mikesadventuresinpictures

Saturday 7th April saw me work my first ever wedding shoot. It was for a wonderful couple, Richard and Mary, who I’ve spoken about in previous posts. In this special mikesadventuresinpictures I’ll be writing about my experience of the day.

Saturday starts at 7am. I’ve arranged for my friend Leighanna to help me with the day- driving, helping me set up and helping with all the kit. She’s also been issued a Samsung compact HD camera to help cover the shoot. All my kit (lenses, filters, tripod, flashgun, batteries, my pod, memory cards, everything) has been packed and repacked (and repacked) and everything else prepared the night before. A coffee and a shower and a shave follow before I sit down and run through the notes and shot lists again- they feel familiar which is good, it means it’s been going in!

Some time ago, I had a meeting with Mary; (Coffee with my Client) Mary and I came up with a shot list- a list of the photographs that she and Richard wanted as part of their wedding day. The information I had taken at the meeting along with the pre-wedding email sheet and the conversations I had with Mary, and her sister, Kate (who should really be a party planner), had formed the framework for the days shooting. I found my ‘what if’s’ list (what if ‘X’ goes wrong?) was more sensible and realistic by being better informed of the boundaries I was working within, and knowing what my clients were expecting of me. I’ve always thought of preparation (due to instances in the past where I have been unprepared and suffered because of it) as a key part of anything in life you want to achieve. Doing your prep is all the more important when undertaking somebodies wedding day. Also, the parts of the preparation that the couple are involved with- meetings, emails, conversations, visiting the venues, help to allow the couple to build their trust in you and creates a better working relationship.

Anyway, I have enough time to run through everything and quickly recheck the batteries to make sure they haven’t discharged overnight. It’s the silly things that can ruin the planning.

Leighanna arrives at 9.15am (early- I knew she’d be) and we head to McDonalds for breakfast, where I feel overdressed for a sausage and egg McMuffin in my shirt, tie and waistcoat.

By 10am we’ve left the restaurant and are on our way to the weddings ‘Mission Control’ in Thornbury. As we got out of the car, I took a deep breath and thought “this is it”. It was a mixture of excitement and pure fear!

We reached the door; camera in hand, we went in. Mary’s house was full of people all busily getting ready, getting their hair done, or if you were a boy- playing on the Nintendo 3DS. Mary was collecting her dress from her friends, so it was strange to be in a house full of people and not knowing anybody. Then I saw Mary’s sister, Kate and she whisked me round introducing me to everybody. Everybody was so welcoming. I headed off to find Mary and didn’t have to go far. She arrived at the end of the lane…

We headed back to Mary’s house where I began setting up individual shots of the various page boys, flower girls and bridesmaids using the f1.8 50mm lens; and taking more general documenting shots of people getting ready for the day using a combination of the 50mm and 18-55mm lens. I then moved on to more of the group shots- the maid of honor with the bridesmaids, and the page boys together. I also took shots of Mary getting ready, having her hair done etc. With the rest of the time I had, I went capturing detail shots, like clothes, shoes and of course Mary’s beautiful dress.

As the time to leave got ever closer, more people began to arrive including Mary’s wonderful parents, so I took their picture and waited for Mary to leave the house to capture my final images at Richard and Mary’s House.

Leighanna and I headed off to Yate Register Office, to capture more group shots of the guests arriving before Mary arrived herself.

Yate Register Office is a great building, and a lovely venue for a wedding ceremony.

I did laps taking pictures of everybody in their family and friend groups and some longer more documentary style shots of everybody together meeting one another and conversing.  The outdoor shots were fairly easy to achieve. There was good natural light and coupled with using a fill-flash I was able to reduce the exposure time but still managed to have sharp and vibrant images.

Mary arrived and I took photographs of her with her bridesmaids while everybody was going in to the ceremony room. I could see my shot list in my head, with little ticks next to the shots. I made my way in to set up the camera for the ceremony shots. I set the tripod up to steady the camera only to find that there wasn’t quite enough room to operate it properly and not obscure the view of some of the guests and be in the way of the woman conducting the ceremony, so the only option I had was to go for it free hand.

Yate Register office also has a policy of no flash photography, which is perfectly acceptable and something that I had been sure to find out about prior to the wedding day. I knew that I would now have to shoot freehand. This was the first point in the day that I thought I might actually be sick!  I turned up the ISO setting, and turned on the anti-shake. Thankfully the room was pretty well lit and there was a lot of natural light coming in through the double bay windows. I knew the main thing was to keep as still as possible when I was pressing the shutter button.

The ceremony started at just after 1.30pm and it felt like it was over in about 30 seconds. It’s incredibly surprising how quickly time goes by when you are concentrating so hard, staying still and trying not to breathe!

I took the shots I needed and as Mary and Richard moved to the other side of the table to sign the register, I fired off three more shots and moved out of the way so that their friends and family could move in to take their own shots of the couple with their own cameras, phones and video cameras.

As the guests filled out into the courtyard, I took the opportunity to snatch a few more candid style shots of the guests and of the bride and groom, and a few of Mary’s Maid of Honour with her children who were also bridesmaids in the hall and on the staircase of the venue. I’ve become pretty comfortable with being able to change the settings on my camera quickly. So going from well lit ceremony hall to a hall that is a fair bit darker with a big leaded stained glass window backlighting everything was going to be a challenge. I upped the ISO a tiny bit more (mindful that I didn’t want too much noise on the images) and aimed the flash gun more at the people I was shooting, but so much so it would bleach everything out. It took a couple of shots before I found a suitable compromise between the amount of flash and the exposure time. Reviewing the images on the camera’s LCD screen, I knew that there would still be some areas that may require some dodging and burning in Photoshop.

I then made my way out into the courtyard to await the arrival of the newly married Richard and Mary.

I ran through the shot list and captured a few more images of the guests. Group shots are hugely difficult, trying to get everybody looking the same way at the same time, all looking happy, and there were a fair few misses. I got the shots I wanted regardless. Photographers are fairly determined bunch and will keep going until they get what they want. Persistence pays off, so long as you don’t reshoot too many times or people will start to get bored or distracted. Example below:

And with that the ceremony shots drew to a close and Leighanna and I headed off to lunch. A double whammy of Starbucks and KFC, because that’s just how we roll!

At lunch I did a quick review of the shots I’d taken, just to check they were ok and to delete anything that wasn’t obviously useable. It also got me thinking about the post production of some of the images- crops, filters, retouching, black and white conversions etc.

After lunch, Leighanna and I headed back to Thornbury to the reception venue. The reception was held at the Porch House in Thornbury, which is a beautiful old building with very high ceilings, and exposed beams. We were there to cover the setting up of the reception and to help out with the actual setting up. I went round and captured the decorations and balloons, help the caterers bring in the food and helped the DJ bring in and set up her equipment, not really a photographers job but I do like to be helpful, and I wanted to contribute to the success of Richard and Mary’s special day. The DJ advised me that she has the biggest collection of karaoke songs in the south west, and that her daughter had just finished her photography degree. I like learning things about people too.

I took the opportunity between the reception being set up and the guests arriving to sit in Leighanna’s car and download all the images I had taken so far to the MacBook. It was a good chance to quickly review what I had done and it buoyed up my confidence to capture the reception party. It also freed up space on my memory card; I had several of all different sizes with me but you can never have enough memory or battery power, of which I also had a fully charged spare and a charger. It goes back to the ‘what if’ list.

As the guests began to arrive, I went round and took pictures of people talking to one another, drinking, posing and a few of the smaller ones dancing. When Richard and Mary arrived, I whisked them out to the garden of the church that adjoins the Porch House where we had a quick photo session of them together and a few shots where they were joined by Richards’ lovely mother, June.

We then headed back inside, where I went off to capture shots of some rather questionable dance moves. With the party in full swing, I continued doing laps of the reception, taking peoples pictures and talking to the guests. As the dance floor began to fill, I headed there to take a few more shots and couldn’t resist the chance to boogie on down for a bit. I can’t resist cheesy music!

Shortly before the cutting of the cake, Mary and Kate asked me to take a group shot of their family so we headed out to the foyer and I took a shot of their family and of ‘the grandchildren’, meaning Mary’s mother and fathers’ grandchildren. It’s only when you have somebodies family all together and looking at you, can you really see the level of family resemblance. If you had never met Mary’s family before, you would be able to tell they were all related just by walking in at that moment.

After the family shot we went back into the main hall for Richard and Mary’s first dance and to cut the cake. I fired off some more photographs and stayed on the dance floor to capture the rush of people ready to party.

The party continued and later on in the evening, Richard made his speech to their guests. After the speech and as it got to 11 o’clock Leighanna and I decided to call it a day and head home. I didn’t realise how tired I was until I got into the car. It was a good tiredness though. One where you know you’ve worked hard and worked well. The excitement I had in me when I got home meant I didn’t actually go to bed until after 3am, but I actually had the best nights sleep I’ve had all year.

Although the taking of the pictures isn’t the end of the story.

For the last 5 weeks I have been working through the photographs in various stages. Initially to take out any shots that were duds or not workable. And then cataloging them and editing each one in Photoshop Elements 9 where necessary. As it goes, I’m pretty comfortable with PSE9 now, but I know that there is still more to learn in order to get the very most from the software and increase my skills so I’m looking at a college course to pick up the bits I might have missed. I figure it’s also good to go back over the basics once in a while to make sure you haven’t picked up too many bad habits.

Once the images had all been finished, it was time to present them in the correct way. At a previous meeting I had discussed with Mary about supplying her with a CD-ROM of the images from the day. I also constructed a photo movie on DVD for her. This took up a considerable amount of time, importing images, arranging the positioning and various movements of the image (Ken Burns), the soundtrack and the actual physical design of the DVD jackets and discs themselves.

I handed over my work to Richard and Mary on 12th May 2012 and they were so pleased with the results. Having happy clients is the best feeling in the world!

To be offered the chance to cover a wedding at such an early point in my career was both scary, exciting and an incredible learning curve. I am very thankful to Richard and Mary for giving me the opportunity and for trusting me with their special day. I was very aware that at these types of event that you only get one chance to get what you need. There are no second weddings! They were so laid back and had very realistic expectations of what they wanted from me, it was a hugely enjoyable experience.

Wedding photography is something that I now know that I enjoy, and the stress is completely worth it. I would like to do some more learning and some more training before I under take another one though.

I know Richard and Mary are happy with their final images and the DVD Photo movie that I edited and produced for them. It was an honour to work for them both and I would like to wish them every happiness for the future. Congratulations!

Richard and Mary have very kindly given me permission to use some of their shots on my blog post.

I have purposely used a selection of ‘non main’ images in order to respect the privacy of the couple and their guests.