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Wedding Photography - Portraiture under adverse conditions

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Personality – are you suited?

Psychological profiling ahead of making a decision to embark on a wedding photography career would be both ideal and expensive. It would not guarantee compatibility with the profession either. However, here are some personality traits that should be high on a list that describes you

1. Confident before a crowd of people.

2. Adaptable in the face of the unexpected.

3. Unfazed by outbursts of the unusual or unexpected.

4. Calm in a crisis.

5. Patient with people who are nervous and irrational.

6. Persuasive in your ability to bring people round to your way of doing something.

7. Able to communicate quickly and accurately with a group.

8. Methodical and diligent with bookkeeping, note taking and organising your diary.

9. Punctual by nature.

10. Confident and persuasive on the telephone.

11. Likeable and gregarious.

12. Fit, healthy and able to stand extremes of weather, hot or cold, wet or dry.

13. Able and willing to dress-up for an occasion.

14. Photographically and artistically competent (brilliance is only needed if you aspire to being the best in the world/ country/county).

15. Confident about your own ability and worth (should expand with experience).

16. Personable, even with people you dislike – you have no choice over the guests you are asked to photograph even if you like your bride and groom.

17. Invisible when the occasion demands, nobody should even notice you shooting candids and informals.

18. Diplomatic – make it look like an everyday occurrence that a pregnant bride has a father, step-father along with the mother’s live-in lover.

The chances of a photographer this side of canonisation to sainthood having all of the above are slim, however, you will occasionally need the skills of a Relate counsellor to persuade an estranged mother and father to stand either side of a bride!

Technical Stuff

We do not propose to deal with the technical stuff of weddings such as choice of cameras, lenses and flash systems, this is covered regularly in this magazine. It is vital, however, that you have a command of your camera that is absolute. One of the worse things that can happen is for you to lock out a feature of your camera at a vital moment and not know how to retrieve the situation. You must, therefore, know what every single button and menu on your camera does before you step out of your car at a wedding; if you don’t you will surely be found out eventually. The only other piece of technical advice worth dispensing is that you should have back-up equipment; a single camera is criminally deficient!

You are going to need an efficient workflow regardless of your chosen style of photography and we review Tom Lee’s new book below.

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Photo Quote: Many pictures turn out to be limp translations of the known world instead of vital objects which create an intrinsic world of their own. There is a vast difference between taking a picture and making a photograph. -Robert Heinecken