Professional Photographer

July 11, 2009

Wedding Photography Tips

A co-worker has asked you to take pictures at her wedding, and you want to do the best job possible. They may have decided not to hire a professional photographer and instead are relying on you to take pictures for them.

You feel the pressure, and want to make sure you don’t mess up. Here are some hints and tips from Jim Whitesell, a Edmonton wedding photographer:

1. Use the best equipment possible

A small point-and-shoot camera is fine for capturing family memories, but doesn’t do as well as a digital SLR with an external flash. The focus time, shutter delay, and limited reach of the small built-in flash will all cause problems for you. If you do not own or have access to a digital SLR camera and external flash, you can probably rent them from a camera store. Be sure to test and practice with the camera before the wedding day! A professional will likely have multiple lenses as well, but this is often beyond the ability of a casual shooter.

2. Take at least two memory cards

Although it doesn’t happen often, memory cards can fail. Keeping an extra card with you is cheap insurance that will keep you shooting if your card does quit working. Be sure the cards are of ample size so you don’t run out of space half-way through the night. 4GB is the minimum size you should have with you.

3. Batteries, batteries, batteries

Be sure to charge the camera batteries the night before, and preferably have a second battery charged and ready. Most external flash units use AA batteries so have a couple extra sets of these, too.

4. Attend the rehearsal

Taking pictures at the rehearsal is the best way to be prepared for the pictures you’ll take at the actual ceremony. You’ll have a feel for where to position yourself for the best shots. While a professional wedding photographer won’t usually shoot at the rehearsal, they will often show up to not only reassure the bride and groom that they are prepared for the next day but also to scope out the building. Their experience will enable them to know where the best shots are just by seeing the facility.

5. Posing the bridal party

When taking formal pictures of the bridal party, pay attention to the details. Make sure everyone’s face is visible, and note the placement of hands and feet. Pleasing poses are important.

6. Shooting the ceremony

If the wedding will take place inside a church, you’ll need to shoot without flash. Use a tripod to hold the camera steady or camera shake caused by longer exposure times will likely ruin the pictures.

7. Shooting the reception

If possible, try to get a shot or two of the reception hall before everyone arrives. Takes some shots of other details, too – like the head table decorations, cake, etc. Once things are underway, it’s always nice to go table-to-table and get pictures of all the guests.

8. Shoot the details

Take pictures of the little details. The rings, bridal bouquet, ring bearer, flower girl, bride’s shoes, etc. are all great details to capture and the bride will be quite pleased to have these.

9. Capture the fun

There are always fun, unplanned moments that make each wedding unique and memorable. Always have your camera ready to capture the moment!

10. Back up the photos

As soon as possible after the wedding, burn all the original images to a CD or DVD for safekeeping. Do this before you make any changes to them. If you accidentally delete an important picture or have a computer failure you’ll still have the originals to fall back on. Even a professional low cost wedding photographer will make backups.

You have been given a very important task. The pictures are the best way to remember the wedding and all the fun details. While a professional wedding photographer will do a better job, those on a budget may not have the ability to hire one.

If you aren’t up to the task, why not offer to pay for all or part of a professional photographer’s fee as your gift to the bride and groom? And if you just happen to be near Edmonton, Alberta, I highly recommend you check out Jim Whitesell’s website for Edmonton wedding pictures.

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June 1, 2009

Virgin Shoot for Glamour Photography

Well if I had a penny for every offer to hold my camera bag, reflector or tripod, I wouldn’t be writing this article.

As a developing semi professional photographer over the last 2 years the author had worked in marketing for 16 years now. Producing everything from brochures, to web sites, to videos and conferences.

The corporate straight jacket required an escapologist manoeuvre if some sanity was to be retained. So, the passion for photography, which had always been there, brought the author from buying in professionals, to retraining as one.

In photographing various subjects, seeing what appealed and looking for a style of my own – which is still being sort, I did think that glamour photography might appeal as an extension to my love of fashion, so with an open mind I gave it a go. But how do you approach photographing glamour models? Well this is where all the hormones has to be left firmly outside of the studio, else that’s where you’ll be very quickly. I attended a small workshop style shoot with 3 other photographers at Blue Moon studios on Dudley, West Midlands. I’ll admit that I was a little nervous of what they day might bring.

