Practicing for Event Photography (CC)

[Derrel]

It does sound like there's a little bit of a self-confidence issue at play here. This is difficult for me because I've been taking pictures since the 1970's and had garbage equipment for a decade, and learned on film, and had to wait between three hours and two weeks to know "if the photos came out". I cannot understand worrying with today's gear. Today, you have the most amazing picture-making machine available: a d-slr camera, with autofocusing lenses.
It's easy to shoot, and look at the back of the camera, and you can literally see if you're blowing the shots, or nailing them. And as you said, there's nobody in your area who's a better shooter than you. So...look at it that way!

The almond grove shots.Find a spot that has good, even lighting. Take a close-up light meter reading off the cheek of a person in the group in Manual mode. Leave that setting on the camera, and check the histogram, and verify that the test shots look "good", and you ought to be okay. Mostly forget everything else technical, and work on posing and good expressions. In backlighting, get that correct exposure on the cheek reading, and let the rest fall where it does--just get the FACES right, and everything else will be fine. Shoot at the right exposure, and process the shots.

 

[OGsPhotography]

So, I looked up your guy, Roberto. He just did it. Great stuff.

He exactly said what I was thinking (about the guitars) to do with photography. 50 hours a week is nothing to sneeze at either, he put the work in and earned it although he sltells it like it was luck.

Ok Im off to watch some more.

I recommend 1 bour a day if youbwant to get good fast at guitar. 15 minutes a week for drums. Photography, Im not sure, just donit is all I have for that one sonfar.

 

[cherylynne1]

Derrel- Haha, I know, the camera does half the work for us nowadays! And I shouldn't be so nervous, I don't know what it is. I've never come up against a situation that I had no idea whatsoever how to handle, and I always get usable shots. I just never get perfect shots, or even shots that I'm really proud of.

I'm not too worried about the almond blossom pictures, at least not yet. I have my favorite spot, and I know exactly where the light falls at certain times of day there. The photos will likely all be pretty similar, but I figure that's what they want, right? They want the photo in my portfolio, just with their family instead. It's just not particularly exciting from a creative standpoint.

OGsPhotography- Isn't he awesome? I love his brides. I have two of his books and I want to get the third. One nice thing in his books is that he shows what not to do by showing photos from when he was just starting out, and it's so helpful to see that he wasn't born knowing how to use a camera! It gives me hope. And I agree, he's always sort of modest about his success and makes it all sound like luck, but clearly he made it happen.

 

[vintagesnaps]

To build up confidence you need to know what to do and know you're capable of it. To know best practice for any field of work means knowing the standard for quality and excellence and proper techniques and skills to achieve that.

It looks like you are seeing something interesting but still need to learn to get 'clean' compositions and how to frame shots. The one of the little boy is very nice and otherwise these look more like amateur family snapshots than pro quality - I've done sports and events and these would not be acceptable or usable. I know that's blunt and not that you can't get there but the YouTube videos don't seem to be teaching you how to frame shots or compose images.

I'd get out to events like fairs, festivals etc. where it's allowed to bring in cameras and learn to see what's in the viewfinder. Go early, find out where things will happen, figure out good vantage points, notice backgrounds. I think it would be better to learn and practice so you don't jump in too soon and don't set yourself up for failure.

Notice backgrounds before releasing the shutter - in the first there's along the top of the frame what looks like the bottom edge of a picture frame - that doesn't need to be in the photo. Does something add to a picture? If not keep it out of your picture. Change your vantage point - a step or two to the left might have kept the visual 'distractions' out of the picture by placing them behind the guy (to the right). You don't need half a dog or person in the frame - decide if you want them in the picture or not. Go out and practice practice practice! Take time to learn to see a good picture and good luck.

 

[vintagesnaps]

Sounds like you've done some 'homework' preparing for the blossom shots. Take it a step further - how else might you be able to get a photo there? What happens if you get in closer? Farther back? With a differrent lens length? From a different angle? Differrent aperture? Get out there and experiment and play with it and see what you can get - scenery to start with then add people to it.

And even as a second shooter the expectation would likely be that you could get a list of shots on you own. You seem to be talking more about shadowing or observing to learn and maybe that's more what you need to try doing.

 

[cherylynne1]

Thank you for your feedback, vintagesnaps! You're right that I'm having trouble learning about event photography. Generally the resources I've seen for composition are either about landscapes or portraits where the subject is completely isolated. So if they talk about photographing people, they focus on not chopping off joints or getting them out of the exact center of the frame. But they seem to assume that the background is clear of distractions or completely blurred out. I have not found any good resources about event photography, where the background will be present and you likely won't be able to change it before the "moment" ends. If you know of any resources about that, I'd really appreciate it.

Is composition the biggest thing holding me back, in your opinion? And in some of these, would cropping and/or Photoshop help? I guess what I'm asking is, if I had done these for money (which of course I didn't!) would they be salvageable, or are they completely unusable?

I'm not seriously considering taking on a wedding anytime soon. I've been asked numerous times and each time I've turned them down and explained why, and in some cases even recommended other photographers. In all but one situation, they ended up hiring someone that took snapshots with a point-and-shoot. It's just depressing to watch, and that's really what's making me want to get better so that people in my area have another option.

