Are you going to start your business as a photographer and looking for some inspirations and wedding photography tips for beginners?
Dear all photographer friends my name is Bima and I’m a wedding photographer, I’m so happy to have you here because in this blog I will share everything that I know about running wedding photography business from scratch. I live in Yogyakarta Indonesia and start shooting wedding since in college degree till now, in fact I shoot various international wedding in Bali, Jakarta, Maldives, Singapore for over than a decade so I think it would be great if I can share everything about wedding photography tips for beginners.
I know that there are various reasons why you work in this business, some of you are loving capturing moment and others just shooting wedding for fun. No matter who you are but let me tell you one thing,
“Become a wedding photographer is a gift, so make sure to deliver your best work on it”
Please be ready because down here I’m going to share everything that you must know when you want to dedicate your self as a wedding photographer.
Top 12 Wedding Photography Tips for Beginners That You Must Know
Since I’m focusing my services on destination wedding niche and I know that some of you also don’t mind if your couple invite you to shoot in other cities or even crossing the country so my wedding photography tips for beginners might be different than other photographer had. So please stay in this page because I will start telling you from A to Z about running this wedding photography business from nothing.
1 – Creating Your Portfolio
Offering your wedding photography services without having any photos will just wasting your time because no one will believe that you are able to capturing moment. There are several ways that you can do to make your first wedding portfolio such as shooting on your friend’s wedding, close family’s wedding, or asking for permission to shoot wedding together with someone who belong to your mentor.
I know that photographing your first wedding will be so excited so enjoy it but don’t take it in rush, what I mean here is don’t just shoot but try to figure out how to capturing the moment that means so much for your first couple.
2 – Make Your Own Photography Blog
On almost every meeting and post that I had on sharing about wedding photography tips for beginners, I always encourage all new photographers to own his own blog. I’m not saying about making pricey website that come with super feature and interface but only using regular blog with wordpress that less than $75/year that you can use to uploading your art works and share it to the world.
By the way I made my photography blog BimaAdhitya.com back in 2008 (the same blog that you read here) and keep uploading for my works. I split the categories in this blog both for you as a photographer who looking for some tips and guidance and also for potential couple who gonna get married. It’s awesome because only by using this kind of wordpress blog than I cam start receiving emails ande got photo shoot deal that brought me shoot destination wedding. All I wanto to say is, services business is now getting borderless and as long as you can find someone who falling in love with your services than it means you start earning momey.
3 – Set Up Your Collection
Collection is like the next level photo shoot package where you can write down your set of services including the details about how long do you get in charge on the wedding, how many photos that you gonna deliver, what kind of album that you gonna print, and etc. Once you can set your collection than don’t miss to set up your additional services like shooting in more hours, parent’s book, large printing, additional clip, USB box, and some ridiculous things that could help your studio to earn more sales.
When everything is done than you layout this collection beautifully and convert it into PDF format so you can directly send it to someone who asking your services.
4 – Check the Wedding Venue
Checking the wedding venue will give you an inspiration about where you shoot and how this venue get potential frame to blow up your works. I was remember that when I’m going to shoot my first on a huge hall than I start my scooter engine and go to that hall and when I arrived there I seriously got some impression about how to shoot my first wedding properly.
If distance become matter like what I usually have when shooting for destination than what I did is browse online and check its venue website. When I got my first enquiry to shoot in Lux Maldives than it is impossible for me to go there for just checking the resort so I open Lux’s website and scroll for whole day and check double time where to shoot and how big this resort is so I can explore it in a virtual mode.
5 – Buying Your Wedding Photography Equipment
Buying your wedding photography equipment at the very first time used to be the day when you are going to super excited so if you can afford it as well than I would like to say congratulation because I personally happy too when my mom bought me my first Canon Rebel with 18-55mm kit lens.
Before you spend thousand of dollars on gears I want to share about my wedding photography tips for beginners that you must know about choosing your first gears and it’s all about function. Don’t be too excited about features of cameras or lenses because the company will always giving you a brand new gears to make more sales. It is fine for them bit it could be a trap for you so make sure you buy only geats that suitable for shooting wedding.
Let me discuss a bit more about photography gears below:
Try to Buy at Least 2 Camera Bodies
You can buy brand new one or buying used item, don’t worry it just fine for sure because by having 2 bodies than you will have spare when you hot trouble on your first body.
Investing on Premium Lenses Will be Great
Pleaee consider to buy several lenses like ultra wide, medium lens, tele lens, and fixed lens that will works so great on portrait and detail shots.
