Friday Flashback. Wedding Photography outfit.

I did wedding photography for many years. I started with film and then transitioned to Digital. I am now no longer doing weddings but occasionally get asked. Before auto focus and digital my cameras were mainly Pentax. Pentax 35mm and Pentax 645.The Pentax Super A was my favourite from those days and coupled with a Metz Flash and Quantum battery pack I was ready for anything.

Australia's limitations on weddings due to the Coronavirus.

I am not sure what the latest ruling on Weddings in Australia is but a couple of days ago because of the Coronavirus it was limited to 5 people.
There have been some weddings rushed through before the deadline on that.
They had imposed a similar rule on funerals but I think that has been relaxed a little provided people observe distancing rules.
So now how do you deal with this as a wedding photographer?

Some years ago a fellow photographer friend of mine told me she was doing a wedding shoot for a couple coming out from England for a private ceremony just for the 2 of them.
Thay had not told family back home but planned to surprise them when they got home.
They were going to have a party in England at a later date to celebrate.

My friend asked me if I would do a video and she would do the stills.

The only people present were the couple, the celebrant, my friend and her assistant and me.
The celebrant may have had his wife also.
The wedding was conducted at a favourite location in Adelaide outdoors.
             .

My friend and I signed as witnesses.

The couple went to a hotel afterwards in Glenelg in Adelaide to have a quiet meal.

The crazy thing that happened was that I had a great new video camera, the Canon Xl1, but I was not an experienced videographer.

The lighting was difficult as the couple were in deep shade under a tree, with the bright sunlit face of a historic sandstone property in the background.

It was quite a warm day.

I did not have any video lights with me.

I spent some time getting the exposure right.

The ceremony went for about 15mins and then they signed the register.

During the signing I decided to review the footage I had so far and was dismayed to find I had recorded no sound.

At a normal fast moving wedding this would have been a disaster.

The benefit of this small wedding was that there was no reception to go to and no rush to go anywhere.

So I ate humble pie and confessed my sin.

I asked the couple and the celebrant if we could do the ceremony again.

They said why not?

They managed to keep a straight face as they embarked on their 2nd wedding.

This time I got the results I needed.

At the end of the day I was invited to the pub to share a meal but I was so traumatised I declined.

My youngest son did the editing for me later and they got a nice record of their very small wedding.

So don't despair wedding photographers.

There may be some advantages in this scenario.

The no limit on time was a big bonus.

On another occasion I photographed a similar elopement but they did have a wedding party.

 I did enjoy that although the challenge of steady rain made it difficult.

I got soaked but everyone else was fine.

I got some beautifully saturated colour shots.

Looking back at Film Weddings

I have a great number of weddings in my archives.

I like to go through them now and then and analyse how I went.

This particular wedding shoot of Cassie and Travis I found very enjoyable and I captured some great images(in my opinion).

It was entirely shot on film.

I had the negatives scanned at processing to produce low res files.

They were processed and scanned at Black and White Photographics which are still operating today.

 http://www.blackandwhitephoto.com.au/

I would have been using my Pentax Mzs film camera and I was working with an assistant.

My film would have been Fuji VPS 160 and Fuji VPH 400.

Some of these pics were featured on the Weddingsa website.

http://www.weddingsa.com.au/bom/jan06/default.htm#.XD6x0vxS_dS

A good example of using daylight fill flash shooting into the light. Metz 45cl3 Pentax Mzs

Introduction to Wedding Photography by Geoff Thompson

I am in the process of producing a video presentation of my original Introduction to Wedding Photography course which I presented in Adelaide to many would be wedding photographers from about 1992 onwards.
Some of the participants went on to successful professional photography careers.
Some of the course subjects have already been presented on this blog and my main blog.
There will be links to these from my video clips for each subject.
 Ps: As at 11/11/16 next video coming soon.

 

Finally pulled the plug!

In 1975 I started photographing weddings.

I was 29 at the time.

