wedding photography

**غدير معروف** · يوم أمس, 09:42 AM

Instead, we want to bring you the thought processes of America’s top wedding shooters as they hit the ground running to cover a typical event. What are they looking for as they go from formal family portraits to the ceremony, to the dinner and reception? How do they (subtly) coax participants into the poses and pictures that will produce a stunning wedding album? And how do they set up the circumstances that allow them to find, mine, and even create that most important of wedding guests: human emotion.

**غدير معروف** · يوم أمس, 09:44 AM

Chasing emotions

A set of pictures that capture the deep and true feelings between a couple getting married—and the emotions and hope that friends and family feel for them—is the holy grail of wedding photography. This, ultimately, is what we’re after.

As Dave Getzschman, a former wedding pro based in Los Angeles puts it thusly: “Emotion is the substance of wedding photography. You can and should build images around light, color, and composition, but without emotion, there’s a vital human element missing.”

**غدير معروف** · يوم أمس, 09:47 AM

Getzschman looks for real interactions between the couple, the wedding guests, and members of the bridal party. “These emotions reflect our humanity and translate immediately and powerfully to viewers regardless of their culture, race, ethnicity or language,” he says.

How do wedding photographers find or create the conditions in which these emotions are allowed to rise to the surface in images? “I engage with my subjects and it gains their trust. I arrive early, introduce myself, learn people’s names, ask questions, listen,” Getzschman says. “When intimate moments occur, I want to have ingratiated myself to the point where I can stand a few feet away from my subjects with a wide-angle lens and have no one feel that I’m intruding.

**غدير معروف** · يوم أمس, 10:08 AM

For photographer Ira Lippke, it’s all about depressurizing the situation. For example, during a couple’s formal portrait session, “I emphasize that the photography is secondary. The primary reason for pulling the couple away from their guests is for them to have some meaningful time together, just the two of them on their wedding day,” he says. The couple immediately relaxes and focuses on each other, “and I get emotionally real images that way.”

Angelica Glass offers a similar approach. When subjects are standing and see the camera, they often tense up. Some even stop breathing. “My favorite strategy is to ask them to sit. Once seated, people tend to become more relaxed and breathe normally,” she says. “For shots of the bridal couple, I also ask others to leave the room. That way the couple can relax without too many sets of eyes on them.”

**غدير معروف** · يوم أمس, 10:10 AM

New York-based shooter Ron Antonelli also takes a physical approach to posing portraits. “I remind the couple to touch one another. Whether it’s holding hands or having an arm around a partner, a spontaneous moment will always seem more emotionally connected if a couple is physically connected,” he advises.

**غدير معروف** · يوم أمس, 10:12 AM

Importance of candids

While beautifully composed moments at the altar and attractively posed or semi-posed portraits are important components of a fully accomplished wedding album, the images that resonate—the ones that viewers linger over—are often the candid images that showcase memorable exchanges and implied narratives.

**غدير معروف** · يوم أمس, 10:16 AM

For Todd Laffler, “Candids are king. When I’m trying to capture impactful candid moments, I think of myself as a hunter in camouflage, observing and waiting out my prey. It often takes keen observation, anticipation, and patience to capture a moment at its zenith.”

**غدير معروف** · يوم أمس, 10:18 AM

He continues, “One of my favorite times for candids during a full-mass, Catholic or Episcopalian service occurs during communion. At this time, after the bride and groom have received the Host, the focus turns away from them as the rest of the congregation takes communion. This is when I find loving, intense, and intimate moments between the two. It doesn’t always happen, but when it does, I can be rewarded as they happily share a private moment in the middle of the ceremony, up near the altar.”

**غدير معروف** · يوم أمس, 10:21 AM

Sergio, a single-named photographer based in Tucson, AZ, carries the hunting metaphor a little further: “Real moments are the most valuable prey of all. I think of such a moment as a mouse. I need to set a trap of light and composition, and then be patient. You don’t chase a mouse with a mousetrap; you set the bait and wait.”

الملفات المرفقة

**غدير معروف** · يوم أمس, 10:22 AM

The best candid pictures capture a moment, but they also imply a story or define the relationships among families and friends. “I don’t find it the least bit satisfying to make pretty, one-dimensional wedding pictures,” says Getzschman. “I challenge myself to make multidimensional images that suggest a context, convey a narrative, and offer insight into the relationships between my subjects.”

**غدير معروف** · يوم أمس, 10:25 AM

and friends. “I don’t find it the least bit satisfying to make pretty, one-dimensional wedding pictures,” says Getzschman. “I challenge myself to make multidimensional images that suggest a context, convey a narrative, and offer insight into the relationships between my subjects.”
The truth about shot lists

Even wedding warriors who deny it have a shot list imprinted somewhere along their strands of DNA. Their trick is to approach each wedding milestone (procession, vows, first kiss, recession, reception toasts, first dance, etc.) with a fresh eye.

For example, Laffler likes to “photograph the bride and groom entering the ballroom for the first time from behind with a wide-angle lens. This way, we can see all their guests’ reactions to them coming in.”

Of course, he can only do this if he has a second photographer working for him to cover the more typical vantage point, in front of the bride and groom.

**غدير معروف** · يوم أمس, 10:31 AM

Ron Antonelli agrees that one way to get creative with the usual wedding scenes is to capture them from unusual vantage points. “We sometimes mount a remote camera with a wide-angle lens to the chuppah [bridal canopy] during a Jewish ceremony and hide it so it can’t be seen. I fire the camera from anywhere, making photos that otherwise would have been impossible. It’s fun later on when our clients react on first seeing the shots. They had no idea we had taken them!”

**غدير معروف** · يوم أمس, 10:35 AM

Lippke also champions unusual points of view: “I love to shoot the first dance, for example, while crouching at the edge of the dance floor,” he says. “I position myself so that the couple are naturally backlit by the perimeter floodlights.”

**غدير معروف** · يوم أمس, 10:38 AM

Composition counts

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