look about it. The older generation will be used to this kind of photography and may even expect it. This style of photography is fast being replaced by more fluid forms of photography like reportage and contemporary.

Reportage - Also known as documentary photography, this style takes a ‘fly on the wall’ approach, documenting things as they happen rather than setting up staged moments through the day. Many reportage photographerswill still arrange group shots and a few couple shot but the main emphasis will be on candid, informal photography. The results from a good documentary wedding photographer are natural expressions and real emotions and each tell a story in their own right. This style is often adopted by photographs that are new to the industry because they can just hang around all day taking pictures and their inexperience in arranging groups and posing techniques would not be exposed. Done right reportage photography can be a fantastic and natural reflection of your special day.

Photo Critique

How good is our photography? (Live Webinar)

Its important to let other people and fellow photographers view, critique and comment  our works, otherwise how do we know at what level our photography stands

We all have a one sided view of our own photography and it's very educational to hear differing views and opinions of the images we produce from external sources

I subscribe to a online Photography video training provider named "Phototraining4U"a company run by one of the country's best photographers " Mark Cleghorn"

When you subscribe to this site you gain access to over 1300 photography video's, the subjects range on all aspects of photography which are very educational to all levels of photography

Included in the subscription are live online webinars which you can view and take part in. Tonight there was a live webinar on"critiquing images",photographers sent in their own images for Mark to assess and show live on the webinar. This is a good way of finding out how good a photographer you really are and to ascertain what level you are at. Your work is judged by a top rated photographer and is marked from 5 different levels of standard

This is a great way to check out your progress as a photographer and to learn and amend some of the mistakes we are all constantly making

Shown here are some of the entries posted to the webinar by the keen photographers wanting their work scrutinised

These grabs are all taken from my mac when the webinar is in full swing, you can ask questions live to the photographer by posting your comments on the right hand side of the screen as shown here

Shown here are some of the my screen dumps of images that made the top 5 in this critique during the webinar. The image shown here was voted the best of the top 5

I think I'm in love again !!

Well this is my new baby a Canon 5d3 and I took her out for a test drive last weekend on a wedding shoot. Overall first impressions were very impressive it has loads of features but I never really had the time to use many of them so I will be putting it through it's paces over the coming weeks

I bought this camera for its low light capabilities especially as I will be photographing a lot of weddings so I needed a fast camera combined with a fast lens for dark church interiors

This camera fits the bill perfectly so I tried a few test shots in a really dark church interior and shown below are some of the results. I took the shot below at 25600 ISO and wow ! I can't hardly see any noise in the shot. This is a jpg straight out of the camera,no manipulation,nothing, just shot as seen and I'm pretty impressed

                                                     This is the metadata from the shot

A few more shots below which show some really fine detail with really rich colours from the stained glass windows of the church

When this Camara first came out I thought it was very expensive at £3000, however, the prices have now dropped down considerably and you can pickup one of these new models  for about £2000

There are still a lot of other features on this camera I need to test and will be trying these out over the coming weeks, I will update this blog later with my findings

If you shop around now you now can buy the canon 5d2 for £1150,an absolute bargain, which is also an excellent camera, I use one of these now for my backup camera and the results are amazing

I wanted full frame cameras for clarity with low noise and thats exactly what you get

If anybody wants to buy these cameras, get in touch and I'll show you where to buy at the lowest prices on the net

Research and inspiration (Best of wedding photography)

Research and Inspiration

Contemporary/Wedding /fashion/photography

This is a website I have been researching for sometime now to give me inspiration into my wedding photography. The site has numerous links to the top wedding photographers of the world which I find to be very inspirational. Using this site helps me to keep in touch with the latest trends,fashions and photographers

http://www.bestofweddingphotography.com

An Inspirational image from the site

This is one of photographer Nic pedridis's images

This type of photography appeals to me using dramatic locations,creative lighting and stylish clothing all of these elements produce stunning photography. It's costly to setup and very time consuming to source locations and create creative lighting effects but well worth the effort which produces creative/fashion/wedding photography

