Working on a Wedding - Comments on Processing?

Maggedy · Feb 19, 2013

Before I go to far with this wedding, how's it looking? I'm liking the richness of the colors and the matte finish for a fall wedding but am always open to suggestions.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

TheoGraphics · Feb 19, 2013

These look good to me! Some are a touch contrasty, but really nice overall.

tirediron · Feb 19, 2013

I agree on the contrast, but otherwise they look fine.

Robin_Usagani · Feb 19, 2013

Not loving B&W mixed with color collage on #6

amolitor · Feb 19, 2013

The color rendering in #1 and #2 looks really funky to me. Sort of vintage, maybe?

#3 makes no sense at all to me. I see a mess of tropes thrown at a candid. Is it supposed to be photojournalistic? They why have you got the low contrast glowy effect? Honestly it doesn't look like a keeper at all, to me.

#4 are those the same shoes? Pick a color rendition and stick with it. I like the warmer one. Also, is this a product shoot, or a wedding shoot? See also #7.

#5 is a couple of charming portraits, the one on the right being a little too contrasty, which is unflattering, I think.

#6 I'm with Robin, the b&w mixed in doesn't fit. Also, all three images feel tilted to the left so the whole page wants to fall over. Not sure if that layout is just for showing us here, though.

#7 Product shots.. what? Maybe this is a thing in weddings now, though? They're not badly done as product shots, but you seem to have a problem with tilts to the left throughout.

#8 I kinda dig it. That's a nice environmental image, a little moment in time. Nice.

That's kinda bitchy sounding, I know. Sorry. I'm not a wedding guy, and there's a lot of stuff in contemporary wedding photography that makes me itch. It's a wedding, she looks beautiful, she is surrounded by beautiful things and your photographs DO show all that, which is really the point. I'm not sure that you're getting quite a coherent look here, your contrast seems all over the place, and you're sometimes using the soft glowy thing and sometimes not. The colors are sometimes more popped than at other times, but that's a subtle effect. Organize the work appropriately and all will be fine, I predict.

I would definitely dump #3, though.

Maggedy · Feb 20, 2013

This is all really good feedback, thank you. No it's not bitchy sounding at all. I've been working on this wedding in spurts while waiting for the primary to get the images over to the client so I don't think the processing is consistent especially now that I look at all the images laid out. I need to pick one method I like and stick to it. I like the look of #1 and #7 the most. Now I just have to remember what I did to get there lol.

As far as it being heavy on detail shots, shoe shots, etc, I'm the second shooter and that's the stuff I'm there to get so I always have a ton of those. These are literally shots grabbed from the first 30 mins or hour of being there, just messing around with editing, trying to figure out the look I want before I do the whole wedding. I haven't even gotten to their first look or the tables or ceremony site or ceremony or any of that because I wanted to get the tone set first, and I'm struggling a bit with this one.

If you look at my blog you'll see I do end up including a lot of detail shots because, at least in Austin, there's a big demand for pretty ones (so many brides want their weddings published) and showing I can get those gets me more work second shooting. I don't book as a primary anymore since I also work 9-5 but second shoot 2-3 times a month.

Works for me