Many times ordinary people are asked to take on extraordinary tasks just because they are considered authorities or experts among their friends and family members. Even though they can at best be labelled as experts but still if you have been tasked with photographing your friend’s, brothers or sister’s wedding there a number of common mistakes you need to be aware of in order to avoid. You also need to keep in mind the fact that almost everyone can do wedding photography but few can do a good job at it, so as someone who has been entrusted with covering a wedding doing a great job is imperative to preserving your reputation. The below common mistakes are aimed at helping you avoid some of the most mistakes made.
Mistake no. 1: Not coming prepared
Even if you have been using a DSLR camera for quite some time there is a chance that you’re not sure what to take along in order to cover a wedding. Perhaps you may consider bringing along a versatile zoom lens which covers all focal lengths or at least most of the necessary ones and couple that with an extra battery. That said if you are looking to take quality photographs and especially in low light then a zoom is of little help. So, so ideally you’ll want to pack along a 1.8f 50mm, a 20mm and perhaps along with that a zoom lens of your choice. You should also pack your external flash, a reflector and even an extra battery. This kit will help you take an array of shots which can then later be edited.
Mistake no. 2: Not Thinking through your Shots
Wedding photography is an art but most amateurs think it’s all about just snapping away photos with the most expensive camera and deleting what does not look good. While this is one of the beauties of using a digital camera, this practice yields few results if any. If you really want to take good photographs you need to plan your shot, know your angles and then use the right lighting. Search online for wedding photos and poses then use them as your inspiration. This will ensure that your photos look professional and even if they do require some post production editing it’s not going to be a whole lot of it needed.
Mistake no. 3: Doing too much Photo Editing
With wedding photography you will want to keep photo editing to a minimum and just use it for pictures that can really be enhanced. Relying too much on photo editing will often mean that the photos look extremely artificial; it will lose that natural flair that many wedding couples are leaning in favor of. As a rule of thumb, photo editing should be used for color correction, brightness, contract and curves and cropping at most. Some pictures can be given an HDR treatment and some other fancy effects but these will make up just 1% of the photos you took.
Mistake no. 4: Getting in the Couple’s Way
Yes amateurs may not realize this but they get in the way of the wedding couple a lot. This is because wedding photography is considered to be the no.1 priority of the wedding couple and so they can get in the way like the paparazzi which inevitably spoils the shot in the process. Remember we asked to pack along your zoom lens? Well it should be used when you need to get a shot from a fair distance without having to insert yourself in the middle.
Mistake no. 5: Using the Flash Too Much
The flash has a tendency to make pictures look hard; it can also take the detail out of photographs. In wedding photography the devil is in the details and textures that you capture. The better the overall details are the better your picture will look and that goes to show how good of a job you’ve done. Rose2Ring advises that people use either really fast lenses around 2.0f or they use a reflector to bounce the flash off in order to soften the picture. That said you cannot rely on picture editing programs to bring the details back into a photo once it’s lost so you need to be very careful.
Mark has been a photographer for over two decades. He has photographed almost every high profile event in Australia and abroad. He is known for his excellent sense of color and style, not to mention the fact that his style keeps on evolving. His secret is to always experiment and something which is echoed via his wedding photography advice.