Teaching and wedding photography don’t mix
Sunday, September 23rd, 2007
I’m two weeks into the PGCE Primary course now, and I’m really enjoying it. But it is a hell of a lot of work, especially when you have over 900 photos to get processed as well. The wedding was on Saturday 15th, and it went really well. One of the best this year in fact. I think the weather had just a little to do with this. Although the others went well, and the couples were pleased with the photos, this was the first wedding since March where the weather has been warm and sunny through the entire day. There is nothing like some natural backlighting to give a little zip to a picture. The reception venue had nice big windows as well, which meant lots of natural light, and thankfully less flash.
Its not that there is anything wrong with using a flash. On a sunny day you need it for fill (and thank you Canon for HSS); in a dark room, you just need it. It is just much easier to get a candid shot of someone when they are not aware that you are taking pictures because they haven’t seen your flash firing. I think its better for the shots during the speeches as well. The people at the front are nervous enough with a powerful flash firing off right in their eyeline. Still, sometimes you have to get the shot and worry about things like that later.
We ended up with 500 shots for the website, which is 200 more than usual. Claire had specifically asked for lots of shots of the flowers, so we included around 50 of those in the final cut (in their own section). I also did a bit of photoshop work, including the shot seen here. I’m not a huge fan of this sort of work; I think it already looks dated, and its a way of hiding bad photography. However, in this case, I’m really pleased with the effect. So much so that I did the same thing to 4 other shots, although none worked as well as this. And just for the record, it was bad photography. The flash hadn’t recycled when I took the shot, leaving them in darkness and the background blown. I didn’t need to include the photo, as I had 3 similar shots which worked well, but somehow the highlight on the flowers spoke to me so I thought I’d have a play. A happy accident.