Help with a crappy wedding scenario please!

[PhotoWrangler]

I hate weddings. I hate shooting them. Hate them with a passion. But right now, they are money.

I do LISTEN. Apparently you do not. I HAVE NOOOOOOO MONEY to rent, or buy equipment.

You probably ought to stick to one story.

 

[gsgary]

It's not that I'm not allowed to use it, it's just that I am a natural light shooter. I don't work with artificial light very often, and to be honest, it scares me a little. I visit the strobist quite often for ideas, but every situation where I have had to use flash, I fail at. I just don't want there to be shadows, or the light to be too harsh. I guess we will see when the time comes.

In that case you are probably going to get noise from high ISO, or blur from trying to use a low ISO and slow shutter speed, i think you are biting off more than you can chew

 

[bennielou]

Oh Jesus......
Where oh where to even begin?

In all of the wedding world, I only know of ONE "ambient heavy" shooter, and that is Joe Bussink, and he gets paid about $50,000 per wedding, has the top gear, the best assistants on the planet, and STILL knows when he has to bring in lighting when needed.

You my friend are no Joe Bussink. Nobody is Joe Bussink.

Do you have any idea how many "artistic" people have total reemed a once in a lifetime event? Do numbers go that high?

If you can't do something, just say you are being "artistic". Bull****. You just have NO idea what you are doing.

Sorry for the rant, but holy crap!

Chris, I totally get your frustration times 10.........

 

[bennielou]

And oh, it's not a crappy wedding scenario......it's a photog in a situation who shouldn't be in this situation.

I just shot a reception (I will be sharing it later this week). It was shot IN THE DARK. No other lighting besides candle light. And if that wasn't bad enough, the walls were lined in black fabric, and the tables were done in black, and the MAROON ceilings were about 40 feet high.

There were three photogs and two video people there, all VERY experienced people, and we ALL had problems. Even with lighting.

But did we complain to our clients? No. We did it. We pulled the whole thing off.

If you can't do a wedding in a shady location, then maybe you shouldn't do weddings. Just my opinon.

 

[Shadowbox]

I just wanted to say good luck. You have a few weeks to figure it out so don't panic.

 

[tirediron]

...I just shot a reception (I will be sharing it later this week). It was shot IN THE DARK. No other lighting besides candle light. And if that wasn't bad enough, the walls were lined in black fabric, and the tables were done in black, and the MAROON ceilings were about 40 feet high...

Without meaning to hijack this thread, could you start a thread on this topic? I think many would benefit from a description of how you and the others dealt with what sounds like a very challenging scenario.

 

[GooniesNeverSayDie11]

wAs others have said, you are in way over your head here. You may have an agreement signed, but agreements can't protect your reputation. This is a total crapshoot, and personally I wouldn't risk anything like this because the odds of it working well are slim for you, but I like trying to solve problems, so here are a couple of ideas.

For lighting outside by the gazebo and stream, you could buy a handful of these (or one similar ) Morris Midi Slave DC Flash (Black) 11275 B&H Photo Video. You could place them in the background and around the scene as accents and fill light, and then use the Hotshoe flash as your main light. You could place some gels over them if you wanted to do a specific color in certain spots. You may be able to use one to light the stream as well. Either placing it next to the stream, or creating some sort of snoot/plastic covering device to aim all of the light into the water but leaving the sensor exposed still.

Similar to this, if doing group shots, you could leave the camera in a set position on a tripod, and then do a few exposures and "light paint" the scene. Then shoot your wedding party using what you have ( perhaps one of those small slaves on each side at a 45 and then your onboard hotshoe flash?, and then composite the images in post. This would severely limit you though because you could not move your camera ( or mess with DOF much ) once you locked into the scene. This is all just hypothetical shooting from the hip, but its atleast thinking outside of the box a little. You may end up with something unique and magical ( although most likely not ).

Regardless of what you attempt ( since it sounds like there is no way you are going to back out of the shoot ) make sure you practice whatever technique you intend to try ( and ALWAYS have a backup plan) . If possible, get into the venue and practice a bit with a friend or friends as your subjects.

 

[bennielou]

...I just shot a reception (I will be sharing it later this week). It was shot IN THE DARK. No other lighting besides candle light. And if that wasn't bad enough, the walls were lined in black fabric, and the tables were done in black, and the MAROON ceilings were about 40 feet high...

Without meaning to hijack this thread, could you start a thread on this topic? I think many would benefit from a description of how you and the others dealt with what sounds like a very challenging scenario.

I just shot the wedding and reception last week and I'm dealing with 1075 photos. However, they will all be done by weeks end. (I hand redo each photo).
Once I get the shots done, I will be better able to give examples of the area, what we did to help, and how.

I'll also try to show before (Raw) and after (after lightroom) so that you can see what it was, and what it became. Hopefully, or at least my prayer is, is that is doesn't look like it was shot in a big black lightless cave.

 

[sabbath999]

I'm still trying to figure out why somebody is asking a question about shooting a wedding in the "Photography Beginners Forum"...

Wedding photography is NOT something that beginners should be contemplating at ALL... unless you want to shoot some candids at a wedding where a professional is being paid to shoot the ceremony.

To the original poster... I am not trying to be a dick here, but frankly you just don't have the equipment to do what you need to do, so you either need to find a way to get that equipment (and stone cold KNOW how to use it) plus a full and professional set of backup equipment in case your main stuff fails, or you should not do weddings.