We had plenty of options to work with. The studio offered a wide range of photography services meaning it had various themed areas or “sets” and of course provided a professional model. Blue louvered blinds gave scope for a more creative lighting set up as well.

The day was a greater challenge than I imagined – I found my creativity drying up and was struggling to come up with concepts that worked. I prefer much more subtle and low key lighting effects than the modern “all white” look. Less was certainly more – but not when it came to clothes, the shots I felt worked better with a hint of what you couldn’t see. You certainly have to be clear in your mind as to what you want and how to instruct models. It’s hard not to be put off at the end of a sequence of images when your model comes running over to pinch the camera off you and check the shots on the back in her birthday suit.

It’s good to work to a theme and to build a set a group of shots that tell a story or show a sequence. Also shots that show the process of an action rather than just the end result – it makes for more feeling and adds anticipation. Personally I like to try and get a bit of attitude from the girl into the shots – something that shows their personality.

As for tools, there was the trusty Nikon DSLR mainly used with an 18-70mm lens. Also some shots were taken from the mezzanine of one of the sets using a 70-200mm f2.8 to give a different perspective. Studio flash was one or two Bowens Esprit 500w flash heads with radio triggers and soft boxes. The lighting was kept at a low level – firstly in relation to the model and secondly in terms of power, so that the mood ambiance was conveyed in the pictures. Most of these shots were taken using one flash head, soft box and all the windows darkened using the blinds, this being the preferred set up for the professional photographer. Strobe head power was set to one quarter for starters then reduced to suit.

As for camera body settings I rely on my favourite starting position – 160 sec and f8 – camera on Manual. Then the rest is done by eye and a quick check of the histogram. With low key lighting and the model wearing partly black and seated on a black sofa I expected the histogram to be skewed to the left.

I was looking for something alternative to the typical cliche topless shots and eventually found the great contrast in black and colour with low key lighting.

The only variation to this was the portrait shot with the models hair over one eye, I absolutely love this shot, which is now on my web site and was cropped out of a wider three quarter shot.

All in all a good day and a great experience, on reflection it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. So would I do it again? Yes it’s a challenging area to work in and a great test of your creativity.

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March 9, 2009

Why you should UseWeb Design

Web design is an important visual aspect of this, but what good is a spinning logo if no one can find the information or product they are viewing for? Web design is not book design, it is not poster design, it is not illustration, and the highest achievements of those disciplines are not what web design aims for. Although websites can be delivery systems for games and videos, and although those delivery systems can be great to look at, such sites are exemplars of game design and video storytelling, not of web design. Web Design Schools Guide is your home for finding the best web design schools and web design program for your needs. We maintain one of the most extensive sets of reviews of web design degree programs and online web design schools as well as a regularly updated web design school ranking.

Web design is normally the first stage of a project. At this point, the project is not a web site at all, but layers of pixels within a graphics package. Web designers CT for real estate advertising online dental practice sites re-designs. Web design companies will be able to handle images, their size and placement.

Flash should not be used to jazz up a page. If your content is boring, rewrite text to make it more interesting and hire a professional photographer to shoot better pictures. Flash is not a standard produced by a vendor-neutral standards organization like most of the core protocols and formats on the Internet. Flash is much more self-contained than the open HTML format as it does not integrate with web browser UI features.

Search engines cannot read flash. They cannot read javascript, or images. Search Engines use extremely complicated algorithms to calculate their interpretation of the suitability of web pages to display when a search is requested. These algorithms are not known to anyone outside of the Search Engine’s highest echelons and cannot accurately be predicted or foreseen, as they are also regularly changed or adjusted.

HTML web design needs to factor both different resolution sizes and browser types, as different web browsers interpret HTML and CSS differently. For example, Firefox and Internet Explorer do not agree on the size of a pixel. HTML web design templates’ sole drawback is their modification can be rather complicated for normal users. A great site can be accomplished using web templates, and free downloads are available on the web.

 

 

 

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