1st and only Wedding for a bit CC

[Ryan L]

Ok so last month I finally shot the wedding I had been planning for a while. Lets get the first few questions out of the way. No I was not paid for this. No they did not have a wedding photographer. This is someone I have known for most of my life, she's like a sister to me. I am putting together a press printed book for their wedding present.

I learned that wedding photography is harder than I ever thought. Alot of work to prepare, and the pp is forever with so many pictures. So to any wedding photogs on here, I can really appreciate your work (and why you can justify charging so much!).

The formal stuff is boring so I will skip those (not done with editing anyway) Without further adieu:

1.

2. - I wish I would have stoppped my lens down a bit, but I still like the emotion in her eyes.

3.

4. I have re uploaded this one 3 times on photobucket, the color looks like I desaturated the image, but my web save on my computer looks fine, so I give up.

5.

6. Just for fun (kind of like the old photo look, but not a must)

 

[tirediron]

I think these are nicely done. My only real critique is that I would have preferred a wider aperture on images such as #s 1 and 4, however you've done a good job of lighting. I'm sure they'll be well pleased.

 

[Ryan L]

Thanks, I appreciate the input. I do have a wider crop on most of them, but the way I set up the album I wanted the subjects approx the same size so I cropped a few #3 is one of them. I shound try to rearrange them and use the wider versions I suppose.

This wedding cost me more than I thought it was going to. During the formals, my camera was on a tripod and I was switching memory cards and as I walked to my bag (10' away) I saw the grooms dad running....it was toward my camera as it was falling to the ground. He didnt catch it in time and it hit the only square of concrete within 40', a 2' x 2' square. My new Tamron 17-50 2.8 IS lens took the beating. Still works but gets stuck btw 25-35mm and I have to change the focus to get past it, to go one way or the other! One of the legs of the tripod wasn't locked all the way. Ohh well, I guess I should have insured my gear. I figured it shouldnt cost more than 150 or so to fix. Hopefully its just the barrel is distorted a tiny but. I learned a lot though and had fun doing it.

Live and Learn

 

[Flash Harry]

Hope you learned the reason we spend lots on tripods, big heavy bleeders are the most stable. Nice shots though for a first outing, pretty bride. H

 

[Ryan L]

sad thing is....the tripod is a bogen. I just must have not turned it the half turn required to lock the bottoml eg.

 

[Robin Usagani]

1. I like it.. blurry background I think would be nicer
2. I agree with you. Also I think you should clone her shiny cheek. Women do not like shiny face IMO.
3. If I am not mistaken it looks like you cloned something out between the bride and the groom? I can see your brush line. I would clone out her shiny forehead
4. If you really love this pic personally I would clone more grass at the bottom and add her dress so it doesn't get cut out. It is more work but .... (unless you have other better photos)
5. You should also do a B&W version of this shot
6. I am not against B&W but is there like lens glare or something? So white.

Overall you did great though! I am shooting my first wedding in 2 months!

 

[bigtwinky]

First off, as a first and only wedding to date, I say you didnt do too bad. I see alot of first wedding posts up here and people try to do too much instead of keeping it basic. Sure, its not magical and amazing, but then, this is your first time. So instead of making some super tilty, highly saturated and over exposed images calling them high key, you kept it simple and got some decently nice shots.

1- I think the first is the strongest. Good composition and nice exposure. Their faces are bit smashed together and her head is tilted up a bit, but its not bad at all. I figure he is much taller than she is.

2- Great expression on her face, nice capture. If the fact that the guy is out of focus like that, try cropping differently. Maybe even a portrait crop on the bride, keeping some of the people on either side to frame her. If that makes sense

3- They look a bit shiny...flash?

4- Her dress is blown out and too white. The pose is just meh for me...its too corny and fake looking. Not a fan of married people pulling away from each other. Just an artistic difference thing. Its a shot that should show some action and fun, but their feet are planted straight and it looks dull.

