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Saturday 16 December 2017

The importance of training

Even though I have photographed many wedding and umpteen family shoots I still strongly believe in attending training events at least a couple of times per year. It's good to talk over technique with others and I always learn something that I can apply to my own business.

In early December I attended an evening photo-shoot organised by Phil Punton of Phil Punton Wedding photography, with several other like minded photographers in the really quite lovely St Mary Magdelene church in Medomsley Consett. I was a bit concerned as I left Newcastle in light snow, that I would get stuck in the wilds of county Durham, but it was fine in the end.

Phil had organised a wonderful real-life couple to act as model bride and groom, and also enlisted a church friend to be our vicar.

Here are a few shots from the night



  This was our set up with Phil kindly being the VAL (voice activated light-stand)






We ran through the normal process of a wedding, including an insight into Polish wedding customs from our couple that were a nice touch, as it was evening in December we mixed using an off camera flash with the church lights - the off camera techniques are really only for the post-ceremony shoot with the couple as this would be too disruptive to the service.


This did result in some lovely shots, the one above with the cross was lit with a single light behind the couple and the reflected light from the white dress and veil was picked up by the polished cross, (this was not added in photo-shop)




I also converted a number to black and white images as I liked the look and it helped bring out the details in the dress.

These images were all taken on the night and show the variety that can be achieved - I have a few good ideas to try out on my next few weddings once the 'safe' shots are in the bag. Hope you enjoyed looking and reading.