What Is Wedding Photography?
Wedding Photography is the specialism of photographing weddings. A wedding photographer is usually commissioned by the couple getting married to record the day of the wedding. This includes preparations for the ceremony, the arrival of the couple and guests at the ceremony, the wedding ceremony itself and the post-ceremony celebrations. Wedding Photography can also include pre-wedding engagement shoots.
Hi, everybody. Welcome to Episode 36 of the Photography Explained Podcast. In this episode, what is wedding photography?
I'm your host, Rick, and each week I will try to explain one photographic thing to you in plain English in less than 10 minutes without the irrelevant details. My aim is to explain things in just enough detail to help you and me with our photography, and no more.
I'm a professionally qualified photographer based in England with a lifetime of photographic experience, which I share with you on my podcast.
But I'm not a wedding photographer, which will become clear.
You can listen to the episode here
Or you can read on - it’s entirely up you!
As I sit here, I find it amusing that I was talking about construction photography last episode, and I never ever thought that I would be talking about wedding photography, but it's a major type of photography from which people can make a very good living.
Going through my 10 bullet points.
1 Do I do wedding photography?
No, I do not.
2 Why do I not do wedding photography?
I photograph buildings. That's what I do. That's my specialism. Buildings don't move. They don't answer back. They don't get emotional. They don't cry. They don't throw flowers in the air. They don't have small children around either.
Nothing against small children by the way. I photograph buildings and am quite happy with that.
3 Have I ever photographed a wedding?
Yes, I have, once. And it was a mates wedding a few years ago. And to be honest with you, it went absolutely fine. It was hard work, quite stressful, quite tiring.
But I came away quite happy with the results, with the photos, everything went fine. I didn't miss anything, nothing went wrong.
So why don't I do weddings?
Because I don't really want to. I think I've got this irrational fear of them, of missing that critical, once-in-a-lifetime moment, which is a bit strange, really considering every shoot I do is the completion of a building which only happens once but hey, whoa, that's my irrational fear.
And you can't take it away from me.
4 Can you make a living from wedding photography?
Yes, you can. And lots of people do. Now I'm talking about wedding photography. But I know I'm not the best person to do so but I do know quite a bit about it, so I'm going to give you a bit of inside info from my years in the professional photography market and circuits.
Yes, you can make a very good living from wedding photography.
You've got to be good at it. Obviously, I shall come on to that.
So yes, a living can be made.
5 Do you need specialist knowledge?
Now there are a few points here that I really want to talk about in detail, not too much depth because as hopefully you know by now, I don't do that. Do you need specialist knowledge?
You have to have your image capture nailed 100% the first time, and every time - without exception. You cannot afford to miss certain things like you know, the exchange of rings at the ceremony, the bride walking down the aisle, the groom walking down the aisle.
Well anybody walking down the aisle!
All these once-in-a-lifetime things - you have to capture them all. You’ve got to nail them all spot on, technically perfect. Well technically correct, focus on the right place.
It's all there. It's happening all day long. And that's why I'm not a big fan. Yep. Photographing a building. You got to get it done on the day, but at least it's not moving or talking.
I'm not a wedding photographer.
I have nothing but admiration for people who make a living from photographing weddings. I think you're very brave. I think you're very skilful and I am quite envious of you.
What I do want to say though is that there is another aspect of being a wedding photographer that you certainly need.
And that's the one that doesn't get spoken about that much – it is the softer one, people skills. Now you have got a lot of people to manage on the day of a wedding. I found from my one experience that I ended up directing the day pretty much, which I didn't know I was gonna be doing at the start. But to get the photos you need, you're probably going to have to take control of the situation.
And you also need some well-informed help.
You need to be able to manage a bride and groom on one of the most stressful but also hopefully most enjoyable days of their lives. But all the family, friends, staff, caterers, drivers, florists, cake person, you name it, everybody needs managing, because you have got to get their photos. And that's probably going from early in the morning to late in the evening.
Hard work, but well paid, and quite rightly.
A great tip. Get someone to help you, if you get the best man/ woman/ person or guest who knows everyone they can help you. You need people on the inside who know people who can help you.
6 Do you need specialist gear?
You need professional quality everything, you need a professional quality camera, you need a professional quality lens of the right focal length, I'd probably go for a 24-105mm lens on a full-frame camera for a wedding which will cover most things. And a 70-200m mm lens for candid and longer shots.
