Bristol Wedding Photographer - Albert Palmer

Help out your clients - an online table planner

0 Comments Published by Albert Palmer on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 at 2:55 PM.

A great way to provide excellent service to your clients is to help with them things other than the photos. Going beyond your normal duty is a great way to boost your referrals from clients. Not only this but helping them out with your experience is just a nice thing to do...

Think about good florists that you know and maybe help collect the flowers before the wedding. Referring them to good locations that you have scouted or good buildings for a wedding reception is another idea that may be useful.

Another idea is the online wedding planner which could be very useful for couples to organise their seating plans. Obviously you have to judge your clients carefully and your mission isn't to take over. But when having a meeting it could really improve your image and help clinch the deal.

Labels: Wedding Photography

Do your homework for a wedding shoot - getting inspiration

0 Comments Published by Albert Palmer on at 1:08 PM.

It's really important to know what you want before you start a wedding engagement session or the formals of the bride and groom on the wedding day. Getting an idea of poses, clothing, equipment, props and lighting are some really important concepts you need to consider before you start a shoot.

A great place to find inspiration is in magazines. Vogue, Elle, and wedding magazines such as 'Wedding Magazine' and 'Wedding Ideas Magazine' are some great publications you need to check for poses and new styles. You don't have to imitate them head angle for head angle but it should help give you some good ideas that you want to try with the bride ad groom.

Another source is Flickr, I'm sure you will have heard of it but there are some great wedding groups to gather inspiration from. Again, there will be lots that you don't like - but this is good! You will look at it and think 'I don't want to make the same mistake!' Knowing what doesn't work is a great start to finding out what does work. As above I would say don't completely copy it but use what you like as a guide for your on work.

Make sure you couples know what you want them to do. The majority of clients don't know what is expected from them and will feel self conscious. It is up to you to make it fun by using your personality to make them feel at ease. It really is down to you to get the best out of your subjects, so lighten up, prepare to have fun and ensure you can handle the technical side of things so that you can concentrate on getting the most out of the subjects.

Be sure to critique your own work. Look at your work and decide what you like and what you don't like. It's a great way to be inspired and to see how you can improve - what techniques you will use again and which ones you won't.

Wedding photography tip - instructing your subjects to pose in front of the camera

0 Comments Published by Albert Palmer on Monday, May 18, 2009 at 1:18 PM.

It's really important to guide your clients during a photo shoot. Whether it is engagement shoot or shots on the wedding day of the bride and groom a few hints will go a long way. It will make them look better, give them confidence and ultimately make your photos look better. They don't all have to try to be a professional model, it won't look natural - but there are a few things you can do to try and improve the way your subjects look.

1) Ask them to put their weight on their back leg. This makes them look slimmer and provides more dimension. Remember, keep it natural. This works best for portraits of people such as an engagement shoot or shots of the bride.

2) Ask them to stand at a three quarters position to the camera. Again it can make them seem slimmer and is generally more flattering. It's quite a standard in portrait photography and tends to look better than a straight on shot.

3) Ask your subject to move slightly every time they hear the shutter. This may be a bit much for some people, but if you think they can handle it, it will definitely stop all your shots looking the same. Ask them to shift their weight slightly or move their position every now and again.

4) It's really important to build a relationship with your subject. Most people don't know how to pose and so need a guide. Provide LOTS of encouragement, they can't see themselves so tell them how great they look and avoid ANY negative comments.

5) Tell your subject to look away from the camera, or ask the bride and groom to look at each other or talk to each other. When they engaging with one get on the shutter button to capture some beautiful moments.

6) The bride and groom will get stiff faces from smiling all day. Get them to inflate their mouth with air so their cheeks blow out. This helps relax their cheek muscles and also gets a few laughs! Again - get ready so you don't miss the natural smiles!

7) Keep it fun and light hearted by chatting to them, asking them questions and joking around...

Labels: Guide, Wedding Photography

RAW V's JPEG at a wedding

0 Comments Published by Albert Palmer on Tuesday, May 5, 2009 at 10:51 AM.

I just thought I would make a quick post about file formats because someone recently asked me which format I shoot in. I guess the first point to make, whatever your preference, is the need to get it right in camera. There is really no substitute for this, whether it is the composition, white balance, sharpness, exposure - it will save you time in the long run.

If you shoot RAW be prepared to deal with large file sizes and the fact that your pictures will need to be processed in an image editing program. A RAW file is a 'lossless' image that gives you all the information as the sensor sees it, typically a boring 18% grey. This means you need to add your own saturation, contrast etc. JPEGs are lossy files and they compress the data that you can't see and applies its own algorythm to apply saturation, contrast etc. For a full list of the differences go here.

As such RAW files won't look as good out of the camera as JPEGS, you need to put in the hours to make them look good, but they have more potential to look good than JPEGs because they contain more image information.

Ken Rockwell makes some good points in his article and it has to be a personal decision because he prefers to use JPEG because file size is an issue. Personally I think that file size is less of an issue these days when hard-drives and memory is so cheap.

Another option is to converting your images to DNG. Obviously this makes your workflow longer because you have to spend time converting them. Although it may save you space and all the other advantages converting 21MP files is going to be a time issue for many of us.

I guess the next point to make is that if you don't plan on editing your photos then shooting RAW probably is a waste of time. I can't imagine that this applies to many wedding photographers as our images need to be as perfect as possible. We have to make every effort to achieve this.

Another point to remember is that shooting a wedding is not like shooting sport where you are continuously shooting 7 frames per second. Obviously there are times where you need a fast shutter speed but I haven't yet experienced a point when my camera has not been able to clear the buffer and I can't take a picture. I don't use very fast cards either.

You also have to consider which Adobe colour space you are going to shoot in. The choice is Adobe 1998 or Adobe sRGB. I personally use 1998 because of the larger colour gamet however outputting for print I use sRGB because it is closer to the ink pigment used in most inkjet printers.

I would recommend that as a professional photographer you should atleast try the RAW format. There is a certain investment in computer hardware and software to get the most out of this format but the extra time and money is more than worth it in my opinion.