Wedding Shoot followup

I went and saw the photos from the wedding shoot on Friday, and I was pretty blown away - they were fantastic. Ben was entering one into a competition; the groom was looking out of a window, down to the bride below; the wall was covered in ivy leaves which had turned an autumn red.

Ben had a total of about 1200 keepers, and out of mine there were 200. Not bad for a first effort I reckon. Obviously most of my photos were "his" setups, but I was just happy that technically there were some good ones in there.

I almost helped with another wedding last Saturday, but was meeting my potential first wedding clients, and was feeling a bit off too. Sunday was sick all day in bed with a stomach bug... hopped on a plane at 7:30am the next morning and helped Belinda all day on a shoot in Sydney for an accounting firm. Was pretty hard work (especially trying to engage accountants all day), and was a pity I was under the weather, but a good learning experience none-the-less.

Wedding Shoot

Just finished assisting at a Wedding. 11:30am to 6pm non-stop. Even got a sore arm and finger from taking so many photos and blurry vision from peering through the viewfinder for so long.

Anyway, was an awesome experience. Ben (from Fusion Photography) is a great guy. He certainly knows his stuff... has heaps of gear and gave me pretty much a free reign to photograph anything I wanted (as long as I didn't get in his way). I went through two and a half 8GB cards... probably around 750 photos. Ben was changing cards what seemed like every few mintutes... he's pretty click happy! :)

A few things to remember:

• Tell people what to do, pretty much all the time
• Take many, many photos especially when in dim light with a slow shutter speed
• Have a lot of ideas of where to put people or the actions they should take
• Take detailed pictures of invitations, decorations, dresses, shoes, etc.
• Take photo of the dress hanging up, and shoes before they're put on.
• Take photos of the family dog :)
• Find a good room for the bride to get dressed in
• Show people how to stand/walk, loosen them up a bit
• Tell MC to mention the photos of the table as the last bit of "housekeeping"
• Get a flash that refreshes quickly...
• 17-50mm f/2.8 lens worked well, but need a longer lens occasionally
• Have plenty of (fast) memory cards
  

Too tired to write any more now; going to sleep well tonight!

Bombed

I bombed my first portfolio comp :(

The photos I displayed were the worst set in the room. And I didn't need the judge to tell me that (but glad he was honest)! The competition was extremely tough, and the winners and highly commended were very deserving. The quality was outstanding - the photos I submitted were clearly not up to the standard.

But...

I learned a lot. Saw some great photos. Had some good chats. And am now more determined.

Some lessons were:

• Matting is very important. Each set (except mine) were very well matted. The mats were matching, and generally enhanced the images. I need to work more on this aspect...
• Although the competition is called "portfolio", it should have been called "theme". The photos weren't judged individually, but were judged as a set. I was aware that there should have been some overall theme, but didn't just realise how well each photo had to fit the theme.
  
• Only strong photos - never put a mediocre image in a portfolio. Each photo has to be amazing.
  
• The competition is fierce - to have any chance of winning the portfolio has to be awesome.
  
• Go big. Big photos do well.

My "beach" theme had various pictures of different styles, different matting, one monochrome, six colour, one portrait, a couple of macros, and a landscape. Next time I'll do better :)