As a wedding photographer, you’re going to shoot a lot of weddings. Sooner or later one of those weddings is going to have a catastrophic failure, where everything goes wrong and you’re the one left to deal with it. What do you do?
First, don’t panic. You’re not the first wedding photographer to make a mistake, and you won’t be the last. Everyone makes mistakes, even the best of us. The key is to learn from your mistakes so that you don’t make them again.
Here are the five biggest mistakes every beginner wedding photographer makes, and how to avoid them.
1. Not knowing your equipment
As a beginner wedding photographer, you must know your equipment inside out. This means being familiar with all the functions of your camera and lenses, and understanding how they work together. Not knowing your equipment well will undoubtedly lead to missed shots and frustrate you and your clients.
2. Forgetting to take detail shoot of the wedding
You may get so caught up in photographing everything going on at the wedding that you don't capture the little details of the wedding that were closely planned out. This can include the wedding cake decorations, the table, the menus being used, the flowers, the glasses, and the cutlery.
If there's one detail shot you shouldn't forget, its the wedding ring and the wedding band. We suggest placing the wedding ring and/or wedding band on a nice background like a flower in order to make it look more special.
3. Not being prepared
As the saying goes, “fail to prepare, prepare to fail”. This is particularly true for wedding photography. Wedding days are fast-paced and chaotic, so it’s important to be as prepared as possible. This means having all your gear cleaned and Ready to go the night a Heading
Do This:
Focus on Composition and Story. Before you shoot, step back and think what makes the scene interesting. What is forcing you to take the picture and how you can make it better. Trying different angles or zooming in. Experiment with these and see what works and you will begin to learn how to capture a scene effectively. Basically, make a plan in your mind of how you want the scene to look and take deliberate action to achieve that shot.
4. Focusing on the gear
I recently had a talk with a new photographer and all that he could talk about was what gear he should have. He is a beginner photographer but his gear list looks like that of a veteran sports photographer. Yet, he doesn’t shoot sports…
The issue was that he was following a lot of what the gurus said and was making purchases according to what was the latest and greatest in the world of youtube photographers. Sadly, a bunch of these so-called photographer on youtube are simply creating videos to stay relevant and keep you clicking to get a pay check. Most working photographers don’t give a flying f**k about the latest and great gear unless it truly revolutionises their particular niche. If it works, it works and you don’t need some douche in tight pants walking in slow-mo to tell you this.
Do This:
Ask yourself two questions: and what gear (if I don’t have it already) would I need? The reason being is that I know a lot of new photographers jump around from landscape to photograph their kids to macro photography. All I hear from them is how they need this new piece of kit to take their work to the next level.
What they should be doing is mastering the equipment they already have for the work they want to produce. The first step is to figure out what style you are really interested in and work on getting the pictures that you want. You will find out what gear works and what you need.
5. Not Editing Your Photo
If you do not spend sufficient time editing your photos, anybody can consider the management of your bike-related images. Many of those relationships by significantly diminishing the business worth of the photographer. Once your photographs are printed online or in a magazine, it’s hard to seek out their value not diminished.
Do This:
Start by editing the basics that would be saturation, sharpness and exposure. Most free editing programs will have one version of these sliders and just adjust them to your liking. This will get used to editing in a very minor way.
