One of the many ridiculous things I’ve been seeing for years in Facebook groups are photographers coming up with this “I’m shooting my first wedding what are some tips and tricks” nonsense!
Here’s the tip. If you have to ask for tips and tricks you have absolutely zero business shooting a wedding. I don’t give a damn if you’re shooting it for free! The Trick? Figure out a way to book an actual working professional who specializes in wedding photography.
Weddings, unlike most other genre of photography are one and done. If you screw it up there is no do over. Mess up your friend’s headshots, portraits or senior pictures? Yeah you can go back and reshoot that. But not the wedding.
I can pretty much guarantee those asking for tips and tricks for wedding photography have no idea that most of the wedding photos of the ceremony are staged after the actual ceremony is done. Of course there are those who will argue that “everyone starts somewhere”.
To them I say learning how to shoot weddings isn’t where you’re supposed to start. You’re supposed to start first by learning the basic rules of photography. And YES; there are rules in photography and you need to learn them.
Another thing they don’t think about is on the day, they will remember few if ANY of the random tips they’ve been given. Not to mention they certainly won’t likely know when to use what tip or trick, let alone what shots to get when and how.
Another thing to learn is how to use flash. Period! If you don’t know how to use flash you’re not a professional photographer. A professional is an expert in their field. If you don’t know how to use that you’re not an expert in your field and certainly have no business shooting weddings.
What happens if you’re shooting someplace that doesn’t have windows or the sun sets and there are still images to take? Or what if the weather is poor and dark rain clouds roll in? Without knowing how to use flash you’re screwed.
Or another scenario I’ve seen, the venue has fluorescent lighting. What do you do then? Or a combination of tungsten and LED lights. What do you do then? There are way too many variables to be giving someone tips and tricks.
The other thing people will say to me is; “My ‘friend/Cousin/Sibling/whatever’ knows I’m just beginning and they’re fine with that.”
BULLSHIT! They have no idea what any of that means. These people much like the photographers saying these things have no clue what they’re talking about. They’ve seen the photos they’ve gotten from their Samsung Galaxy 21 Ultra and how great they are and they then assume wrongly that with your big camera the pictures should be vastly better.
They have no idea that you don’t know an f-stop from a bus stop. They don’t know you have no clue how to handle a variety of lighting situations. They just know that you have a camera they think is nicer than their cell phone. They are completely unaware that your skillset is completely inadequate to handle their special day.
It takes a lot of time and work to reach the level of quality you should have before taking on people’s weddings. And even then you should shadow and 3rd/2nd shoot experienced working wedding photographers for at least six months to a year.
This way you will learn what you need to and get valuable experience needed to actually be any good at wedding photography and hopefully keep your ass out of court.
Of course there are some of you reading this who will cry about me being a boudoir photographer so what could I know about wedding photography. Well; I spent quite a few years doing wedding photography and my current rate to do photography for weddings is six figures just to walk in the door.
So take this with a grain of salt or really be willing to put in the time and do the work so that you can have confidence in what you’re doing and not need tips and tricks.
