Wedding Photography Blues

[will-jum]

Hey chaps,

Long time since I've been on here but I now find myself needing the services of the wonderful people that use TPF!

I've basically had some issues with a wedding (the bride), this is the first time something like this has happened to me so I'm pretty downhearted about it. Anyway, without giving to much info away I wondered if anyone could critique the wedding I did for a couple a few weeks ago. The gallery is here: Kirsty & Ashley the password is alfreton

Will go into more detail about whats up once some peeps have had a look (don't want to mention anything now as want everyone to have a look with an open mind..)

So anyway,

How would you rate this wedding?
Anything I could of improved on?
Is there more than 50 stand out images?
General pointers/ comments?!

Thanks peeps!

Will

 

[kathyt]

I didn't go through every single image, but I did get a pretty good general idea. The lighting conditions were pretty harsh, so there were some exposure issues. I saw a lot of images that were out of focus or lacking any real creative interest. Lots of distortion, so you must have been using a pretty wide lens. You caught some really good moments too. I think some variety in DOF and focal lengths would have really helped add some vision to this wedding. I guess my overall impression is lack luster. Yes, there are at least 50+ usable images.

 

[Robin_Usagani]

Will, here is my honest opinion.
1. I think you did a bad job PRESENTING it to the client. You gave the client pretty much the whole gallery right away. You may want to change the way you run things. I suggest you blog the wedding first and show best of the best instead of just giving the whole thing.
2. It would be disappointing if I only get 329 photos. Unless you are a super good photographer where each photo is just super good.
3. Going through it I feel like you were lacking of WOW frame-able photos. The only photos of bride and groom that I feel look good on a big canvas is only the one in front of the green bush. That's it. You need to increase the number of stand out photos of just the two of them.
4. Be more creative with your angles and poses. Shoot from down low, shoot from very high, shoot with really wide angle and show the sky. Stuff like that will please your clients.
5. Get the guests more involved. When I shoot a wedding, I walk around and shoot group photos. When I see people stand in a group, I tell them to pose.
6. Utilize off camera flash. You did a night shot outside with them showing silhouette. It is fine but that is not good enough. Do some with them exposed well.

 

[The_Traveler]

I looked through the first 50 or so.
Considering that these are actually not finished, I think there is a fine base for an album.
Unless she expected to look at 300+ finished images or didn't understand the difference between as-shot and finished, I don't understand what the gripe might be.

 

[tirediron]

I would rate it as 'Decent'

Lots; (and that applies no matter who the photographer is). In this case things that I saw were lack of OCF, exposure issues (most of which would have been resolved with OCF), unsophisticated poses & posing, focus, white balance and accidental Dutch tilt.

No, unless you and I have radically different definitions of 'stand out'. If you get 2-3 stand out images (ones which would worthy of a 40x60 print as the focal point of a large room), then you're doing exceptionally well.

Learn to control your exposure. A wedding photographer without at least a speedlight on a bracket is handicapped; be aware of WHERE you are focusing, and hold your camera level. Select apertures which will produce an appropriate depth of field for the shot.

It's not a bad wedding, but there are lots of things that could be done to raise your personal bar. I will be interested to hear just what the issues are (and see if they match those that came to my mind).

 

[Derrel]

I looked through the pages. I will try to be delicate, but give it to you straight. Your compositions are poor; there are a huge number of horizontal frames that have a large amount of space above the peoples' heads, and bad chop-offs on the bodies. On vertical shots, your images have a huge amount of space left above the peoples' heads--often,sadly, to the detriment of the photo, with bad chop-offs on the bodies below. In a word, it appears that your photographic eye is "unstudied". I would not rate this highly at all. It would not reach "decent" to me because the way the pictures have been snapped. The way the compositional space is used, over and over and over, not just on a frame or two here and there, but consistently, is most dismaying to me.

 

[will-jum]

Thank you everyone, brilliant response!!!

The bride has none of the gripes you all mentioned, lol. She said there were only 20 images worthy of an album, she mentioned that a guest had better pictures of them cutting the cake, she went onto say that she wasn't happy with the ceremony shots as the registrar is slightly in the corner (this couldn't be helped, due to where I was told to stand!) She was also angry that the DJ was in the background of the first dance shots...

Like Kathy mentioned I definitely had a lack luster approach to this wedding, unfortunately I hated being there, and I think that shows if you look at some of my other weddings. Though that said I do believe there are more than 50 useable shots and I'm utterly confused as to why my bride is being so ridiculous, not sure if they are attempting to get money back or what?! But Bridezilla!!!

Any more comments are greatly appreciated!

Anyone else ran into brides like this?

 

[robbins.photo]

Thank you everyone, brilliant response!!!

The bride has none of the gripes you all mentioned, lol. She said there were only 20 images worthy of an album, she mentioned that a guest had better pictures of them cutting the cake, she went onto say that she wasn't happy with the ceremony shots as the registrar is slightly in the corner (this couldn't be helped, due to where I was told to stand!) She was also angry that the DJ was in the background of the first dance shots...

