Wedding photography for the 21st century is not the same with the digital SLRs becoming more affordable. Now everyone can take professional-looking photos if they have decent post-processing skills. There are also also less variable costs - film, development, printing. Digital photography allows the photographer to shoot as much as they want, limited o­nly by the memory cards available. They can edit the photos from their home PC complete with effects. Finally, they can present the works to the client in CD-R, before shortlisting the shots for actual printing.

Wedding photographers used to be a highly professional and well-earned job. Not anymore. All the above conditions means that anyone with decent camera equipment and good creativity o­n-the-shoot and post-processing can be a wedding photographer. There is also a rising popularity for a journalistic style, where the photos are spontaneously shot and mostly un-posed. I personally enjoy this form of un-obtrusive shoots, because time and again I was proven that people look best at their natural state (frankly, not everyone is trained to smile to look their best). And that is why I am so passionate about wedding photography: it's an event where beautiful scenes unfold waiting for you to capture. I am more than honoured to be assigned to witness such joyous events, and through photography, the pleasure is mine to eternalise the memories in images.

 

 

What makes a good wedding photograher? I'm sure you'll be able to find plenty of resources to tell you what it takes, and what you should do. Somehow, I find the suggestions helpful but not useful. This is because these reviewers would have been successful and professional photographers to even provide that low-level of advise that newcomers can appreciate. Besides, most of these photographers reside in the Western countries where the weddings are rather different from the local Singapore context: while they hold weddings in magnificent churches, ours are mostly in HDB estates or small church halls; most of the Western counterparts hold wedding lunches in outdoor locations under broad daylight, ours are held in dimly-lit banquet halls.

 

What then makes my article any better? Well, it probably isn't! But what I share is hopefully something that any enthusiast can relate to. I'm not talking about photographic skills here, coz I am certainly nowhere good. All I have is experience and an avenue to share my thoughts. From there, it's up to you to take heart and improve o­n your skills.
 

Not anymore, dude! With digital photography and with some perseverance, you can make any wrong look right. Remove the unsightly background, touch-up o­n the colour balancing, brightness, contrast, etc.

 

But there's still some truth to that adage. Seriously, how much post-processing time would you want to spend o­n o­ne assignment? If you are an amateur (definition: someone who does for the love and not as a source of income - says nothing about the skill level) and shoots o­nce in a while, you could afford to spend several weeks to beautify every image. Not for pros, they would simply execute a Photoshop action to fix the standard re-touches. What I'm saying is that: there are ways to make your photos look better than the original shot, if you have the time.

 

All the photoshop in the world can never help you correctly capture the photo at the required shutter speed. If you got lens with a maximum f4-5.6, that is not fast enough to capture quick actions of say 1/100s. You probably can get a decent shot at 1/30s, but the effect may be marred by movements, and you won't get that 'frozen' mood.

 

With a fast lens, you can take good shots without the use of flash. In my opinion, the flash spoils the journalistic mood. Besides the loss of natural lighting due to flash balancing, you distract the subject in their personal moments and thus removing any possibility of subsequent natural poses.

 

A fast lens also has its disadvantages. Under bright lighting, you may not be able to select a shallow depth of field if your shutter speed cannot be fast enough. Of course, you can resolve it by using a Neutral Density (ND) filter to cut light.

 

Although fast lens has their merits, I sometimes wonder how o­ne can shoot effectively with a large telephoto lens, for instance. Some photographers managed very well during weddings, but unless you have an assistant, it is too much of a hassle to switch lens in the midst of action. If you ask me, I would seriously prefer to shoot with 2 camera bodies: o­ne holds a standard zoom lens with mounted flash, the other fits a fast prime lens with no flash. I used to do this when I load o­ne with colour film and the other with black-and-white film. This no longer seemed necessary with digital storage, but I still believe it is never an overkill to carry 2 cameras to achieve maximum efficiency.

 

Still no fast lens? All is not lost...

 

... and risk getting a grainy image? So be it! Afterall, it's not a postcard landscape shot or studio portraiture photography The presence of ISO actually creates the desired journalistic mood. The noise level of dSLR is actually more acceptable than consumer digicams, and there are software available to remove the grain.

 

I've seen many photographers using high ISO for even normal indoor shots. Either it's an accident or they decidingly select and sacrifice grain for the correct aperture-shutter combination.

 

But not all scenarios give you good quality at high ISO. If a scene has too much shadows, high ISO will ruin it. You would need a shot with well-light brightness and contrast so that the grains - which appears most at dark areas - will not be so obvious. 

 

There are 2 schools of thoughts: RAW and no-RAW. To decide which to use, I share with you the benefits.

 

RAW is good because

- it contains the original uncompressed high resolution image information, from which you can manipulate with minimum loss in quality.

- you can shoot up to 2-stops variance and still salvage the image with no quality-loss

 

JPEG is preferred because

- you can store more shots even when selecting the SUPER FINE mode

- editing time is vastly reduced - each RAW image takes a long time to open and convert

- quality is comparable to RAW

 

So bottom line is: use JPEG if lighting conditions are good, like day time. select RAW if lighting is bad and unpredictable, like evening shots.

 

Keep shooting and worry about deleting the photos later. That's a no-brainer. But some photographers prefer to delete o­n-the-go so that they don't have to waste time reviewing them after the event. Unfortunately, with the small review screen behind the dSLR, it's impossible to see whether the shot you took is sharp or not. So if in doubt, keep them.

 

Indeed! It would be good to have more than o­ne official wedding photographer, because o­ne person can never be at different place at the same time. It is also a good way to cover the entire event without fear of missing any important action.

 

Probably the most important element of journalistic photography, it's the medium in which you are judged by the photographic skills. Any mis-takes made during the shoot, if processed properly,will turn to passable - even great - images.

 

There are no hard rules, but certainly there are fast o­nes. Generally-speaking, dSLRs are exposed conservatively (meaning, underexposed), so to optimise each shot, you should for a start push up the brightness. Some photographers love to brighten the pics more than usual so as to create a very cheery feel. They also increase the saturation to make the colours richer.

 

Sharpening should also be applied liberally: the more sharpening, the better it is perceived to be 3-dimensional. But too much will make the photos too pixelated.

 

Besides the basic CD-R copy of all the processed photos, the wedding couple would appreciate some add-on packaging, like creating coffee table book or slideshow VCD complete with transitions and background music. Most likely they would want prints. To offer a complete package, be prepared to offer these services. You could tie up with other freelancers to package the CD or respected photo development centres whom you can trust to print good photos. Beware that most mom-and-pop print shops had their machines set to auto exposure to automatically adjust the brightness, contrast and white balance, which could ruin the images that you painstakingly edit. Do note also that the print crop may be different from the actual file image, so make sure you leave enough spaces around the subject.

 

Wedding photography services for the 21st century may be more accessible to non-professionals, but that also means higher expectations in other non-photographic aspects, like post-processing and presentation layout.

 

In this article, I discussed a lot about equipment. Although important, it is not everything. A more versatile camera certainly helps to capture more good photos, and makes you look more professional. But a good photographer would be able to make use of whatever equipment he has to bring out the best of the circumstances. I've used digicams from Canon S45 to Sony F828 and now Nikon D70 to capture wedding photos.

More readings: click here for an article by Larry Rotta, one of the most renowned photojournalistic wedding photographers in Vancouver.

 

ClubSNAP is a good place to look for freelance photographers. Just post a forum request in the 'Consumers Corner' and you'll be swarmed with responses within 24 hours. Incidentally, the author of this article welcomes enquiries for wedding photography. This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it