Karah's and Chris' wedding

[Kristov]

Ok, first I want to say this outright. I was not the official photog. I went as a guest, and bride asked me to shoot some extras, basically I shot for fun. That said, I am not a professional, and have zero experience shooting a wedding. Please keep that in mind.

All that said, going through my file, these are so far my favorites. Tech-aside, I think they turned out alright, and I'm fairly happy all things considered (IE I'm greener than grass with this). My one problem, was snap focusing.



Groomsmen adding corsage (I think that's what that is) to a miniature groomsmen. I know it's a ring bearer, but mini-groomsmen is far more fun. The white spot however is bugging me. Added to crop and fix file




Father of the bride. Was very cool and collected most of the day. I thought it was kind of sweet that he had a moment. This one did get a quick rotate and crop before posting.



This one I am angry at. I took about 40 shots of the grooms face awaiting the particular smile for when he saw his bride in dress the first time. The flowers on the railing (as it was a small gazebo I was outside of) made those fuzzy spots. I will try and crop and fix as best I can, but wanted to post something, even if it's not quite the final product. In addition, i knew I should have not run on aperture priority, this shot proved it.



The bride was very animated and I have to say had some of the most amazing expressions during the wedding. I did crop this one a tad, to remove the priests arm from in front of her elbow. Slight out of focus, but I'm reasonably happy with it. For now.




Another shot during ceremony. They both look very excited.


Just a shot of the gazebo where the ceremony took place. I was told to stay to the right side of this during the ceremony (by the photog). So I did. I have a couple shots of the full gazebo floating somewhere in files, as this one was using a zoom (one I used for most of the ceremony). I nearly fell into a small ditch while backing up to frame.



Father of the bride, shaking the hand of the father of the groom. Not posed, and needs a little post work, but I did give it an honest try.



That's it for my favorites. I have a ton of shots of the bride and groom, and some of the wedding party, and some of the guests. All in all I enjoyed myself, learned quite a bit (like I'm glad I don't make a living at this) and that i should trust my gut when it comes to exposures and such. I ran aperture priority instead of full manual. Kind of hitting my head on the wall for that one.


So what are your thoughts overall? They are not professional, and I am a student, but I'm curious what you guys think, good or bad.

[Padre]

#1. Lots of potential - crop in closer and I might remove the sign.
#2. Subject underexposed - Would have been a good opportunity to spot meter off father's face. Doing so you would have blown out the flowers in the foreground so perhaps you could have zoomed in him.
#3. Also underexposed - see above about spot metering.
#4. Better - a little pp could make her pop a little better - love her expression.
#5. Like how the groom's face now comes into the picture. Again, a bit of pp to pop them.
#6. I'm not feeling this one - I understand you were just documenting the location - it just needs something for interest.
#7. Are they making a drug deal lol! I think framing so that the man on the right shoes were included would have helped. Sounds like you were smart to follow the photog's advise about your placement which is a credit to your sensitivity. Thanks for sharing and take my comments with a grain of salt

[littlegal]

Power crop is your friend.
Photoshop, especially curves is you friend.

You have great moments. They just need a little help.

[Kristov]

Littlegal- You're kind to say they need just a "little" help. I actually am slowly figuring out a program called gimp for post. Was free and about all I can afford.

Padre- Thanks for the input, and I agree 100% with you on those. Didn't even really think of drug deal, but certainly look that way. One thing I have to learn is quick changing of settings and such. Good chance I'll be putting photoshop into my wishlist, as it seems the better route to go.

Thanks for the comments, I appreciate the time you guys took to look the shots over and post.

-Kris

[dwallace29]

You have a lot more courage than you give yourself credit. Just making the attempt at photographing a wedding is a badge of honor. Another free program to consider, easy to download, is Picasa 3 from Google. I added a little fill light, most real photographers eschew this practice, it adds a bit of "noise" to the picture. One tidbit of help which I learned of on the Camel is to take an initial test shot, then check the camera histogram. You can take a shot in "auto," check the f-stop and shutter speed, then switch to manual or AP. It helped to shorten the learning curve for me. Good luck!

[Rain Lily]

I agree with all that's been said so far as far as critiques, and I think you did a really good job.

I am not understanding your comment about aperture priority on #3. What would you have done differently in another mode? I think I would have just moved over to the left a bit....but I might be missing your meaning on that. It's a sweet shot, even with the oof flowers.

[Kristov]

Well, had I used the results from metering the interior, instead of using an auto mode, wouldn't that most likely be closer to proper exposure? Meaning run full manual, but with setting metered to the inside. Sorry if my wording is all over the place, I'm apparently far more tired than I thought.

Edit: Dwallace, thanks for the edit of that shot. I'll have to figure out how to do that with the tools I currently have. I like that one much better. Thank you!

[Rain Lily]

Originally Posted by Kristov

Well, had I used the results from metering the interior, instead of using an auto mode, wouldn't that most likely be closer to proper exposure? Meaning run full manual, but with setting metered to the inside.

No, you were fine. I was misunderstanding what you were referring to there, I wondered if you were tying in aperture priority with those flowers but I see that you were talking about the underexposure in that shot. Gotcha now. LOL

Thanks for your response!