A wedding is a perfect place to experiment with your photographic skills! Where else would you find a large group of people who are all dressed to their best, where you probably know a lot of them so they can’t refuse being captured and where you find opportunities for taking both group photos as well as portrait shots.
Here are some simple tips that will allow you to take stunning photos at weddings:
1. Shoot the Bride!
The easiest way to take a great photo is to capture the most well dressed person in the gathering – who else but the bride. This is the most special time in her life and you will never get another opportunity to capture an entire spectrum of emotions as she goes through the ceremony.
When shooting the bride, make sure that there are no stalkers ( people lurking in the background ) in the photo. The most beautiful shots of the bride you will ever get will be portrait photos, so try your best to be around when the bride is not surrounded by other people.
Compose your shots to get a mix of photos directly from the front, photos from the side and photos from a slight angle. Make sure that you do all this without distracting the bride otherwise you will lose out on the sweet expressions and candid photos.
- Bride in a jolly mood by Rodentruskel
2. Involve friends and relatives
Weddings are memorable because all the friends and relatives are around and great group photos can freeze these memories for a lifetime!
Walk around the wedding hall and find people who are standing in groups – just walk up to them and ask them to pose for a photo. More often than not, they will strike a special pose for you or do something mischievous that will make the photo special. Make sure that you take 2-3 shots of each photo and use flash for at least one of these – most photos taken in this setting go bad because of motion blur caused by low light.
- Wedding group photo by Melanieavita
The perfect time to take group photos with the bride is after everyone has met her and the groom. Get a couple of close friends to stand around them and pose for the photos. One way to ensure that the photo comes out sharp and professional is to focus on the eyes of people in front row, while taking a large group photo with many rows of people. You can also make them all close their eyes and at a count of 3, open their eyes and smile. This brings a glow like effect on all their faces.
3. Small things make a big difference!
A wedding is all about rituals and photos can be used to capture and present them in a very dramatic manner. Small things like the wedding ring, the bride and groom holding their hands, the wedding cake, the mehandi on the bride’s hand are all representations of the ritual and can be used very creatively for photos.
We’ll leave you with some shots of these to spur your imagination.
- Flowers in a bride's hand by Melanieavita
- Coorg Wedding by Anita Bora
- Wedding cake by Phillip Guyton
4. Always Shoot Twice
And the final bit of advice – always shoot twice. You never know when people moving around causes your photo to blur or when a lovely photo that you took ends up with people having their eyes closed. Keep a spare memory card around if you are worried about running out of space, but that is certainly worth it when you don’t want to miss out on any beautiful moment.
Most of these tips are also applicable to other group events, so do try these and let us know how they worked for you!
#5: Make sure to get pictures of mom and dad!
Also, I can agree with your “shoot twice” advice, but also it’s important not to overshoot out of a lack of confidence, composition, and lighting. You’ll spend hours more in post-production deciding which image to use!
@Leeann – Hey, thanks for suggesting the #5. I’ll add it to the list
Regarding the “shoot twice” advice, I partly agree with you because we presented it in a more simplistic manner here for the benefit of amateur photographers. However, from my personal experience, there are lots of zones in the marriage area that are dimly lit and even with all the confidence, I make it a point to shoot twice in dimly lit areas simply because its hard to detect if the photo got blurred on the LCD screen of the camera.
I think as you take more photos, you get to know yourself and the equipment better and naturally tend towards building your own rules that make it more efficient for you!