Your equipment list does not include one single piece of professional grade equipment (with the arguable exception of the Tokina 80-200 f/2.8) and I see no mention of your backup equipment. To shoot weddings in a reasonable, professional manner, you need backups of EVERYTHING, cameras, lenses (or at least a big enough stable of fast lenses so that you can work around a failure), flashes, memory cards, batteries, EVERYTHING.

I don't shoot them any more, but when was in the wedding photography BUSINESS I had a duplicate of EVERYTHING... and three of the stuff most likely to break. My wife was my assistant and we would event take two cars in case one of us had car trouble, we could just park the offending vehicle and continue on the the ceremony.

Wedding photography, at least to do it right, takes a commitment to have the equipment in quality and quantity to do the job right... and years of experience with all the types of lighting situations that you will encounter... not a bare minimum "get you by" equipment list and not nearly enough experience to nail it every time.

BOTTOM LINE: you have to nail it every single times with weddings. Every time.

I gotta be kind of frank here... if you have to ask how to handle a lighting situation like you describe, you shouldn't be shooting it for a one-time-only event in the first place.

 

[levinest]

sabbath999 said it all. Nobody with a lack of proper flash experience and/or someone who can't afford the proper equipment should *ever* put themselves in a position to shoot the most important day of someone else's life indoors. Period.

Best advice I could give to you would be to get another more experienced photographer to take over the lead role on this one and you take the "apprentice" role and use the wedding as a learning experience. Give the majority share of the wedding fee to the pro with the understanding that he/she is going to spend a good amount of time explaining everything they do to you so you can pick up as many tips/tricks as possible. Take whatever small percentage you agree upon for yourself and use it to invest in better equipment for future, and thank your lucky stars that you were able to work under the tutelage of someone who can show you a thing or three.

 

[IgsEMT]

Look at scottallisonphoto.com. This guy shoots with one softbox and on-camera flash - his lighting is spectacular. No huge fancy gear BUT he was willing to listen and learn. We spend few months going over his pica one by one and next thigh u know his product is AMAZiNg!

Are you sure you are looking at the quality of the light, not the quality of the subjects?

Dp - Yeah, quality of the light Not all of his subjects are what you see on the site

 

[table1349]

I'm still trying to figure out why somebody is asking a question about shooting a wedding in the "Photography Beginners Forum"...

Wedding photography is NOT something that beginners should be contemplating at ALL... unless you want to shoot some candids at a wedding where a professional is being paid to shoot the ceremony.

To the original poster... I am not trying to be a dick here, but frankly you just don't have the equipment to do what you need to do, so you either need to find a way to get that equipment (and stone cold KNOW how to use it) plus a full and professional set of backup equipment in case your main stuff fails, or you should not do weddings.

Your equipment list does not include one single piece of professional grade equipment (with the arguable exception of the Tokina 80-200 f/2.8) and I see no mention of your backup equipment. To shoot weddings in a reasonable, professional manner, you need backups of EVERYTHING, cameras, lenses (or at least a big enough stable of fast lenses so that you can work around a failure), flashes, memory cards, batteries, EVERYTHING.

I don't shoot them any more, but when was in the wedding photography BUSINESS I had a duplicate of EVERYTHING... and three of the stuff most likely to break. My wife was my assistant and we would event take two cars in case one of us had car trouble, we could just park the offending vehicle and continue on the the ceremony.

Wedding photography, at least to do it right, takes a commitment to have the equipment in quality and quantity to do the job right... and years of experience with all the types of lighting situations that you will encounter... not a bare minimum "get you by" equipment list and not nearly enough experience to nail it every time.

BOTTOM LINE: you have to nail it every single times with weddings. Every time.

I gotta be kind of frank here... if you have to ask how to handle a lighting situation like you describe, you shouldn't be shooting it for a one-time-only event in the first place.

WHY YOU ASK?

Simple...."Have camera.....someone once said they liked my pictures (notice I didn't say photographs).............I think I will make some money at this. I mean how hard can it be? I can see the shot on the LCD and if I don't like it then I will just re shoot it. Besides there are dozens of forums to tell me what to do. I don't need to know my gear, lighting, the exposure triangle, what gear in required for what situation, posing composure, or any of that stuff. Besides I can fix it in Photoshop later."

That is why. People want instant gratification. The concept of working at something and learning how to do it is rapidly being left behind in our society. When was the last time you got a TV fixed, had your shoes repaired. etc. TV breaks and it's out of warranty throw it away and buy a new one. Wear out the soles of a pair of shoes, same thing, toss em and buy new. The numbers of people with the knowledge and ability to do a lot of thing we used to rely on is quickly dwindling and there is no line of young folks willing to take the time to learn and develop the skills for so many things any longer. It's just to easy to buy new. Because of that business now engineer things to be disposable.

 

[leixialong]

"Ambient light shooter"...........*facepalm* Thats like a Soccer player only using his right foot to kick the ball with.

 

[PhotoWrangler]

Wedding photography, at least to do it right, takes a commitment to have the equipment in quality and quantity to do the job right... and years of experience with all the types of lighting situations that you will encounter... not a bare minimum "get you by" equipment list and not nearly enough experience to nail it every time.

You mean a logo, and a watermark isn't enough?

 

[bennielou]

Wedding photography, at least to do it right, takes a commitment to have the equipment in quality and quantity to do the job right... and years of experience with all the types of lighting situations that you will encounter... not a bare minimum "get you by" equipment list and not nearly enough experience to nail it every time.

You mean a logo, and a watermark isn't enough?

Holy Crap Chirs! You have to warn a girl! LOL!