- Cheap Wedding Photography Equipment for Canon User That Less Than $2500
- 7 Nikon Wedding Photography Gear On a Budget Less Than $2500
The Rest is About Accessories
Here you gonna thinking about buying some additional gears like memory card, laptop, camera bag, lighting, and others.
Yesterday I wrote a good post which gonna help you to find the right gears on shooting wedding, by the way I get used to use Canon and Nikon during past 10 years so here you may also read my recommendation choosing your first photography gears both for budget and high-end specification.
6 – Call the Wedding Coordinator and Introduce Your Self
When you know that you gonna shoot for wedding that operated by wedding coordinator or planner than try to contact them and introduce your self. You may speak to them that you are excited to shoot on their wedding and would be deliver a great works for the couple. No matter you got a deal directly from the couple but connecting with wedding coordinator seems to be good start up on your business networking for the next future.
You may know that the most benefit from every business is not the money it self but the network, you may lose your money but never lose your network because it is really important. The world is now getting better, you have Instagram, Facebook or Whatsapp so use them all to connect with your network because once you shoot your first wedding than your networks is getting bigger, here you will know who is gonna be tje florist, musician, videographer, decorator, make up artist and so on and all of them are your “assets” so put concern on them.
7 – Try to Make Your Shot List
If you just begin your first wedding shooting than you might not have an impression about making the shot list but if you shoot the whole wedding from the beginning till the party than you may have several moments such as:
Preparation and Make Up
On this part you gonna shoot how your couple preparing their wedding, it can be a make up and touch, wearing the suit and dress, veil on, put the shoes and how they mingle with family and friends. Please consider to give a detail shots for rings, jewelery, tie, shoes, watches, parfume, flower, dress, suit, and others. Once you got the detail shots than get back into the moment because this gonna be the most lovely stories that your couple want to see once the wedding is over.
On preparatin shoot try to consider who is coming on the wedding, try to shoot for parents, brothers, sisters, bridesmaid and groomsman, just collect as many photographs from the related person who gonna get involve in the wedding.
Blessing ceremony
Blessing will be the most memorable moment in the wedding, here you gonna see people laugh, crying, hug each other and so on. Always hold your camera during this moment and keep your eyes open for shooting fast moment that only passing your eyes just within 3 second window.
My wedding photography tips for beginners will telling you to keep watching on the priest speech, how the relatives put the veil during the ceremony, shoot who is sitting down on the guest’s chair and capture as many prestigious moment on this ceremony.
Couple portrait
Once the ceremony over than usually you will get plenty of time to make a special couple portrait surrounding the chapel, some couple also have a time to exploring the city. Get enjoy and do more fun shoot on this part than put some landscape photo for the background to remind your couple where their wedding is being celebrated. If you want to make your couple portrait photo stunning than using tele lens like Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS III USM Lens or fixed lens such as Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 L USM will be good decision because this kind of lenses will give you super sharp images with outstanding blur effects.
Family and Group Portrait
Having family and group portrait following the blessing is really important, in majority I will prior this family and group photo before the couple portrait because some family member are too old and need some rest or touching up for make up and get dress for the dinner.
To shoot on this scene I will recommend you to use wide angle lens like Canon EF 16–35mm f/2.8L of using medium range of lenses like Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM. To make every family member faces sharp than consider to put your lens’s aperture around 8 or 11 instead set it on 2.8 which gonna make other part getting blur.
Party
This moment is full of joy and fun so the only way to shoot on party is get involve, I’m not telling you to get dinner or drink alcohol together with your couple but try to be more fun. Music and band will start to play various songs so what I mean here is try to enjoy the moment, let’s sing and dance your body for little bit because through this way you can easily feel how your couple feeling during this session.
Party celebration used to held both in outdoor or indoor like inside the hall, lighting used to set in low so having some great tele lens like Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS III USM Lens or fixed lens such as Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 L USM will works so great. My suggestion is use only great lens that have special features like bigger aperture to shoot on this session because if you only using kit lens like 18-55mm than you will capture nothing on this scene for sure.
8 – Arrange a Client Meeting
The next wedding photography tips for beginners that you must consider is having a client meeting, if you could meet them in person than it will be better but in distance become a challenge than go for phone or video call but,
DON’T using chat!
This phone call method is a universal business ethique where we should respect each other by facing our client directly or simply listening for their voice. If you have an international couple who live abroad than you can held a meeting by Skype or Zoom by arrange a good time for both of you and your couple.
