Week 35- Weddings - location St john's

Hilary took us through the quoting & time spent of a wedding then she took us to St John's for a mock wedding & gave us lots of hints.

The time frame for the work H puts into a wedding works out to be a whole week - 40 hours. This has to be charged for one way of another - see Hilary's talk in my Studio blog. She showed us a power point presentation of a whole wedding (not a church wedding). The photos can be divided into a number of sections.

1. Per-wedding for both bride & groom

2. Getting to venue & outside church (if there is one)

3. Walking down isle (for both in & not in a church)

4. The service; signing the register; exiting the church

5. Outside church (or wedding non-church location) - the formal family shots.

6. Away from guests - the artistic photos.

NB. Hilary does not do the reception - perhaps just photographs the cake, the table decorations & maybe the arrival of the bride & groom, but that is all. Sometimes there is a mock cutting of the cake just for the records, but she doesn't stay for the real cutting.

H takes an assistant with her. It is the assistants job to take many of the candid shots while H takes the main ones. The assistant manages H's equipment; goes upstairs in the church to take the walking down isle shots & the whole congregation from above. Afterwards the assistant holds the reflector.

H takes B&W inside the church as they are often badly lit - see yellow shot below from sulphur lights. She does take a flash of bride & father as they enter church & (I think) as they walk back down isle.

On exiting church takes lots of congrats photos then the family - biggest family 1st.

Then the creative shots - to relax the bridal party H gets them to walk away from her chatting, turn around & walk back. She is chatting to them all the time. Kissing shots best if not quite touching. 'Kiss with hands' is good. Watch for men linking their hands in front of themselves. Best if 1-2 in pockets. B&G facing shots good too with arms round each other (front ones not as much). Don't forget to take many full length shots for dresses.

HINT _ H always uses widest aperture. ISO 2000 in church for non-flash. Outside church generally uses 100ISO. Background slightly blurred looks best.