My Dad, Glen Thompson, who was my first trainer and Inspiration in photography. The safari suit was my standard wedding photography uniform in the 1970's. This was in the Dandenongs in Victoria.

Now this last weekend I assisted a young friend in a wedding shoot and at the end of the day and into the night I suffered some terrible cramps.
(See Summer's facebook photography site below.)

https://www.facebook.com/AquaSummerPhotography/photos/pcb.1017802151595843/1017797588262966/?type=3&theater

I decided that now almost 70 it is time to declare my innings closed on officially shooting weddings.

I have been averaging about one a year over the last five years.

I have been thoroughly enjoying over the last 10 years the transition from film photography to digital and marvel at the cameras now being produced at a rapid rate.
I will probably in future still take some shots at weddings where I am a guest but apart from that maybe only when I am Uncle Geoff.
It has been a fantastic journey and I have made many wonderful friends in the photography industry and also been able to mentor and train some young photographers along the way.
On this blog and my other blogs I have posted some of my training in wedding photography tips from my course I developed some years ago.
If you are an aspiring Wedding Photographer you may find a lot of help there.
See my other blogs on photography.
 A lot of this training is also posted on this blog.

http://geoffthompsonphotographics.blogspot.com.au/

http://geoffthompsonsphotographytraining.blogspot.com.au/

Thanks to all who have helped me along the way.
Especially my lovely wife.

From last weekend. A beautiful wedding.

Below is a link to an earlier post anticipating this day.

http://geoffthompsonsblog.blogspot.com.au/2011/12/too-old-to-be-wedding-photographer.html

Ps. Since posting this have now been asked to photograph guys getting ready only at 2 consecutive weddings. This is something I can handle. Probably the "easiest" part of wedding photography.

PPS. Now in October 2016 I am recovering from heart surgery. It's a good thing I pulled the plug when I did.
I could have died on a wedding shoot!
Seriously as you get older listen to those telling you you need to lose weight and have a healthy diet.
Have regular checkups although in my case usual medical check ups did not reveal seriously blocked arteries.
Don't wait to get older but do the right things early on.

Wedding Photography in the Church by Geoff Thompson

One of the things new wedding photographers have to work out is where do you position yourself for shots during the ceremony.
The first thing about this is you do need to see if your customers want you to take photos in the Church.
Then you also need to make sure the Minister allows photos to be taken in the Church.
Below are some pics which show the basic positions I try for in the Church to cover the indoor part of the Church proceedings.
They were taken from a Church balcony by Dave, my assistant for the day, who had recently completed my wedding photography course.
He was using a Canon 20D. These images have not been edited.
The wedding was in January 2006.
I was still shooting film and starting to integrate digital coverage as well.
There is also a link here on my blog where I talk about a shot list for a wedding.
Some of what I do in the church is in that post.

http://geoffthompsonsblog.blogspot.com.au/search?q=shot+list

Please note I am available for one on one or small groups who want to learn wedding photography or how to use their digital camera.
You would need to be able to come to Adelaide for this although I do frequent South Australia's Riverland from time to time and am open to conducting classes in Renmark.

email:   geoff.g.thompson@gmail.com

 In this shot I am positioned at the front near the bridesmaids awaiting the entrance of the bride.
I would have already photographed each of the bridesmaids as they walked down the aisle.I am looking at the groom to get a shot of his expression as his bride comes down the aisle.

A little flower girl bravely walks in a head of the bride.

Everyone in state of anticipation

 Here comes the Bride. I am crouching down to get the shot as she walks toward the front.

Turning to get a shot of the groom.

 Getting the shot. I am waiting to get them in the same frame.Landscape orientation.

Where am I now?

 Possibly getting a shot from back of church looking straight down the aisle.

Now I am back in a position to get a couple of shots of the speakers.

Here I am possibly changing film or making some adjustment.

Now in position in back right corner so I can get close ups of the couple.