This is an extract from Nic's website/blog

I love the low saturation Rembrandt light-dark images. I am influenced by, and “steal ideas” from, great photographers like Nick Ghionis, David Beckstead, Rocco Ancora, Megaloudis, Shembri, Yervant, Garner and so many others. I believe that we all have something to share and to give. My favorite images are ones I usually get in low-light conditions, and even though I am usually shooting in ambient daylight, I often use a flash and/or a video light.

http://www.bestofweddingphotography.com/blog/nik-pekridis-lens-light-honor/

Wedding ideas and inspiration

Shown here on this website is a glimpse of some of the ideas and inspiration I am pursuing...under construction

http://whimsicalwonderlandweddings.com/2012/05/theatrical-monochrome-wedding-ideas.html

Planned Wedding shoot 22nd Sept 2012

Well it's nice to be back on the scene again and yes I have some catching up to do but hey Iv'e got the buzz again. We didn't know if we would be continuing on the course but now that's all been sorted . It will be nice to catch up with you all again. Well Jim and I have been working in the background on our wedding photog business and we are busy building our website etc 

We are shooting tomorrow with a new model for some publicity shots for our website which we hope to launch in the spring when we hope everything will fall in place to place. 
Shown here is our model Helen who will be posing as a bride to be. I have been busy this week sourcing some nice locations, costumes, make up artists etc 

I hired my model from one of the top modding sites and arranged a Time for Prints session. I felt really sorry for Helen our model as she had lost her job last week so we chipped in a little dosh to help her out with her finances  

Men at Work

Men at work  (Helen model shoot)

Business planning  

We are in the process of compiling some really good images for our website which we plan to go live early next spring. It's imperative that the first 5-10 images viewed on a website give the maximum amount of impact to a potential customer. It's also extremely important to hold your viewer's attention and hopefully sell your product in the first few minutes that the site is viewed

We hired a model at the weekend to shoot some promo images for our website. The models' name was Helen who was very experienced and professional which makes the shooting experience that much quicker and easier. Helen had all her own wedding clothes,bouquets,props etc which is ideal for us as we do not have to hire costumes. It's crictical that your model has experience. Shown here are some image/videos of Jim and myself hard at work which outline some of our techniques used to produce our photography on the day

Soucing a decent location to shoot your models is paramount for a successful shoot and old buildings are an ideal backdrop to give your images that special ambiance. I gained permission from the church we used from the National Trust before we shot our images. The church had some lovely old stone buildings with beautiful textures which complimented our model and shows off her looks

It's imperative to make your model feel at ease, and its vital that you have a good rapport with your subject. We are always constantly talking to our models throughout our shoots, cracking jokes and general chit chat etc,this makes the modelling assignment so much easier and gives your model more confidence which is benificial to all party's

We used off camera flash triggered through a soft box for a lot of our shots in these images. This creates a much softer light that tends to wrap around our subjects and also creates a warming effect, this also eliminates harsh shadows. This kind of side lighting is very effective as opposed to direct flash pointed directly at your subject and is used by all top photographers

It's also very important to show the model your progress throughout the shoot,which enables her to make changes,change poses and gives them her an overall feel of the tasks in hand,we regularly show our models the images we are shooting on the back of our cameras

It is also essential to have a lighting/prop person available to help with your shoot. This person's contribution is very important to help setup lighting,stands,reflectors,backdrop's etc which helps the photographer concentrate solely on taking some good photographs.

Shown here is our prop man with some of the difusers we used on the day

It is very important to pre-plan your shoot something that I did a couple of weeks ago and there is a lot of planning involved

This is a list of the preparations I made :

I had to source my model first from an online model agency

Then Source some locations for the shoot

I had to gain permissions from the owners of the locations to shoot on their land

Plan the shoot when the weather was fine and arrange a suitable day and time with my model

Arrange the shoot on a fine day to prevent damage to equipment etc

Arrange for a prop/lighting man to assist with the lighting setups

Consider health and safety.The health and safety of my model was also very important  and I had to make sure there was no issues with trip hazards,trailing cables or dangerous locations

I also had to provide changing facilities for my model, these included a church and the back of my colleagues land-rover

I had to provide a model release form allowing me to use our images of the day in advertising and media publications

The only downside of the shoot was the model forgot her wedding shoes,luckily the dress she wore was a very long one which hid a nice blue pair of Nike trainers