I can try calling around again with some of the photographers in the bigger city. Last time, I was turned down by two before I could even finish speaking, and the third told me that I'm never going to find anyone that will take me along even for free because the competition for weddings is so fierce that they don't want anyone else joining. It's possible that that person was wrong, and is only seeing some of the lower-end photographers and their race to the bottom, but it kind of scared me off from calling anyone else.

As for the blossom photos, this is how pretty much all of my shoots go. I go ahead of time and I find the best spot with the best light at that time of day, when I have plenty of time to check for distractions. I take test shots, figure out where I'll stand and where any lights or reflectors will go. I plan all the poses for the "money shots." Then when they get there, I do all of those first. Depending on how much time I have left, that's when I try any experiments that might have occurred to me. Usually I have more time for the experiments than anything, because I genuinely like working with toddlers and don't usually have major issues getting them to cooperate with me. But that's when I try different lighting or shots that I'm going to try to make into more surreal composites or whatever. A lot of the experiments don't work out, but I'm never stressed about them because I already know I got the shots I needed.

Anyway, now I've written a novel! Thank you for all of your thoughts, I really appreciate the time you took to write out a thoughtful critique and advice.

 

[OGsPhotography]

So do you think you did anyone a favor by turning down the weddings?

Snap shots they got depressed you. While you got to sip coctails all night and earned 0$ Advancing your career to no where.

Sure your photos are good enough. Spend 8 hours shooting something, rinse, repeat, they'll get a heck of a lot better real real fast, if you do the time as we spoke about. Thats the easy part.

I mah get trolled for encouraging you. But there is a disclImer here somewhere.

There is a reason I never even hinted at the slightest on this forum I was going to shoot my first wedding AND CATER IT AT THE SAME TIME, Im crazy, not stupid. They would have eatsn me alive. Actually catered two weddings that day and shot one. Good times. Im a yes man.

Met the maid of honor the other day from the wedding shoot, I didnt recognise her lol, I was catering again at the time and preocupied. Who cares, I have a terrible memory for people, bad for business, life goes on. " meet" like 20-200 people a day simetimes and they all think they know you. I hate that.

Buy a couple of wedding photography books, any essential gear ( 2nd camera etc) your missing. Practice a lot, and do it, schedule a wedding. If your honest with the client you cant fail. Tell them you suck, SHOW them how bad, and the sign a waiver. Dont promise more than you can deliver.

This advice may not be for you, it may be for me, so take it with a lot of salt. I have very little knowledge of your actual situation.

If the set you posted here encapsulates your greatest acheivement and your not sure if you can even reproduce that, come back in a year or two.

Obviously if you are going to do it you will, people are going to get married every day, clicks will happen.
Tomorrow will be here. Will you be a wedding photog, maybe. Will I, maybe. Will the photogs you talked to still be, maybe. Will others, yes.

Not an easy business to be sure, not for the faint of heart.

I'll just warn you, brides go crazy, mothers go crazy, sisters go crazy. If they dont go naturally crazy, they all get drunk, and can potentially go crazy anyway. It can get messy fast..... I leave at dessert....

 

[cherylynne1]

Haha, thanks, OGsPhotography. To be fair, I wasn't actually invited to some of those weddings, they only wanted me as a photographer and I just saw the pictures on Facebook because I had friends tagged in them. But they definitely could have been taken with a point and shoot. If they had a DSLR, it was with the kit lens on auto.

I'm fairly certain that under similar circumstances I could recreate these photos. The lighting was actually what I was concerned about more than anything, but since no one's mentioned it, I guess it wasn't too jarring. I was using bounce flash, but it wasn't just straight up and down because of the weird ceilings. I was bouncing behind me and too the side, at angles, even off a mirror at one point. And because it was so much thinking on my feet and constantly adjusting depending on who in the room I wanted to light, I'm almost positive I could do it again. However, could I do that in a cathedral? On a dance floor with multiple flashing, colored lights? During a dinner in a banquet hall? I don't know. And obviously, if my composition isn't up to par, no one will really care if I nailed the lighting.

I could have done a better job than the people they hired, that's true. The one wedding where I was invited as a guest (well over a year ago when I didn't even know what I was doing) I did do an infinitely better job. The photographer shot everything on a Coolpix camera at the widest focal length. I only brought one prime and a small flash for fun pictures, but they came out so much better. They were terrible, don't get me wrong, but they were better.

I definitely have no plans to advertise at all. But if an opportunity comes up and I know I could do better than anyone else at that price, then I'll consider it. I'm not really concerned about the idea of advancing my career, I just really believe in photography. I hired a fauxtog for my first wedding, and I cried when we got the pictures back. The best part of my divorce was burning those pictures and knowing I'd never have to look at them again. So that's why I get depressed when I see bad wedding pictures, because I know how that bride must feel. I don't think I'm ready to go into business and sell myself as a wedding photographer, but I also know when I look at those photos that they are making mistakes I wouldn't make, no matter how flustered I was.

I guess that's what I'm really struggling with. I'm not good enough. I know that because I have so much respect for this genre and I know the level that a wedding photographer should be at. But there are people that are so much worse than me that are cheating people out of their money, and I'd be willing to take the same amount and produce a much better product.

Anyway, I hope I'm not coming off as conceited or anything. I really do see my faults. That's why I'm here, asking for critique, so I can improve before I do it for money. Thank you for all your thoughts and encouragement.