First wedding, please C & C

[ecphoto]

I took these for my sister in law's wedding, it was my first gig as an official wedding photographer lol. I hope I did okay.

Okay guys I disappeared for a while. I was spending every possible moment outside of work(my paying job) processing the images.

After all was said and done I shot for 16 hours non stop. I captured 800 images and kept 500.


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www.ernestochavezphoto.com
What do you guys think?

 

[Jaemie]

I would not include these in a professional portfolio.

#1: On-camera flash? Whatever you used, it's too harsh.

#2: Table is tilted. Signature is too big (and an inconsistently-sized distraction throughout the set).

#3: meh... looks painful

#4: Nice color contrast. Signature ruins it.

#5: Dress appears overexposed, funny angle.

#6: Can't see any faces

#7: Tilted. Man appears quite disturbed..

#8: Wow - she has three hands. And someone in background.

#9: Kinda cute. Head cut off, though..

#10: meh.. I know it's hard to control backgrounds, but the switches and other people are a distraction. Maybe crop?

#11: Cute, but tilted.

#12: Tree directly behind subject. If this was staged, you could have controlled the background (which is also blown out).

#13: Who died?

I'll stop there.

 

[pisicel]

for your first wedding these look awesome.
Not anybody can do it so good.
Professionally considered, they look like a starter's imitations. But you have lots of potential.

 

[rexbobcat]

...selective...color...

 

[Jaemie]

...selective...color...

shhhh.... They'll hear you!

 

[jowensphoto]

Holy photobomb, Batman!

Not the worst "first wedding," but you have a lot of room for improvement.

#2- Did you bump up the red channel in this? The napkins seem unnaturally bright.

#4 - Cute idea, but my eye goes to the bright tiles in the background. Also, what ever the water is falling off of is an eyesore; a different angle or pano would have fixed this.

#5 - not the typical dress shot, think it would have worked better with the top of the dress on the arm of the couch. Less angle too.

#9- Pretty shot of the bride, needs framing work. What shutter speed were you shooting at? There's a blur around her hand.

It looks like you were having a lot of technical issues and tried to save these in post. The best use of selective color is almost always in product photography; I can't say I've ever seen it in a wedding album.

If you keep shooting and practicing, you'll look back on this in a few years and realize how far you've come.

 

[The_Traveler]

#18 what is interesting about the back of his head?

these ae so many styles that they don't fit together. Why not pick one or even two (just not the selective color)?

 

[jaomul]

Some nice shots there. I would imagine the couple being happy enough. It is great that others can point out ways to improve. A point to note though is from talking to a few ladies about their wedding photos, most had asked for some kind of selective colouring on some photo. I am not a major fan of it but done subtly it can be nice. I think for pro photographers to be so down on it is a little bit of a lemmings attitude because a lot of the non photographer public seem to like it.

 

[Haya.H]

I cant get past your post proccessing. It takes away SO much from the actual image. Sometimes less is more. But on the other hand for your first wedding these arent bad at all.

 

[Robin Usagani]

Yeah.. sorry man.. not digging it... even with different processing. Most of your shots are too tight. You are not telling a story.

 

[ecphoto]

The couple loved them and so did the rest of the inlaws. I'm not entirely happy with all of my results, but I did better than the photography student that did their engagement shoot. I offered to do their wedding free because said student was going to charge a lot for worse results than mine.

I used a 550d, a 50 dollar bower flash, an old laptop, and no fast glass. I could have rented some equipment but it wasn't a paying gig lol. I did it for the experience.

I was having issues with brightness because of my laptop screen. I was relying heavily on the histogram.

I appreciate everyone's input, I really want to do better. I'm thinking of re-processing everything.

sent from mobile

 

[fjrabon]

Almost everything is tilted. Some seem to be purposefully tilted, which I guess is an artistic choice, but I personally don't like it. However several seem to be 'accidentally tilted' to the point of making the viewer feel slightly uneasy.

You have the exact opposite problem of most people starting out, most of these pictures are way too tight.

Usually brides like for their albums to have a consistent style. You bounced from black and white photojournalistic, to selective color, to traditional color constantly. A lot of the images worked okay by themselves, but taken as a whole it seems a bit disjointed. You even mixed sepia and monochrome, which should pretty much never happen in the same set unless you have a very good reason for it.

You need a stronger diffuser, or umbrella, or something. Probably just need to turn your flash strength down a few notches. Most of your lighting was way too harsh.

That all being said, I think you have a pretty good eye for 'the right moment' which is the most important thing.

 

[Jaemie]

A point to note though is from talking to a few ladies about their wedding photos, most had asked for some kind of selective colouring on some photo. I am not a major fan of it but done subtly it can be nice. I think for pro photographers to be so down on it is a little bit of a lemmings attitude because a lot of the non photographer public seem to like it.

That non-photographers might like selective coloring, and/or that clients might ask for or expect it, does not make it any less of a weak photographic gimmick and is a poor reason to indulge in its practice. In many ways, selective coloring is to photography what the McMansion is to architecture; both are rather tasteless and lacking in artistic merit, yet persist at the fancy of a pedestrian market. Photographers can be, indeed should be, more proactive in educating their clients and steering them towards photographic themes that won't appear dated or cheap when viewed in future years.

 

[ecphoto]

A point to note though is from talking to a few ladies about their wedding photos, most had asked for some kind of selective colouring on some photo. I am not a major fan of it but done subtly it can be nice. I think for pro photographers to be so down on it is a little bit of a lemmings attitude because a lot of the non photographer public seem to like it.

That non-photographers might like selective coloring, and/or that clients might ask for or expect it, does not make it any less of a weak photographic gimmick and is a poor reason to indulge in its practice. In many ways, selective coloring is to photography what the McMansion is to architecture; both are rather tasteless and lacking in artistic merit, yet persist at the fancy of a pedestrian market. Photographers can be, indeed should be, more proactive in educating their clients and steering them towards photographic themes that won't appear dated or cheap when viewed in future years.

If an architect decided to get on the proverbial high horse about what he/she is willing to do for the client he/she would be a very poor architect. I may have some learning to do about wedding photography, but I know that being a photo snob won't get me any clients. At the end of the day, your client pays your bills!

sent from mobile

 

[davisphotos]

I have never had a client ask for selective color. And I recently met with a couple that mentioned that their photographer for their e-session gave them every photo in color, B&W and sepia. I politely but firmly explained that I will convert some photos to B&W when it is appropriate for the image, but that I don't deliver multiple versions of images.

These images are all over the place, bad flash technique, strange crops, crazy post processing, a number of blurry and out of focus images. For 16 hours of shooting, 800 images doesn't seem like very much to shoot. I will typically take over 2000 photos in an 8 hour wedding. I'm not really advocating a spray and pray approach, but shooting more will allow you to have more images to choose from and give you a better chance of capturing the right moment.