I Can Hear the Bells….
Darin and Liz Flynn, June 2008.
Last fall I was asked to do my first wedding as an official photographer… I said I’d have to think about it. For those of you thinking, wow, wedding photography sounds like a lot of fun and it makes a lot of money, I totally want to do one, well, I encourage you take some time to really consider it. Photographing someone’s wedding, even a friend’s, is a huge deal — both it terms of work and pressure; after all, this is a once in a lifetime moment for the bride and groom, and YOU can either make it that much more special, or screw it up BIG TIME if you’re not on your game. Not to mention the additional equipment you will need if you’ve never done a wedding shoot before, and the UNGODLY number of hours it takes to do the shoot and post processing. However, the end results can be very rewarding. And yes, if you put in the work to get a nice portfolio together, weddings can make you a decent amount of money from your photography.
Since this was my first time ever doing a wedding, I agreed to do the job only as a secondary photographer… that is, I encouraged the bride and groom (my roommates) to find someone experienced for at least the posted portraits. Then I would do the portraits as well in my own way, as well as the preparation, event, and reception. This way, if I screwed up, at least the posed portraits would be there!
The bodies used were my Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi and my Canon EOS Elan 7ne 35mm, the latter loaded with Kodak Pro Tri-X 400 black and white film. The lenses I used were my stock Canon EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II USM, as well as a rented Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 prime from borrowlenses.com (about $50 for a 1 week rental, roundtrip shipping, and insurance). I chose to do film because I really like the look I can get with certain types; if I had my choice I’d probably do all portraiture in film, but again, this was a wedding, I couldn’t afford to wait until development to find out if I screwed up a shot, so I used both film and digital. This worked pretty well actually. I chose Kodak Pro Tri-X 400 for the crisp look and excellent exposure latitude; indeed, Tri-X 400 was originally a popular journalism film, and is thus great at capturing details and expressions on the fly.
- The bride’s bouquet.
The 85mm on the Elan worked great for the portrait shots, but I really was wishing for something wider when it came time for the reception… I had the 28-105mm mounted on the XTi, but switching the lens back and forth between the two would have been a pain. Something to keep in mind for the next time, maybe an 85mm for the portraits and a 50mm for later.
If you are considering shooting a wedding, you will need at least two camera bodies each with their own lenses. If something breaks, the middle of a wedding is not the time to be stuck without any capability. Also, mounting different lenses on similar camera bodies allows for quick switching between the two; fumbling at lens switching could cost you an important shot, or cause you to drop half a paycheck worth of lens in your hurry… not cool.
Not everyone can afford portable studio lighting for the portraits, including me. But consider a good, configurable, hotshoe-mount flash with a diffuser and bounce capability as the bare minimum for lighting. If you’re a fellow Canon user, the Speedlite 430EX (something like $240) with a generic-brand diffuser worked splendidly. You may able to get by with one of the lower models, but the ETTL-II link to the camera, manual zoom on the flash head, and the adjustable nature of the head for bouncing were godsends. And a related tip: know how to use the thing BEFORE wedding day. Hotshoe flashes like the 430EX have a lot of features and quirks… practice several times on subjects in different lighting conditions to get the hang of them.
Get there super early and plan on leaving well after the main event. Not only is it good to be on time, especially in an area you don’t know well, but some of the best shots aren’t actually to be found in the wedding itself. Capturing fun moments in the preparation, the families catching up, and other behind-the-scenes action can lend more of a spontaneous human element to an otherwise very rehearsed affair.
Liz Hallet Flynn, on Kodak Pro Tri-X 400 film.
Check and re-check your equipment! Do not leave ANYTHING for the day-of. The Irony Gods are just waiting to flick your work into oblivion. I went in with 2x redundancy on camera bodies and lenses, 8x redundancy on batteries for flash and cameras, 3x redundancy on expected memory card capacity needed, 2x redundancy on color and black and white film, and a laptop for immediate backups. Beg, borrow, buy, or rent additional equipment to obtain redundancy, it is neither optional nor replaceable! Even if you think you know your equipment, weddings throw brand new situations at you. Bring your manuals, and know your custom functions (cameras and flash units). Check custom functions and other camera settings the night before, and try some test shots on random people traveling with you, if possible. On the XTi, I set my own picture modes under the user-defined categories… experiment well beforehand to find settings that look good, it saves a lot of post-processing work later.
Make sure you can carry everything comfortably (a backpack camera equipment bag would have been nice) and keep everything DRY in case of drizzle or rain… if the bride and groom want to keep going, you have to keep going too!
Whew! Quite the list of lessons learned… and I haven’t even gotten to post-processing! Long story short, weddings are a metric crap-ton of work, and there is a reason wedding photographers charge what they do. I did this one for free (actually Liz paid for half of the new flash) just to get the experience and some shots for a portfolio, but next time…. oof. As a friendly piece of advice: even for a friend, know what you are getting into before saying yes… and hopefully this post helps. Photographing weddings is a lot of fun if you’ve done your preliminary work well, and I’m really glad I got the opportunity to learn from this one. Congrats Darin and Liz, I’m glad you liked how the photos turned out!
Those of you who attended the wedding, you can view the shots on The Gallery, under Weddings and Events –> Flynn 2008 - Vader, WA. Liz should have emailed them out awhile ago, but if you didn’t get the link, please contact the bride or groom for the password. Some photos are publicly viewable by agreement in the portfolio gallery.