5- Too much background and non essential stuff going on. Try cropping out from the top left, moving them more to one side of the frame and cutting some of the extra space. There is also a black thing on the ceiling by his head

 

[Ryan L]

3. If I am not mistaken it looks like you cloned something out between the bride and the groom? I can see your brush line. I would clone out her shiny forehead
4. If you really love this pic personally I would clone more grass at the bottom and add her dress so it doesn't get cut out. It is more work but .... (unless you have other better photos)

Yes your correct, I didnt notice the cloning was that bad until I looked again! There were two trucks in the parking lot that I removed. I will have to correct that for sure.

Good idea on cloning the grass in front. I think I will do that.

 

[DanFinePhotography]

These are nice images, a couple(1-4) look a tad overexposed or blown out but overall pretty good job for a first wedding :thumbup:

 

[Ryan L]

First off, as a first and only wedding to date, I say you didnt do too bad. I see alot of first wedding posts up here and people try to do too much instead of keeping it basic. Sure, its not magical and amazing, but then, this is your first time. So instead of making some super tilty, highly saturated and over exposed images calling them high key, you kept it simple and got some decently nice shots.


2- Great expression on her face, nice capture. If the fact that the guy is out of focus like that, try cropping differently. Maybe even a portrait crop on the bride, keeping some of the people on either side to frame her. If that makes sense

3- They look a bit shiny...flash?

4- Her dress is blown out and too white. The pose is just meh for me...its too corny and fake looking. Not a fan of married people pulling away from each other. Just an artistic difference thing. Its a shot that should show some action and fun, but their feet are planted straight and it looks dull.

5- Too much background and non essential stuff going on. Try cropping out from the top left, moving them more to one side of the frame and cutting some of the extra space. There is also a black thing on the ceiling by his head

3. Yes I had to use flash on alot of them. The wedding was at 4:00pm and the sun was bright. Shadows were everywhere. In the case of number 3, it was inside the gazebo and just a little dark. I was wanted to bounce it off the top of the gazebo, but I wasnt close enough to get up under.I will try to poweder her up a little.

4. I will have to go back and revisit the raw file, I am not sure why it's blown out, I usually use recovery if I have any blown out spots. Missed it. Thanks.

5. I wanted the reflection on the floor, so I could crop some off the top as well. lol the "black thing" is a deer head! glad you caught it, when I crop I will make sure its gone. The reception was inside the conservation club and of course....there were a few mounts.

Thanks for the critique

 

[Ryan L]

These are nice images, a couple(1-4) look a tad overexposed or blown out but overall pretty good job for a first wedding :thumbup:

I just checked the histograms and I dont see any blown out area with the exception of #3 which I will have to go back to. Anyone else think they look overexposed?

 

[bigtwinky]

I just checked the histograms and I dont see any blown out area with the exception of #3 which I will have to go back to. Anyone else think they look overexposed?

Not I, other than the overexposed bottom of her dress in #3, the rest seem ok. If anything, they might need some levels/curves as they are a tad flat / lacking punch.

5. I wanted the reflection on the floor, so I could crop some off the top as well. lol the "black thing" is a deer head! glad you caught it, when I crop I will make sure its gone. The reception was inside the conservation club and of course....there were a few mounts.

For what its worth, I didnt notice the reflection on the floor. Maybe due to me focusing on the other background stuff. Deer head? hehe... did you get any of the couple hanging around the dead animals? :mrgreen:

 

[mrshaleyberg]

Did you use the camera flash on these? Looks like flash in #2. You can see it bouncing off her greasy face (not too flattering). The last one looks very noisy to me. But other than that, they look pretty good.

 

[Ryan L]

lol NO ON CAMERA FLASH... I used a 580exII and a 430exII. If your talking about the B&W one. I applied a few filters to it and brushed a texture. I wanted an old look. Thats why I put the disclaimer on top of it.

 

[mwcfarms]

Ryan I think for your first wedding you did a good job. I think you might want to fix the glare/hotspot on brides face on a couple but these are on par and better than a lot of first wedding shoots I have seen posted up here.

I really like number one, you didn't catch them smooshing their faces with the kiss and love the fact thats she is pulling him in. Only thing better would have been wider aperature.

On 6 I like the old newspaper type effect you have. Not everyone does. Contrast b&w might look good too.

On the 3rd I thought the cloning marks might have been screening for the gazebo lol.

All in all good first time.