In 2011 I have also gathered a great bunch of friends in the wedding photography industry, having photographed as a second shooter for a handful of great operators, met up with some awesome people at our group meets and shared and received some advice on all things photographic and business. This year will see my first proper venture into fashion (i’ll tell you more about it in a coming post) as well as some weddings in gorgeous locations. This year will also focus on getting me more industry training, some website massaging including a new gallery system, an improved contact page as well a products section and maybe some new and exciting printed products being added to the already fantastic range I offer.

 What I want to share with you today is my 40 favourite images of 2011 that I hand picked myself for no particular reason other than I just liked them. Each one has its own story to tell so I won’t bore you with caption after caption; they all were picked, not to sum up my portfolio or to show you my best work, just to show you the amazing moments I froze in time with the press of a button. These photographs show me either an unrepeatable slice of time that got unnoticed by 99% of the people at the wedding, they show some very emotive moments that were captured and remind the couple of the feelings they felt when they get the pictures, photos I may have captured by pure fluke or by chance, photos that pushed my creativity, photos that may have taken a long time to setup or the light was just perfect and it was the star of the show.

I also chose some photographs that I remember I was having a great time myself, either by laughing my butt off when the boys were running amuck during their shoot or when the moment was so perfect I fired off so many frames my camera’s buffer filled up before the memory card could write them. Luckily I don’t use film anymore!

Keep an eye out for long overdue blog post for last few weddings of the last quarter of 2011, I just have been so busy and I have put my client’s product delivery first. Also a big thanks to my previous clients and the Flickr group for your support, it means a lot. Now off to do the last adjustments of the last wedding of the year so I have a clean slate for 2012!

Today I wanted to take a look back at an image I took at my last wedding (it feels like a long time ago now), at Bianca and Travis,’ Kangaroo Ground, Victoria. I have posted a black and white version before, but I prefer the colour version shown here.

I always look forward to photographing the rings, it is always a challenge to make each one look different, so it really tests out my vision and creativity. The concept for this shot is simple, but it is a somewhat difficult approach, so for the people reading this for technique advice, this one’s for you.

The rings were held in a small felt container, but I thought for a greater intimacy I had the Best Man hold them in the palm of his hand. The light outdoors was a harsh high noon sun, but we had a slightly shaded garden feature in the park across the road from the house the boys were getting ready at. Through the foilage was filtered sunlight which I used to light the rings to really set them off in the photograph. Having the hand in the lower part of the frame gave me the leading lines from all directions (the fingers, thumb and the jacket), combined with the hot spot of light it gave the rings immediate attention in the composition.

I knew in my head I needed a large aperture to throw the background out of focus, so i had a 50mm f1.4 prime lens mounted on the camera and shot it nearly fully wide open at f1.8. The way I approach all photographs I make is I decide on an aperture setting in my head before I even put the camera up to my eye. With experience you will get to know how your lenses behave  at different focal lengths and apertures. By deciding on an aperture first I am making the creative decision to shoot wide open (shallow depth of field/focus) or stopped down to f8 or f11 for maximum depth of focus. I never really go beyond f11 as the sharpness of the lens starts to fall off.

Now focusing at this distance with such a large aperture is notoriously difficult as the depth of field is so narrow, in this case only a couple of centimeters. Even when you change the sensor plane or even move a fraction of an inch during focusing your subject can go out of focus. Combined with the possible movement by the subject’s hands there is massive potential to get an out of focus picture. What I try to do first is set my focus by selecting the nearest focus point (9 points on a Canon 50D and 5D MkII) which I can do while the camera is up to my eye and I lock the focus by holding down your chosen focus lock/shutter button (in my case I use back button focusing using the AE lock button). I then move my head backwards and forwards until I am confident the focus is correct. I sometimes reconfirm focus with the autofocus to be sure I am accurate.

As for metering this shot I used the Spot Meter (2% frame coverage) to pinpoint exposure and I metered off the subject’s skin tone. I know that is the element I want properly exposed and it is close to a midtone to give accurate exposure. I deliberately over exposed a third or two of a stop so I: one, had a good file to work with in post production and two, to deliberately loose detail in the skin.

Processing was simply the Adobe Lightroom recipe I use for most of my wedding photographs, but with selective contrast and sharpening applied to the rings only to make them pop a bit more.

That’s it from me today, but I encourage you to leave a comment which not only feeds my ego it also inspires me to write more about photographic technique.

Sarah waiting for her Groom

This photo critique takes me back to my first ever wedding I did for a sister of a friend of a friend, which is how most wedding photographers start out really. Back then I didn’t know the pressures of a wedding shoot, but I had with me the bride’s brother who was a keen photographer as well for support. We had pretty basic equipment back then with the addition of a hired SpeedLight from Michael’s Cameras in the city. When I look back this image it goes to show you don’t need the world’s best equipment to take a good photo. You just need to now how to use it and understand where the light is and how to use it. Some, if not all pro wedding photographers will agree that good equipment will make a difference to your images, but I mean it in the general photography sense.

This photo was pretty straight forward to achieve, I just used the light of the window which was softened by the sheer curtain which gives a nice soft light that is perfect for a bride on her wedding day. The room she had gotten ready in was perfect, it was well lit with natural light, had a massive ornate mirror on a stand covered in roses, white ceiling and angled walls to bounce flash off and a light coloured timber floor. Because the room was very open and filled with light, the shadow side of her face had opened up a bit so I didn’t loose too much detail. I tried similar shots with the flash bounced of the walls and ceiling to fill the shadows, but the lack of contrast made it look fairly average.

The expression if I remember correctly is her giggling at the fact I made her look out the window to see if her groom had arrived, but she knew very well he wasn’t there yet. The open space to the right is deliberate as it gives room for he subject to look into by placing the focal point of this image (her eyes and face) in the upper left third of the frame. If I had the opportunity to do this shot over again I would probably rotate her body away from the camera a little more as her shoulders are a little to square to the camera, making them appear too broad and it takes away from the other compositional elements as well and probably crop a little more aggressively and dynamically. I’d also use a lens with a wider aperture to reduce the depth of field to remove distracting elements that didn’t need to be there, like the pattern on the curtain behind her. The blotchy appearance on Sarah’s shoulders and chest come from shadows cast by the lead beading on the glass of this beautiful house.

Post processing of this image the way you see it now took place 3 years after it was actually taken just so I could practice a little in Photoshop. There is nothing drastic here, but I just softened the skin ever so slightly, brightened the eyes with a ‘Screen’ blending mode on an adjustment layer, some slight contrast was introduced and selective sharpening was applied to here eyes, mouth, jewellery and hair. The colour was removed by desaturating and then I introduced a yellow tint using the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. The image is actually reversed from the original as I wanted that orientation for my new price list. I encourage any feedback and comments and don’t forget you can follow me on Facebook by clicking on the link at the top of the page.