Pebbles From Paradise

Yesterday I promised that I would share some of the secrets of wedding photography. Equipment may be less cumbersome today, but these rules never change.

If shooting digital pictures use a fairly large format. 8.25 Mega pixels such as that offered by Canon EOS 20D, or Canon EOS 350Dwill be adequate for most purposes.

You must plan for the wedding in advance. Whether the ceremony will take place in a Church, Mosque, Synagogue, or Registrar Office understand it’s geography and ensure, if proposing to photograph indoors, that you have obtained permission from the priest.

Most photographs will take place after the main ceremony. It is important though to obtain pictures of the bride and her father arriving.

Here is a list of the essential pictures that you will need to take:

At the Venue:

* Arrival of Best Man and Groom. Take a long shot and also a humorous close up of the groom and best man examining the ring.

* A portrait of the Groom. If the Groom resists persuade him to pose for the picture if you can, his parents will probably expect to find it in the selection.

* The arrival of the Bridesmaids as a group.

* A portrait of the Chief Bridesmaid, and also pictures of the smaller ones if they, or their parents, demand it.

* The arrival of the Bride stepping out of the car with her Father.

* A picture of the Bride walking up the path with her Father.

Indoors:

* You may not be allowed to photograph the exchanging of rings at the venue, but this can be posed elsewhere as a simple shot of the hands.

* In most cases you will be permitted to photograph the signing of the register.

* If it is an American Wedding you will be allowed to photograph the ‘First Kiss’.

* Now rush to the church door and photograph the married couple walking down the aisle.

Outside The Church:

* Bride and Groom together as both long shots, and also as close ups.

* Take about half a dozen shots of the bride on her own. Ensure that her veil and train are adequately positioned. If the weather is bad arrange to take these shots in the porch, or under cover at the reception, but make sure that you take them!

* Bride with Groom, Groom’s Parents, and Brides Parents.

* Bride with Groom, Groom’s Parents, and Brides Parents plus Best Man and Bridesmaids.

* Bride with Groom, Groom’s Parents, and Brides Parents with all the other Relations.

* Bride with Groom, Groom’s Parents, and Brides Parents with everyone else you can find, including, (if available) a chimney sweep.

* Bride with Groom, Groom walking to their carriage.

* Bride with Groom leaving in their carriage.

At The Reception:

* Cutting the Wedding Cake

* Toasting the Bride and Groom

* Informal portraits and groups, if these are required.

Clearly there are a lot of pictures to take and so it’s a good idea to carry plenty of spare film, or flash memory if your camera is a digital one.

Bring spare batteries and a spare camera, just in case! When Patrick Lichfield takes photographs at weddings he uses a special arrangement to take three pictures simultaneously just to ensure that he obtained all the required photographs even if one camera should fail.

Patrick Lichfield Photographing
The Bridesmaids At His Own Wedding

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Kindly note: The illustration of Patrick Lichfield is his copyright. It has been placed here to emphasise the importance of taking back-up equipment and images if you are asked to photograph a couples special day. It is used here as ‘fair use’ under U.S.C. Section 107 to illustrate various points made in the article. Text and images available over the Internet may be subject to copyright and other intellectual rights owned by third parties.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 7th, 2005 at 10:12 am and is filed under Photography, This Wonderful World, Weddıngs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.