OTE - My first wedding/ a few samples

[Grym]

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http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y129/BBeckman0605/BBsig.gif
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Well, let me get some criticism - I've put it off long enough...

 

[Johnboy2978]

Were you the designated photographer, or did they have someone else, and you just took additional shots?

 

[Grym]

Me and my fiance were the designated photographers. This was our first job and it was done for free. They weren't hiring a photographer at all initially because the one they wanted wasn't available. This was a small wedding and was done cheaply. I just tried to do the best job I could with no wedding experience.

 

[mysteryscribe]

She got a heck of a lot more than she paid for then.

The best piece of advice I ever got from an old man when I started thirty years ago was get plenty of light. Ie a good off camera strobe light. I hear it has changed a lot but most on camera strobes will not cover more than 12-15 feet. For wedding you need at least thirty to be safe and then you should probably avoid your zoom as much as possible as it fools you how far away you rally are.

Im sure there will be better advice coming your way from the digital people. As for what you have here remember the rule of my wedding guru thirty years ago... shot for faces not dresses.... If this isnt good advice remember im living in a retro world...

 

[mcoppadge]

They turned out a heckuva lot better than my first wedding...luckily, I did that one for free also. Good job.

 

[Grym]

Any feedback on my choice and use of selective coloring?

I know I have to get better with my environment lighting and I'm also not happy with how I framed a lot of the exposures.

 

[mysteryscribe]

well my monitor isnt very sophisticated so this might not really be of much help but here is something anyway

 

[mcoppadge]

The selective coloring with the boy was good, I thought. The second was okay but not really the best. But I don't think that was as much a problem of having a "bad" picture as not having the right lighting for that kind of selective coloring. With the way the light was didn't really work well to do the selective coloring (in my opinion). Perhaps if you have another shot that would work better?

P.S- I didn't realize the very first shot with selective coloring with the man...I thought that was done well.

 

[mysteryscribe]

I promise I will not do any more. Just thought the color might be a little easier on the eyes this way. but I could be wrong

http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/4091/test3zi.jpg

 

[markc]

I'm not a big fan of selective coloring, but it seemed to work well here to separate the subject from the background. I don't know if it was a focus problem or something else, but several of these seem rather soft. You might want to try a sharpening filter.

Since you posted OTE, I thought I would give you some ideas.

I cropped both for the sake of balance and removing empty background. I sharpened both, and also removed yellow (added blue) with color balance. For the table I did +65 blue, since it was pretty far off and I wanted to get the white very white. For bride I only added +16, since I didn't want her skin to look too cold. It probably could use a little more. I could selectively keep her skin warm, but I think this works, as it keeps the feel of sunshine and goes well witht the flowers. For the bride, I also adjusted the brightness and contrast slightly with the curves tool. For the table, I used the levels tool to bring the white point down and brighten up the image a little.

For this one, I rotated to fix the tilt, cropped, sharpened, brightened with cruves, and adjusted color by adding +20 blue. I'd like to remove the white decorations at the right, but that would require spending some time with the clone tool.

 

[mysteryscribe]

I'm glad mark came by to give his opinion, I feel a little out of place with digital photos. Best I can do is treat them as I would in my darkroom. A lot of the people here can give you much better specific information.

 

[Grym]

Hey, I appreciate everyone's opinions...

As far as the clone tool goes with the white decorations on that last one, I definitely see where you are going, but a lot of this comes down to I don't want to spend that much time for free. A lot of this is just conceptual to me so I know what I'm doing in the future.

As a starting point, do you feel like I'm anywhere within the ballpark of being close to being able to charge for weddings? I was planning on doing atleast 2 more for free and I'm doing some children's birthday parties with my fiance just for the practice.

 

[Grym]

BTW, did anyone notice during the ceremony it looks more like the groom is trying to shake the bride's hand than hold it?

 

[mysteryscribe]

The truth is 75 percent of anything new is having the courage to do it. Then it becomes figuring out what you have to do in order to do it better. Just take a look at what Mark and even I to a lesser extent did. Make it happen for yourself and incorporate it into you shots. Or better still learn how to do it on the job. Part of it was the light source color shift. Im sure you can do something to avoid that. The cropping for the most part was very good. Getting the right shots can be picked up from a book.

All that said the best teacher is practice, practice, practice, and read, read, read.

I have to admit it was easier in the old days. We just got a good strong strobe put it on automatic and worried about the composition and being sure we got all the shots. Placement of the light was important but not as much as all the things my son in law goes through now with white balance and bouncing strobes and then the other stuff that goes with it. The advantage to using strobe now? Im not sure of since I dont shoot digital and never did it for money.

 

[mysteryscribe]

Not till you mentioned it, but it does, It also makes ten times better pics if they actually look at each other.... not everyone does it, but they should.