You also need another one of each of these things, you need a spare everything because like I say, if your gear fails, you need another one. You have to have two of everything that you might need.
And another thing that rules me out of having a successful career as a fantastic wedding photographer is you need to be good with additional lighting. This is not my strong suit. I've evolved my technique over many, many years, which means I do not need additional lighting.
Natural light does me
Some people say it's a cop-out saying I'm a natural light photographer. But when I'm photographing buildings, it's hard to light them in the time I have - I get two-three hours to photograph an entire building. I don't, unfortunately, have the time to get lights everywhere. I'd love to spend a couple of days photographing a building, but the budgets just don't allow for it.
So yeah, I'm putting it out there - I'm a natural light photographer. Shoot me down if you want.
So you need to be able to do that because you got indoor conditions, and you need to get people's faces. And everything else of course.
7 How do you process wedding photos?
Well, in my case, it was slow with a little bit of fear in Lightroom when I got there, I'm not the quickest at processing. But then again on an architectural shoot, I'm not taking that many photos - I've not got hundreds and hundreds of photos to do which is another reason I like what I do.
Your photos need to be realistic and also sympathetic. When I say sympathetic, I mean you don't over-sharpen a photo of a bride. You soften it down. You might do for the craggy groom?
Excuse all the traditional stereotypes here, but I think they still apply.
You don't over-sharpen people.
Things have got to be correct but sympathetic. And you have to get colours absolutely bang on, which is always a challenge at a wedding because you're going from one room to another to another to outdoors. It's variable lighting. All sounds rather complicated, doesn't it?
8 How do you start as a wedding photographer?
Don't know. Just kidding.
Find a wedding photographer near you. Ask them if you can be their assistant. Get experience from somebody who's doing it day in and day out, and you will soon find out if you want to do this or not. If you don't want to do it, you've learned something, and it hasn't cost anybody their precious images.
If you do like it, then you have got some great experience and you can carry on helping that person while you develop your own portfolio.
9 Do I need to be qualified?
Do you have to be qualified to be a wedding photographer? No, you don't?
Is it a good thing to have a qualification in photography? I believe it is - I'm a fan of professional qualifications. But no, you don't need to, but some people might ask for them. Some people might prefer to have a professionally qualified photographer – it’s down to the client.
10 Check out my website for more
Oh, no, no, don't bother. There's nothing there. There are no people. There are a couple of people in quarries wearing high vis and hard hats but that doesn't really help. That's as far as my portrait work goes.
Quick recap
Wedding photography is a specialism within photography undertaken by brave people who can't have any fear and have to be technically brilliant and amazing people.
Okay, right. I've got to 10 minutes. That's a surprise for me to talk about weddings!
What do I want you to do now? Do this one thing.
1 If you want to be a wedding photographer.
Contact one wedding photographer and ask if you can assist them in a future wedding.
2 Let me know how you got on
3 Subscribe to my podcast
If you enjoyed this episode. This helps me and don't forget I won't speak about wedding photography again. So if you didn't enjoy this, you don't need to go through this again, I promise.
4 Rate and review my podcast.
Again if you enjoyed this episode, this also helps me.
5 – Tell someone you know about my podcast.
This also helps me as well. I need all the help I can get as I keep on saying.
Okay, nearly there - next episode.
I’m going to go back to something I know a bit better that I don't really need to prepare for which is nice because I'm a little bit busy at the moment still sorting out the website. What Is Landscape Photography? Landscape photography - love it.
Thank you
Thank you for listening to my small but perfectly formed podcast.
A quick plug for me and what I do.
Well, why not? If I can't plug myself on my podcast, where can I?
You have found this podcast, so why not check out my splendid website, where I write blog posts about my photographs of buildings and other good stuff. On my courses page, you will find my course, How to Become A Real Estate Photographer.
You can also find me on YouTube talking about my podcast and my blog - just click here to get straight to my channel.
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This episode was brought to you very much by Alta Rica and semi-skimmed milk (now I'm off that dairy-free thing, which was a horrendous nightmare, which you don't need to know about).
I've been Rick McEvoy. Thanks again for listening to me and for giving me 12 minutes of your valuable time. I'll see you in the next episode.
Cheers from me Rick