I'm sure you'll get lots of advice. But the first thing you need to do is explain to your wife's cousin that this is not the kind of work you do and there's a risk factor involved in your doing it. I recently did a similar favor for friends, but I made it clear that I am not a wedding photographer. I'm there to take pictures for them, and I will do my best to give them some nice shots. You have to do this, or you risk alienating a family member. The second thing you must do is shoot RAW. The lighting will vary tremendously. Use the flash judiciously, and not without a reflector or a ceiling from which to bounce it. Scout your locations beforehand and check to see if there is enough light to shoot without the flash. You almost certainly will want to shoot without flash in the church if it's at all possible. By the way, you can buy very professional looking wedding books, but be prepared to spend at least $200. Paul On Jan 30, 2007, at 12:33 AM, Scott Loveless wrote:
> Hi, gang! > > I got roped into doing a wedding in late June for a family member. > About two years ago I started seriously considering doing this sort of > work, but then decided against it. However, my wife's cousin is > putting together a wedding on a limited budget (it is apparently very > expensive to bring a young lady to the US if she's planning on staying > here permanently) and asked if I would consider doing the photography. > Knowing that he probably wouldn't be able to afford professional > photographer I agreed to shoot the event for expenses only. (He's > actually not going to pay me a dime, but he doesn't know that yet.) > I'll be providing them with a small album of prints and a DVD with > quite a few more "ready to print" photos. Anyway, I have a few > questions. > > The plan is to shoot as much as possible with a digital body. I'll > bring along a couple of film bodies for backup purposes. As of now > this means the K100D and probably the PZ-1 and MX. A couple of zooms, > a few primes, a tripod and a flash gun or two will round out the kit. > Am I missing anything? > > I guess I need to actually learn how to use Photoshop efficiently. > Could you recommend any particular books that approach Photoshop from > a photographer's point of view? > > My wife will have her hands full with herding our daughter down the > aisle (flower girl), as well as helping with the coordination of the > wedding day, so I'm not expecting any help from her. This means that > dumping memory cards to the laptop may not happen until it's all over. > Shoot JPEG, or suck it up and buy a few more SD cards to allow me to > shoot RAW? I may try to con another family member into doing some > donkey work for me, but I'm not counting on it. > > Any other advice for a wedding newbie would be greatly appreciated. > In the meantime my daughter's probably going to grow to hate the > camera, and my next-door-neighbor's teenage daughter is getting free > senior portraits (I need the practice). > > Thanks a bunch! > > -- > Scott Loveless > http://www.twosixteen.com > Shoot more film! > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
