Wedding photography 101

A weekend in Sydney in the late afternoon, the guests are waiting for the bride to arrive. The light is harsh and sallow.

I walk three hundred metres from the garden to the awaiting bride. This is not the time to be fussy about the light or meticulous about posing her.  All that's important is her happiness and excitement. Any problems can be dealt with after the event. Indeed, given this is the first encounter between the bride and the photographer on her wedding day, it is vital for the photographer to appear to be confident and any fiddling with camera dials will cause the bride to doubt the photographer, and that look of scepticism could contaminate every subsequent photo.

This is the photo as it was shot.

This is the photo after tweaking it.

Before you take any photos, tell her she looks wonderful - she will, but it's nice and a relief for the bride to hear it from the person who is going to record the event for posterity.

How to photograph a school play

Your child is in the school play, the star performer, but will your photos be stellar? This blog explains how to take great photos without flash.

First of all, you need a DSLR camera, your iphone or point and shoot camera will be too 'noisy' given the poor lighting conditions or it will try to compensate by triggering the flash thus disrupting the performance. Your lens should be able to zoom as much as possible e.g. use a 18-200mm lens rather than a 18-55mm lens. I normally use a 70-200mm lens.

Secondly, you need to change the metering mode of your camera to spot metering. Your camera takes a reading of the ambient light levels in order to calculate exposure but typically in a play, your child is illuminated against a dark background and your camera's light meter is tricked into thinking your child's face is dark so the camera will overexpose the scene and your child's face will be 'burnt out'.

Thirdly, you need to set your camera to manual mode. Then select at least 1/180th second for shutter speed because the actors are typically moving on stage and a shutter speed slower than this will result in blurred faces. Also set the widest aperture your lens offers (e.g. f4 v f22) - you need a wide aperture because the scene is dark and the wider the aperture, the more light will reach your camera's sensor which is necessary to avoid noise. Finally, let the ASA 'float':  I generally find the ASA floats between 2500 ASA and 6400 ASA when I set the shutter speed at 1/250th sec and the aperture at f2.8.

Fourthly, you need to decide if you want more than one actor in the frame and if you do, you need to hold the camera very still, focus on one actor and then without moving the camera, focus on the other actor/actors you want in the frame.  This is because when your aperture is wide open (e.g. f4)  there is a very shallow depth of field so it's unlikely anyone other than the actor you are focussing on will be sharp.

When you get home,  merge the two images into one using a program like Photoshop. The photos below demonstrate the before and after results using this technique.

Photo 1 - the girl is in sharp focus but no one in the background is

Photo 2 - the boy is sharp but the girl is blurred

The merged photo - both actors are in sharp focus

Photo 1 - the boy is in sharp focus but the girl isn't

Photo 2 - the boy is not in focus but the girl is

Merged photos - the boy from photo 1 has been combined with the girl from Photo 2