Written by Christina N Dickson, portrait photographer and instructor for the Institute in Photographic Studies.
Weddings.
To the inexperienced photographer, the first wedding is that single most daunting event that stands as Mt. Everest in one’s profession. It is a feat that could define success or failure for the rest of one’s career. Much preparation is required. Much focus is essential. Much passion is critical.
Every detail of the day is important. The clothes. The favors. The people. Tensions are high. Schedules are tight. Emotions are charged. A wedding shoot is not the time to test one’s people skills or experiment with portraits. It is a day that an experienced photographer must practice everything he or she has ever known.
However, each wedding photographer has had a “first time”. On this day, the photographer discovers the key to thriving in the world of wedding photography: An ability to take the unpredictable in stride and thrive amidst challenges.
What does this look like to an inexperienced wedding photographer? How does a novice go about capturing beautiful shots in unpredictable and varied settings? With a little bit of hard work, these 8 tips will help you cover essential preparations for a successful wedding shoot.
1. Do your research!
Find a local bookstore with a large selection of photography books. Take some time to look at books from Bill Hurter and Amherst Media. These resources will give you an incredible amount of information to walk you through the wedding photographer’s experience.
2. Determine the couple’s style
As a wedding photographer, your job involves more than capturing the events of the wedding day. You must have the ability to do so in the style that signifies the bridal couple. Are they traditionalists? Are they contemporary? Do they want color or black and white? If they aren’t sure what they like, take the time to go through a wedding magazine with them to find clips that match their style. Once you know what they are expecting stylistically, you can shoot to capture just that!
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Today DPS forum member Matt Soave from Soave Photography is sharing with us how he composed a sunset image perfectly so it showed up under a pier. Matt put a lot of energy into getting it just right - learn how he did it below.
On May 2nd, 2008, I was able to turn an everyday La Jolla, California, sunset into something unique:
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In this post Natalie Norton shares pieces from her interviews with 8 successful photographers where they shared all kinds of resources to help you find the blogging service that is right for your photoblog.
I’ve spent the week thinking over this article. . . it’s the final part of a 3 part series. We began with a WHY TO BLOG installment: Blog Power. We followed up with the WHAT TO BLOG installment: Building Your Blog, and now we’re wrapping things up with the HOW TO BLOG piece you’ve all been waiting for. Though I am currently in the process of designing a custom blog, my blogging experience thus far has been with Google’s Blogger for my personal blog, along with my brief moments with WordPress when I’m blogging here at DPS. As many of you loyal DPSers have been inquiring as to what blog service to use to best showcase your work, the conclusion I came to was that I am COMPLETELY incapable of offering a balanced response to this complex question on my own. Thankfully, I recently asked 8 successful photographers 4 simple questions. Their broad range of answers will rock you to the moon and back if you’re serious about starting your own photoblog, so this week. . . we’re gonna learn from some friends of mine. I hope you enjoy.
ME: What service do you use for your blog?
- Michael and Anna Costa: We have two blogs! His & Hers? Anna’s blog is a “Blogger” blog and Michael’s is “Big Folio Blog.”
- Jasmine Star: I had my blog custom designed by the world’s best blog company, Infinet Design - www.infidesign.com . The designer, Brock Martin, was a dream to work with and designs for many serious photography bloggers.
- Ed Pingol: I use Blogger for all my blogging needs.
- Michelle Ellis: I use Wordpress. It’s uploaded to your own server so you host it yourself. I actually bought a template that is designed for photographers. I had seen a lot of really cool custom blogs out there and looked into getting one. The starting price quote was $1500. I’m not at a place right now where I could spend that kind of money on a blog. I found a wordpress template by this really cool company called Pro Photo it has all the elements I was looking for and at the price of $99? A STEAL!!! Really, the best money Ive spent for web presence. The owner/creator is so wonderful. He’s got all these tutorials and stands behind his product. http://www.professionalphotographertheme.com/
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In this post one of our forum moderation team - Sime (check out his blog here)- reviews his new camera bag - the Lowepro CompuRover AW which he gives a rating of 9 stars out of 10!
I have two red sore bits where my hips should be… Not super bad, but red and a touch on the “ouch” side. That’s where the waist strap of my new Lowepro CompuRover AW Camera Bag has been sitting all day… I have had this before with my hiking pack when I didn’t do it up correctly. So, I don’t blame the bag for this, the waist strap is great - very padded, I blame me… I started my day at about 9am, right after breakfast and walked around Palermo until about 6pm so in fairness - the bag did exceptionally well.
Waist Strap
The waist strap is very sturdy, it has more padding than a Sumo wrestler and is very hardy - the click clack snap buckle is well made and the whole unit is well stitched. Oh, and did I mention that it’s detachable? Brilliant huh…
Shoulder Straps
The shoulder straps are good and solid, on par with the indestructibility of the Crumpler reviewed earlier, with a great array of attachment locations for extra add-on bits and pieces sold separately by Lowepro, and a cross chest harness and two D clips, the straps were very comfortable even after walking with the full bag on all day with a half hour stop for lunch [when M “needs to shop” she “needs to shop”]
On the whole, the CompuRover is a top bag. It has been made with great quality materials and the workmanship is very good, with only one minor flaw that I can be bothered to mention, but more on that later…
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Earlier today I had a reader ask me for a recommendation for a book on Photoshop. I decided to poll 10 of my good photographer buddies on their recommendations and they came up with the following Photoshop books:
