Wedding Photography inside a Church by Geoff Thompson

One of the things new wedding photographers have to work out is where do you position yourself for shots during the ceremony.
The first thing about this is you do need to see if your customers want you to take photos in the Church.
Then you also need to make sure the Minister allows photos to be taken in the Church.
Below are some pics which show the basic positions I try for in the Church to cover the indoor part of the Church proceedings.
They were taken from a Church balcony by Dave, my assistant for the day, who had recently completed my wedding photography course.
He was using a Canon 20D. These images have not been edited.
The wedding was in January 2006.
I was still shooting film and starting to integrate digital coverage as well.
There is also a link here on my blog where I talk about a shot list for a wedding.
Some of what I do in the church is in that post.

http://geoffthompsonsblog.blogspot.com.au/search?q=shot+list

Please note I am available for one on one or small groups who want to learn wedding photography or how to use their digital camera.
You would need to be able to come to Adelaide for this although I do frequent South Australia's Riverland from time to time and am open to conducting classes in Renmark.

email:   geoff.g.thompson@gmail.com

 In this shot I am positioned at the front near the bridesmaids awaiting the entrance of the bride.
I would have already photographed each of the bridesmaids as they walked down the aisle.I am looking at the groom to get a shot of his expression as his bride comes down the aisle.

A little flower girl bravely walks in a head of the bride.

Everyone in state of anticipation

 Here comes the Bride. I am crouching down to get the shot as she walks toward the front.

Turning to get a shot of the groom.

 Getting the shot. I am waiting to get them in the same frame.Landscape orientation.

Where am I now?

 Possibly getting a shot from back of church looking straight down the aisle.

Now I am back in a position to get a couple of shots of the speakers.

Here I am possibly changing film or making some adjustment.

Now in position in back right corner so I can get close ups of the couple.

I think I accessed this doorway from a backdoor of the Church so I would not continually be moving around too much and be a distraction.

I am in the right corner as from that angle the bride's face is towards the camera angle.

This is a great shot to get from a balcony if there is one in the Church

They have been exchanging vows and now I am getting ready for the kiss.

Dave got the kiss from the balcony but unfortunately the shot was over exposed.

 Thankfully I got the shot from my position.

The signing of the register.

 I am waiting to get the shots that I will usually set up after the signing.

I will take some candids while this is happening

I would be doing a quick sequence of posed shots here.

Then three quick picks of the Minister handing over the certificate of marriage

Make your own app for a time table for photographing a wedding-on a Mac.

There are apps for everything these days but I could not find one for exactly what I wanted.
As a mainly retired wedding photographer I still like to keep active in learning new stuff and also encouraging and teaching new photographers.

Some time ago in my post on how to use a timetable for wedding photography I shared a copy of my wedding day timetable.
I have taught this to many over the years.
Below is a link to that post.

http://geoffthompsonsblog.blogspot.com.au/search/label/wedding%20timetable

I thought there should be an app to do this but a quick search did not turn up what I had in mine.
Then I realised that with a Macbook or an iPad and an iPhone and gmail, I already had what I needed.

On the mac there is this app called notes.
It is also on the iphone.
There is also gmail I can access from my laptop and/or iphone.

Presto!  The solution.

Steps.

1. Load a proforma of my typical wedding timetable into notes on my laptop.

2. Meet with couple and create a proposed timetable on the laptop, or even a piece of paper to be typed on the laptop after.

3. Copy or create from scratch the timetable in notes.

4. From notes you can share directly to email.

5. When the couple are happy with the timetable you have worked out you can email it to them on the spot.

6. This is then available for them to print on their home printer.

7. I usually give out paper copies of the timetable to those who need to know how the day will unfold on the day. We are all on the same page so to speak.

8. As a bonus even if I lose the piece of paper on the day of the wedding I still have the schedule or timetable on my phone and so does anyone who they have forwarded it to.
Notes on the iphone and laptop and I presume ipad(I don't have one) all sync with each other.

The Wedding Photography "Reccy"

Note these grass seeds were here during my reccy a week before the wedding  and the father of the bride was going to cut them down so the place looked neater.I convinced  him otherwise

Sometimes in Wedding Photography it is a good idea to do a "reccy"  trip, ie a visit to the wedding location sites on a date before the wedding.
This may be in a country area not too far way geographically or even locally.

Some of the reasons to do this:

1. You want to go the second mile on this wedding and leave no stone unturned to nail it.

2. Your unfamiliarity with the location and wanting to search out the best spots for photos.

3. Check where the lighting will be while doing your shoot. This means doing the reccy as close as possible to the due date of the wedding and visiting each shoot location at approx the same time as your planned wedding timetable.

4.It will really impress your customers if they know you are taking that much care about your wedding and it is a professional thing to do.

5. You can test your timetable that  you have organised to find places that might be hard to locate.

6.You may make contacts that are useful for future reference eg. the Function Manager of the reception Centre. You could negotiate  some shots for their publicity of your wedding in their venue. This can also be used for your Marketing.

7. It may be a physical and financial impossibility to do this on all weddings and I never have, but some Photographers who charge top prices use this as a marketing tool.
When I have done so it has been extremely useful.
If you are an experienced photographer you should still be able to deliver a great product without the reccy.

8. On some occasions I have gone with the couple to a location where they want their photos before the wedding day and taken some casual relaxed "love story" shots.

9. I take extensive photos on these location trips and even have taken photos of country road intersections and turn off's where one could get lost without prior knowledge.

10. GPS is now great for assisting navigation on photo shoots and weddings but I would not rely on it entirely.

Above  are some examples of photos taken on the day of the wedding that I had checked out on a reccy.

I had even used the Father of the Bride as a substitute model on the reccy vist to his farm where these shots were taken. I have not enclosed the shots of him to save his possible embarrassment but it worked a treat.
Above are  some of  the resultant shots which I had planned on the reccy.

I have been today for another reccy for an approaching wedding.

Now that I am "retired" it was a good excuse to take my mum for a visit to the countryside .

I'll show you some results from that wedding in a few weeks time.

Mum kept the tourist industry viable by "shopping" as we went.

See also my post on 7/7/11 " All I know about Wedding Photography: know your enemy and your weapons." and "A Wedding Photography Time Table" 4/7/11.

Note there are now 18 posts on this blog on training in wedding photography.

Photographing Food

I was recently asked to help a friend with some food photography for her catering business.
She was catering for a large all day function and wanted to get some shots for her website that her husband was putting together for her.
Here are a few shots from the shoot and some others.
Over the years I have done some food photography and it really is quite easy for a photographer.
The art is in the different angles,the colour,the simplicity of presentation,the ability to show of something that will make your mouth water.
You will notice that if you look at cooking book photography there is a lot of each picture that is not in focus.
With food if you were doing it for a top shelf cooking book you would have a food stylist and all the food in it's raw state would be hand selected from markets.
If you are a wedding photographer sometimes you will be requested to concentrate on the food dishes as quite often young couples are foodies.
So weddings are a good place to learn food photography or practice it even if you are a guest.
If you are at a restaurant and you love the presentation before you photograph it with your iPhone or compact digital camera.
If you have a chef or keen amateur cook in the family it would be a good exercise to have them prepare some food so you can do a portfolio. One of mys sons is an experienced chef and now sells real estate.
For a while on his advertising leaflets he promoted some of his favourite recipes.
That was a fun thing to do and the leaflets with recipes were popular.
With the ability to print photo books these days it would not be hard to produce your own recipe book.

A Church catered Wedding Breakfast

Starters at  Kangaroo island

fruit is always colourful

From recent shoot

Using a Step Ladder in Wedding Photography

This was the scene I saw from the above location

Over the years I have used a small stepladder and sometimes one a little bigger for use in weddings and other photography.

The ladders are lightweight aluminium ones.

They have uses in weddings for the following situations.

1. You need a bit of a higher viewpoint to capture a large group shot.

2. You want a different and higher view point particularly with taller couples.
   
 In a recent wedding, some of which results I hope to post up soon, there was a   
     lake and to shoot at ground level I would have had little of the lake in the   
     background.(see post on 9/12/11 re Barossa Valley Wedding)
By using my small stepladder I was able to create beautiful couple
     and group shots with water a feature of the background.

The couple are still on their honeymoon so I will not post any photos without them seeing them first.

3. You may be doing photos of sportsman best and fairest winners at your local sports ground.
In the background you may have ugly fencing or be surrounded by houses and buildings.
By climbing your ladder, and having your subject somewhere on the grassy playing field,  you can create a background of just grass all around your subject.


Similarly in weddings I always look for balconies in Churches to give a higher viewpoint.
I never use a ladder in a church and only use the balcony for part of the shoot.


If you don't have a ladder a chair can suffice but you will feel much more stable on a ladder.

The downside is you can look like a goose on your ladder but as far as I am concerned I don't care if it gets me the shot.
It is certainly a good way of getting attention when doing your large group shot.
Be careful on your ladder.

I often get my assistant(my wife) to hold the ladder if the ground is a little soft or uneven.

Of course now with cameras such as the Canon600D you have a flip out swivelling screen which can now be held above your head to give you some elevation for your shots.

I was once setting up a large group shot at the front of the Church and my best vantage point was underneath a gum tree.
I was using my taller stepladder.

In my eagerness to get the shot after setting it up, I scampered up the ladder and banged my head on a lower branch.

I made light of it and pretended to the group I did that to make them laugh.

However I had a bleeding head and a headache the rest of the afternoon after the bleeding stopped.
Fortunately I was not that injured that I couldn't carry on.
I usually tell  the couple at the preliminary planning meeting that I might bring a ladder so that they know what to expect.

NB. My photography career may never have started in my eagerness to get a shot.
On holiday in Tasmania in 1973 with my wife and our friends Anne and Dave, I stood on a log above a 150 foot drop to get a good shot.
Try standing still with your eyes shut and you will see how quickly you can lose your sense of balance.
When you hold a camera to your eye you are almost in effect doing the same thing.
I lost balance, the log was on an elevated car park with a view and put there as a barrier for cars.
There was a space of about 15inches on the drop side of the log.
I lost balance, and pitched forward towards the drop.
My foot landed just on the edge of the drop and my momentum would have carried me over but my wife who had already told me off for getting on the log in the first place managed to grab hold of my camera strap and check my fall.
So be careful.

Without using the ladder I would not be able to show the water in the background.

I take no responsibility for anyone standing on a chair or ladder to get a photograph injuring themselves.

How to stand out in a crowd.