Gavjenks
TPF Noob!
- Joined
- May 9, 2013
- Messages
- 2,976
- Reaction score
- 588
- Location
- Iowa City, IA
- Can others edit my Photos
- Photos OK to edit
From your website, you seem to be a pretty decent photographer in general in terms of composition and focus and exposure and posing and such, but:
1)
Not having mastered artificial light is a major handicap and IMO is like wanting to be a professional realistic painter who tries to paint with only randomly grabbed handfuls of colors.
You might get lucky with some scenes, but if I'm getting married, I don't want to roll the dice on whether natural light will happen to fall in your favor with my reception photos. I want to KNOW that you can MAKE the light you need and confidently sculpt it to your will no matter what and can therefore guarantee optimal shots. Because while I might be willing to risk reshooting a low stakes senior shoot if it doesn't work out optimally, I'm not going to have a second wedding in better light.
In your portfolio, the aversion to artificial light does show. You seem to cope about as well as can be expected for somebody not used to using flash, but it's clear in many cases that the light was just bad and you got stuck and had no means to compensate fully: raccoon eyes or flat lighting or harsh shadows that don't look intentional, or often distracting backgrounds that could have been isolated out with flash, etc.
2)
No matter how good somebody is at couples portraits, and flash issues aside, I would advise nobody to jump head first into weddings by themselves in general.
Weddings are super stressful, they have all sorts of their own special expectations, the subjects' emotions are running high, and there's no reshooting. They are comparatively very difficult to just jump into, and I wouldn't advise anybody to go shoot their first one cold without having served as a second shooter on other weddings first. A second shooter for at least is mandatory here, IMO, and it would be even better if you were the second shooter with an experienced photog at the helm.
If you're gonna do it one way or the other, though, equipment and prep: I recommend getting one of the off camera flash cords that Tirediron linked ASAP, and practice with off camera handheld speedlight flash relentlessly all the way up to the wedding. A little bracket that lets you handhold the speedlight into a small white translucent umbrella is a nice option to have too.
And then rent a 70-200 2.8 with your glass rental budget. I don't think that will require much practice, but you may still want to rent it a couple days out in advance to get a feel for it.
Then if you have enough cash left over or can squeeze anything out of the bride and groom, rent a backup copy of the same body you already own! Not just backup, also means "two lenses that are almost instantaneous to switch between"
Also of course get a backup battery and another SD card or two if you don't have them already. And bring backup AA's for your speedlight, etc. anything like that lots of backups.
Annnnnd make sure you have a shoulder bag or something that lets you switch out lenses or bodies very quickly.
1)
This alone would make me not hire you if I overheard it and was looking for a photographer for my wedding.
Not having mastered artificial light is a major handicap and IMO is like wanting to be a professional realistic painter who tries to paint with only randomly grabbed handfuls of colors.
You might get lucky with some scenes, but if I'm getting married, I don't want to roll the dice on whether natural light will happen to fall in your favor with my reception photos. I want to KNOW that you can MAKE the light you need and confidently sculpt it to your will no matter what and can therefore guarantee optimal shots. Because while I might be willing to risk reshooting a low stakes senior shoot if it doesn't work out optimally, I'm not going to have a second wedding in better light.
In your portfolio, the aversion to artificial light does show. You seem to cope about as well as can be expected for somebody not used to using flash, but it's clear in many cases that the light was just bad and you got stuck and had no means to compensate fully: raccoon eyes or flat lighting or harsh shadows that don't look intentional, or often distracting backgrounds that could have been isolated out with flash, etc.
2)
No matter how good somebody is at couples portraits, and flash issues aside, I would advise nobody to jump head first into weddings by themselves in general.
Weddings are super stressful, they have all sorts of their own special expectations, the subjects' emotions are running high, and there's no reshooting. They are comparatively very difficult to just jump into, and I wouldn't advise anybody to go shoot their first one cold without having served as a second shooter on other weddings first. A second shooter for at least is mandatory here, IMO, and it would be even better if you were the second shooter with an experienced photog at the helm.
If you're gonna do it one way or the other, though, equipment and prep: I recommend getting one of the off camera flash cords that Tirediron linked ASAP, and practice with off camera handheld speedlight flash relentlessly all the way up to the wedding. A little bracket that lets you handhold the speedlight into a small white translucent umbrella is a nice option to have too.
And then rent a 70-200 2.8 with your glass rental budget. I don't think that will require much practice, but you may still want to rent it a couple days out in advance to get a feel for it.
Then if you have enough cash left over or can squeeze anything out of the bride and groom, rent a backup copy of the same body you already own! Not just backup, also means "two lenses that are almost instantaneous to switch between"
Also of course get a backup battery and another SD card or two if you don't have them already. And bring backup AA's for your speedlight, etc. anything like that lots of backups.
Annnnnd make sure you have a shoulder bag or something that lets you switch out lenses or bodies very quickly.
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