I think I accessed this doorway from a backdoor of the Church so I would not continually be moving around too much and be a distraction.

I am in the right corner as from that angle the bride's face is towards the camera angle.

This is a great shot to get from a balcony if there is one in the Church

They have been exchanging vows and now I am getting ready for the kiss.

Dave got the kiss from the balcony but unfortunately the shot was over exposed.

 Thankfully I got the shot from my position.

The signing of the register.

 I am waiting to get the shots that I will usually set up after the signing.

I will take some candids while this is happening

I would be doing a quick sequence of posed shots here.

Then three quick picks of the Minister handing over the certificate of marriage

For a brilliant satire on what today's wedding photographers are facing in the Church these days open the link below.

https://fstoppers.com/humor/hilarious-short-film-makes-strong-case-unplugged-weddings-151213

My Ideal Digital Camera

In looking at some of the top end Digital Slr's and even the enthusiast models I have become less and less impressed with the technology overload.
The other day I met a camera enthusiast who has not been in photography all that long but has some top end Canon Digital equipment.

He was looking  for some basic instruction but was obviously caught up in the technology overload and was showing me all the settings he had his camera on and what he would do to take a basic portrait.

I must confess I was terrified of the world he had immersed himself in.

The menu on his camera was so much more elaborate than my  "lower end" Canon camera.

And he was an amateur enthusiast.

It put me off buying a higher end full frame slr.

There was a time with film cameras when you had a minimum of things to select and think about on your camera and when taking photographs.

1. Film type, Daylight or tungsten  and Iso of film? Colour or Black and white, negative or transparency?

120mm,220mm,35mm.5x4.

2. Camera type. 35mm ragefinder,35mm SLR, medium format SLR or TLR.(6x6,6x4.5,6x7,6x8,6x9)

3.Shutter speed.

4. Aperture

5. Lens type.

6. Flash or available light?

7. Tripod or hand held?

8. Was I producing prints or slides? Enlargements or standard prints.

9. Metering mode.

Any processing and printing and correction of faulty exposures was done by the film lab.

Now all of those things are in reality incorporated in one way or another in the digital realm.

But throw in.

Raw or Jpeg?

High Dynamic range.

Picture styles.

Various flash settings and adjustments.

In camera editing.

White balance.

GPS

WiFi

Full frame or APSc

Image stabilisation

Auto focus or manual focus

Focus selection points

Flash cards

Tethered or un-tethered shooting

Remote control

Slave shooting using on and off camera flash

Photoshop, Lightroom etc.

in camera special effects.

And the list goes on.

The closest I have come to my ideal digital camera was I think the first one I purchased.

The pentax *istD.

It had some basic digital adjusting to do but was effectively a digital version of the Pentax MZS which was the final flagship Pentax SLR film camera.

You could run with the default settings and produce some great pics.

The menu was no where near as confusing as the current crop of digital cameras.

6 mega pixels but still produced a very good picture.

Using it was more like the experience of using a film slr.

In addition it was compatible with my large collection of Pentax lenses.

I still have the camera.

It sufferred at my hands once from having coca cola spilt over it.

It did get it fixed.

There is a lot to be said for cameras that are sealed against such things.

Thankfully this camera is now fully functioning again.

I am being drawn back more and more to shooting film.

It may be more costly per shot but that will help curb the addiction of firing off digital salvos when ever I have a camera in hand and that is often.

It will also cut down on many hours spent "playing" on a computer.

The results will more than likely be purer and better.

So watch this space for some film shooting results in the future but not very often.

There are apparently a lot of photographers returning to film.

http://www.slrlounge.com/9-film-shooting-wedding-photographers-you-should-follow

The author with wedding couple Tidbinbilla ACT. Pentax *istD.Cropped from landscape original.2006.

Sydney Harbour Ferry Pentax*istD

Pentax*istD

Pentax*istD

Pentax*istD

Waiting for the Punt (Ferry) Pentax*istD