Like Kathy mentioned I definitely had a lack luster approach to this wedding, unfortunately I hated being there, and I think that shows if you look at some of my other weddings. Though that said I do believe there are more than 50 useable shots and I'm utterly confused as to why my bride is being so ridiculous, not sure if they are attempting to get money back or what?! But Bridezilla!!!

Any more comments are greatly appreciated!

Anyone else ran into brides like this?

I shoot Lions and tigers, not brides. They tend to attack less. That having been said, honestly if this were my wedding I probably wouldn't be all that thrilled over by the photos that were presented either. I guess the thing that sticks out in my mind is where you state that your performance was "lack luster" because you really didn't want to be there. My response to that, and you'll forgive me for being tremendously blunt here, tough. Your supposed to be a professional. Doesn't matter how you "feel" - your getting paid to do a job and you should do that job to the absolute utmost of your ability every single damn time. To do less is decidedly unprofessional.

If you are told to stand in a certain spot and you see that something won't be framed properly as a result, you stop, tell the client about the problem, and suggest to them that you be allowed to move and reframe. If your shooting the first dance, hell no you don't want something terribly distracting like a DJ in the background. Again if you have to you tell them to pause, re-position, and then begin shooting again.

I'm sorry if that seems overly harsh, but honestly dealing with difficult brides is part of the profession you've chosen. Are their 50 usable images in there? Probably - though many of them would need to be recropped and reframed before really fitting into that category. As Derrel mentioned you have some composition issues with a lot of these photos.

So if you'd like some free advice:

1. The minute you pick up that camera on someone elses dime take your personal feelings and toss them off a cliff. Your getting paid to do a job. Do the job.
2. Before you present your images to the client, finish them. Instead of hitting them with 300 unfinished images take 20, 30, maybe as many as 50 and crop them properly. Fix your exposure issues. Air brush anything that needs airbrushed. Oh, and BTW, softening an image or two on a bride, particularly one with that many.. umm.. angular facial issues, can be a good thing. in this case it would have been a really, really good thing. But finish your images and give them a selection of the best to look at first.
3. Listen to your client - but don't take everything they say as a command from on high - if you know you can get a better shot by altering things a little - explain that too them. Don't take a bad shot just because the told you to stand on a certain X, not until you explain to them how much better the shot will be if you can just take a couple of steps to the left, or the right. At the end of the day a bad shot is not their responsibility, it's yours - because if they absolutely stone cold refused to let you move a step or two to the left it's because you failed to build a proper rapport with them in the first place. If you had they would have trusted your judgement and let you move.

Ok, that's my two cents worth. Again it might seem harsh - but I wouldn't have said it if I didn't think in the long run it would be helpful and beneficial for you to hear it.

 

[Robin_Usagani]

Trust me on this.. if you had a lot of awesome shots on the top of the things she complained about, she wouldn't have said anything. Bridezilla or not, the set was not solid man. Sorry....

Thank you everyone, brilliant response!!!

The bride has none of the gripes you all mentioned, lol. She said there were only 20 images worthy of an album, she mentioned that a guest had better pictures of them cutting the cake, she went onto say that she wasn't happy with the ceremony shots as the registrar is slightly in the corner (this couldn't be helped, due to where I was told to stand!) She was also angry that the DJ was in the background of the first dance shots...

Like Kathy mentioned I definitely had a lack luster approach to this wedding, unfortunately I hated being there, and I think that shows if you look at some of my other weddings. Though that said I do believe there are more than 50 useable shots and I'm utterly confused as to why my bride is being so ridiculous, not sure if they are attempting to get money back or what?! But Bridezilla!!!

Any more comments are greatly appreciated!

Anyone else ran into brides like this?

 

[DiskoJoe]

Thank you everyone, brilliant response!!!

The bride has none of the gripes you all mentioned, lol. She said there were only 20 images worthy of an album, she mentioned that a guest had better pictures of them cutting the cake, she went onto say that she wasn't happy with the ceremony shots as the registrar is slightly in the corner (this couldn't be helped, due to where I was told to stand!) She was also angry that the DJ was in the background of the first dance shots...

Like Kathy mentioned I definitely had a lack luster approach to this wedding, unfortunately I hated being there, and I think that shows if you look at some of my other weddings. Though that said I do believe there are more than 50 useable shots and I'm utterly confused as to why my bride is being so ridiculous, not sure if they are attempting to get money back or what?! But Bridezilla!!!

Any more comments are greatly appreciated!

Anyone else ran into brides like this?

This is not a wow performance. I can understand the brides concern. But there are few photos here and a lot of snaps. Presentation as Robin stated was rather poor and probably hurt you even more. As soon as I opened the gallery I felt dissappointed. Framing could use a lot of help. Posing was really bland. And most of all is the way that you speak of your client, very unprofessional but well inline with your work. And dont blame them for telling you where to stand blame yourself for not having the nerve to move to get a better shot.

 

[sarah_19_nz]

I quite like them! I see a few technical/composition problems on some of them but in general I think these are great! I would have been happy if my wedding shots turned out HALF as good as these! ... I see where the other critique'ers are coming from but MEH. If I was the bride I'd be happy. How experienced are you?

I think any non bridezilla everyday person would be THRILLED with these.