Things that really matters to discuss is about hearing your client’s expectation, just let them talk everything that they dreaming to be happen on their wedding images and try to adapt it with your own shooting style. Avoid to cut your conversation by talking with someone else or doing some other task, so be focus and listen to their needs.
9 – Learn to Shoot with Available
When I talk about available light than this means you gonna shoot with natural illumination such as the sun, in fact shooting naturally is one of the best technique especially when you work on wedding industry. I always believe that available light is the best lighting source that God gave to us so your photo will looks wonderful, light, and memorable.
When you want to shoot with available light than you only need to learn about the light direction and the rest is just using great lens on your wedding session. Try to use medium or premium class lens to give the best image result and you gonna surprise seeing your photographs. Let me show you some great and reliable lens that you can buy and use properly during the wedding.
Cheap Lens for Canon
Cheap Lens for Nikon
- Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G
- Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 AT-X116 Pro DX II Digital Zoom Lens (AF-S Motor) (for Nikon)
10 – Learn to Shoot with Artificial Light
Your wedding photography tips for beginners will not complete without learning to shoot with artificial light or using electronic light source. Up above we already discuss that shooting with available light is great but here you gonna shoot with additional light source just in case you have a situastion that come in super low light such as in the preparation room or when taking night outdoor photo shoot.
There are two kind od technique that you can do for shooting with artificial light and we called it as on-camera flash and off-camera flash.
On Camera Flash
When we call on-camera flash than you gonna use a gear like flash or speedlight on the camera hot shoe (a tiny chrome pin right on your camera body) and fire up your flash both direct or bouncing through the ceiling or other upper surface. This technique can be adapt on any cameras without any additional accessories, just to let you got beautiful and soft light you cam consider to use ETTL system that provide by trusted speedlight light SB700 in Nikon or 580EX on Canon. With ETTL system your flash will automatically adjust the power comparing to thw distance through the object it self.
Another accessories that you cam consider is buying a diffuser or portable small softbox that you can easily put on your speedlight.
Off Camera Flash
Off camera flash is a technique to fire up your speedlight separately with your camera by using infra red censor. This technique is commonly use for making the next level portrait or commercial photo shoot both for indoor and outdoor area. To do this method than you must buy another accessories called wireless trigger and receiver such as Godox Xpro-C TTL for Canon.
All you need to do is put the trigger on your camera hot shoe and put the receiver on your speedlight or portable outdoor lighting source. By doing this technique you’re not only brightening your object but also make a great dimension and outstanding character on your photographs.
If you want to learn about off-camera flash technique that you can read my article about How to Create a Wow Engagement Pictures with 1 Simple Flash.
11 – Learn to Work on Post Production
As we live in a digital era than digital post production seems to 30% of your final work. Nowadays I got 2 software that works well for my post production process, Photoshop and Lightroom.
I personally use Photoshop to adjust my “wow” photo which is really need to be stand out among the others, this photo used to print in a large size for being a display photo on a wedding day or hanging wall. In other side I work so well to adjust my wedding documentation photo with Lightroom presets that really boost my working speed.
At this time I was so blessed for discover one of the most helpful Lightroom Presets that I create following my pre wedding session in Maldives so I called it as Maldives Unveiled LR Presets, kindly check my presets trailer on this video below,
12 – Encourage Your Couple with Positive Mind
I think this going to be the most powerful wedding photography tips for beginners and also for professional, it’s gonna be reallu simple to say but a bit hard to and it’s about,
Encouraging Couple with Positive Mind and Energy
The goals is to help both you and your couple to stay positive no matter what happen right in front of you. Let me give you the example. I was shooting on a cross country engagement for high-end Singaporean couple who invite me to 5 luxury resort in Maldives. We had a short meeting directly when I visit them in Singapore a year before the shooting day and there is a taugh question from them,
“Bima how if we got heavy rain in Maldives or something bad happen to our photo session?”
I know that every photographer including you will face the same situation like me and it just need a positive mind to solve it. So i telling my couple,
“We have to choose the best season beforw we going to Maldives and my suggestion is around August to October, I personally ever shoot some couple under the rain so technically I have a back up plan for you and I really both between you and me think positive for our next photo session in Maldives, I believe that as long as we prepare it properly than everything will works great too”
I hope you get inspire about all 12 wedding photography tips for beginners that I share above, but just in case you have further question than don’t hesitate to drop me a comment below and I will reply as soon as possible. Good luck brothers and God bless you through this business!
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