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Still catching up. Chia Wu from the Fink lab collaborated with me to cover this event, held on a harbor cruise vessel in New York.
This is the first full wedding I've covered, and it was both rewarding and educational. Rewarding because I got to see my friend David Shechner get married, and because it was a really fun wedding to attend. Formally I was also invited to the wedding celebration as a guest (Calvin's +1, to be exact). From an educational standpoint, here are a couple things:
1. Everything is a subject. It's tempting to just follow the couple with the lens. This is totally appropriate when there's action going on, but (a) the couple wants to see photos of friends/family/flowers too, and (b) the other stuff is both interesting and important to keep the flow of the story, particularly when thinking about slideshows and other presentation formats. For instance, two of my favorite photos from teh Shechner wedding are his sister with her camera, and one of his friends sleeping through the ceremony (due to the previous night's devastation). Obviously this works better when there is a second shooter. However, I personally need to
1b. Stop shooting things and shoot people. Trouble is that at a wedding reception people spend a lot of time eating, and none of those images ever come out flattering to the subject. I'm also biased by my humble beginnings shooting insects. But people expect people to be in their photos.
2. Stay on target... stay on target.... Something always happens when I'm looking at the LCD or switching lenses. Which brings me to point 3,
3. Two cameras are better than one. This is something that really worked well when I was shooting Gaurav's engagement, because I could go ultrawide one moment, let the camera rest, and switch immediately to a long lens. I was using Gaurav's own Nikon D40, with a 70-200 lens. Which brings me to point 4,
4. Know your gear, and don't use other people's stuff unless you know it well. It turns out that Nikon's exposure compensation indicator is opposite to Canon, resulting in nearly all shots on that platform 1/3 stop underexposed. Which brings me to point 5,
5. Check the LCD. Which sounds contrary to point 2, except that once in a while I need to check that things are going ok. I usually keep my eye glued to the viewfinder, and I don't check very often, for the reasons listed in 2, but it has to be balanced with making sure shots are being obtained. For instance, checking the histogram during the action might have allowed me to realize that the nikon shots were underexposed.
6. Noise Ninja. Noise handling on the xt platform is not very good, and most people look better without speckles on their faces. There are film shooters who will argue that a little grain makes the photo magical, and in some contexts or shooting styles that's probably true. In my world, I think the young non-artsy couples are accustomed to seeing smooth, low-noise digital images, and don't have the same nostalgia for the look of film.
7. Ultrawide is great. For party/dance shots, ultrawide angles are excellent because of the sense of depth and context. Also the distortions caused by wider lenses are more acceptable here, because they will also exaggerate motions or poses. It also makes the image feel like it's in the moment. Nevertheless,
8. I like long better. I've always really liked long lenses, both for the bokeh and for the lack of distortion. One problem is that you always feel like the image has stolen a moment from the subject, but in sentimental settings sometimes that lends a sense of decorum to the shot. For parties and children, it's vaguely creepy.
9. Brand is important. Actually this is why I put in a week or two of effort to put this site together. When you've spent a lot of time shooting and processing somebody's event, outsourcing the presentation to Shutterfly is profoundly dissatisfying. It also lends an air of professionalism to the whole effort.
More lessons learned will come from the Fabrikant wedding, which had a number of issues which were instructional.
