Choosing the best of the best // NH Wedding Photographer

When I’m taking photos at a wedding sometimes I envision the shot one way inside my head and then when I look at the back of my camera (or “chimp” as we call it. As in “ooo ooo oo, what’d I get, what’d I get?!” Get it? Nerds, all of us!) the shot was just “meh” and I know I could make it better.

So I will move something around, get a different angle, remove a pillow that was casting a pink hue across the subject’s faces, have them turn their head so there isn’t such a harsh shadow etc. and THEN when I have done that I will have a much better picture that I get all giddy inside about.

Take for example the following photos from Lovely Laura + Chris’ wedding this past November. The first one below isn’t bad. It has all of the items I wanted to have in the shot, it’s lit nicely, what I want in focus is in focus and so on. But when I looked at the back of my camera, I wasn’t excited about what I saw and it wasn’t something that I felt would go in an album but I KNEW the bride would like to have all of these items together in a cool image. Here’s that photo:

Since time is of the essence when photographing a wedding, you have to be able to adjust quickly to be sure to grab that A-HA! shot. With this, it was super simple. All I did was the following:

1. I rotated the camera so the shot would now be vertical
2. I stepped back about two steps and then to my left one step
3. Before I was crouching down on my knees and for this one I stood up and just bent at the waist so I could be a little higher
4. I took the shot!

What resulted is MUCH better. The lighting from the window that is just out of frame on the right hand side is now more dramatic and gives more depth to the photo instead of being so even all throughout like it was in the above shot. Plus you get to see her wedding details are sitting on a nice leather chair that was in the bridal suite. Are you surprised that this is the one that her parents printed and the other one was easily forgotten?

Ok, one more. This time I was taking still photos on a set for a film in New Jersey. The purpose of these images was to give the client some photos of what it is like on set since they couldn’t be there. They needed basic photos of the team working, but they also wanted some more artistic shots. So let’s dive in.

With this shot you get a feel for what it looks like behind the scenes. You have the actors in the center along with the director who is going over the script. You also have the director of photography (DP) in the bottom left who is setting up his camera, getting the shot dialed in and ready for when they start to roll. Additionally you can see the other boom mic operators, the set lights that illuminate the shot (that black box at the top of the image) and so on. Good shot, gives you the feel of what’s going on and what it’s like to be working there.

But I wanted to get more of an artistic shot of the behind the scenes. One that would show the actors the client hired as well as the camera operators…but to show it in a cool and different way so I moved myself around and did this:

1. Changed my lens from the 35mm 1.4 to the 70-200mm 2.8 IS. This allowed me to get close visually to the DP without physically being right behind him.
2. This was shot in the basement of a building. In the above photo I’m on the stairs that take bring you down so I am a little higher up. For the following shot, I came down to the ground level.
3. As the DP was getting his camera ready and the actor was preparing to start, I moved my view to have the DP’s arm in the foreground and out of focus and used him to frame the actor’s face and made him nice and sharp.

Guess which one people talked more about when the photos were delivered? That’s right, this one:

Now the second half of this post is more for the clients.

There are also times when the person I am taking a picture of makes a face that…well…their mother’s would tell them to stop doing because their face could stick that way forever if they aren’t careful (and then what?!?!). When that happens, I take the shot again without skipping a beat.

For fear of someone posting a terrible photo of me in retaliation, I won’t be posting a client making a face that is unbecoming of them here. However there has been much debate about certain photos of Beyonce that were taken at the Superbowl this past weekend that her PR team want removed from the Internet (I personally feel Beyonce can alllllmost do no wrong and the photos where she looks “bad” are kinda fierce and awesome BUT I get the concern from her side), I will use those as demonstration.

I feel you, B.

No one likes to have photos out there of themselves that make them want to erase history so that moment is no longer able to be captured. But if you look at the performance as a whole you’ll see that she looked GORGEOUS throughout it! She was/is awesome and it was one of the best halftimes we’ve seen in a while (yes, I am speaking for all of you…let’s not discuss the Janet Jackson mishap, k?), but if you catch someone at juuuuust the right moment, you get things that look like this:

I won’t even get into the fact that she shouldn’t be so harshly judged simply because that isn’t the point of this post, but I think we can all agree that it’s not a great Beyonce shot. However, give her a second and you will get this image instead:

My point is two-fold:

1. This is why most photographers don’t give you all of the shots taken on your wedding day. Some will have better angles that capture the mood better. Maybe they will be crop in closer so that the stranger trying to photo-bomb you during portraits is out of the shot. Or the light is better in one shot when they moved you one step to the left and out of the direct sun.

I’m occasionally asked to send all of the images from wedding, but from here on out maybe I will just reference the beautiful Beyonce up there to illustrate that all shots are not created equal. Trust in your photographer to find the best and present those to you!

2. Your wedding is going to be awesome. Your dress will be great, you will have amazing memories of the day, and you are marrying your love! Don’t worry about the one in a few hundred shots that will have a goofy face. Just relax and have fun and I will do my ninja skills to find those images that will help make your heart skip a beat (in a good way!).

Ok, if you are in New England right now, go hunker down with your candles, flashlights, gas fireplaces and family. There is a storm coming and the weather channel says it is going to get nasty! Till next time!