Shooting skills of documentary wedding photography

Photography is also a skill that needs a lot of practice to improve its level. The following are the shooting skills I shared with you in my live wedding photography. Welcome to read!

First, the concept of documentary wedding photography

The concept of documentary wedding photography is imported. Weddings in western countries are different from those in China. Wedding images in western countries mainly look at the wedding day, while the newlyweds in China usually divide wedding photography and wedding day shooting into two parts. They often pay attention to wedding photography, but ignore the photography on the wedding day, which is usually just a form of recording. However, weddings in western countries have changed the form of pictures into the form of documentaries. The couple will hire a professional wedding photographer to complete the shooting. Professional wedding photographers will use their skills, sensibility and aesthetics to capture the wonderful moments of the wedding. Integrating this shooting technique into the relaxed, natural and cheerful atmosphere of the newlyweds will give each picture emotion and language! As far as its scope is concerned, it is wedding photography; As far as its attributes are concerned, it is a documentary. In China, this documentary wedding photography is more compared with traditional wedding photos than the follow-up of the wedding.

Second, the characteristics of documentary wedding photography

Wedding photos show fixed scenes and specific postures. Simply put, it takes 100 new people to do the same posture, but in fact, not everyone will fit the same pattern, and even at least 50 people in 100 think this posture is not good. The feeling of getting the album is very dull. The question is not whether the photo is good or not, but whether the person in the photo is himself or not.

To sum up, wedding photos are an induction. On the one hand, they refined the happy side of the couple, on the other hand, they unconsciously lost their personality and lost their own characteristics and temperament. This is an inevitable side effect of quantification, which is a pity.

Documentary wedding photography is a deduction.

Documentary wedding photography is a deduction. A wedding is held by different protagonists and supporting actors in different venues, different dates, different environments and different moods. Everyone is independent and real, and every expression is vivid. In foreign countries, weddings are usually held for one day, which is richer than domestic weddings. So I have more time to take some nice photos. "Beauty" is not "beauty", and people's movements and faces are not perfect. However, as works of art and records, they are flawless, and can travel through time and carve time.

Wedding follow-up is still very demanding for a photographer. You should have keen insight, excellent skills, good physical strength, experience, foresight of things and advanced shooting. The mainstream way of wedding photography is different from the documentary wedding in Europe and America. Documentary weddings in Europe and America emphasize documentary, and there won't be many even posing scenes. And our popular wedding photography now needs a combination of two points, that is, the combination of "documentary and art"

So this requirement is higher, and there must be snapshots, snapshots must be artistic, but also posture, posture must be natural! This is very different from our usual travel shooting, portrait posing and social documentary, so if we are really friends who have never filmed, the first few shots will be very painful and we really don't know where to start.

Third, some difficulties in wedding photography

Let's talk about equipment, technology and technology. Let's talk about several major difficulties first. This is what we attach great importance to, and it is also the highest requirement for us.

1. light

When we shoot a wedding, we will experience too many complicated lights: natural light, incandescent lamps, fluorescent lamps, cold light of spotlights, warm light in the hotel lobby, colorful light on the wedding stage, and our flash. And super complex light mixed between these different lights. The complexity of light directly affects two problems. The first is how to use it. What should be avoided and what should be used.

A wedding will experience too much complicated light.

The second is white balance. Of course, the easiest way is to shoot RAW format, and the correct white balance can be restored later. But the RAW format is very large, and many photos should be taken at the wedding. If our memory card is not enough, we must take jpg format, so once we take jpg format, we must make the white balance as correct as possible. In these complicated light environments, the automatic white balance mode can no longer accurately restore the correct white balance, so it is necessary to control the color temperature manually. Experienced photographers have a certain grasp of the color temperature of the light source, which is generally correct, so even if there is a deviation, it is very small, and it is easy to adjust it later, and there will be no great loss to the photos after adjustment. If there is no concept of dialogue balance, then before shooting, we should know the general characteristics of these light sources:

& lt3300K warm (red and white) and steady warm.

3000-5000K medium (white) refreshing

& gt5000K cold (blue and white) cold.

The above is the natural color temperature table. The color temperature value on our camera is complementary to this value, so it is just the opposite.

Just make sure you don't shine too much at the wedding.

Just make sure that the color cast at the wedding is not too strong. It doesn't have to be accurate, and sometimes it can't be accurate, such as colored lights, pure red and pure yellow colored lights. We'd better keep its color, because it is the restoration of the atmosphere. What we need to do is white balance in the overall large light environment. Commonly used values range from 6000k to 6000k, which will be below 6000k in case of warm light and above 6000k in case of cold light, so it should be adjusted according to different environments. Before shooting, take a few photos with different white balances to find the appropriate color temperature value. Just fix it when the light is the same.

In fact, there is a little skill and experience here: in the bride's house, the lighting environment is fixed, and natural light, indoor lighting and flash are integrated. The color temperature is controlled at about 5000k, and the picture will be very clean. Outdoor shooting is all natural light. At most, it is a flash fill light. You can put automatic white balance here. The hotel is more complicated, the warm light hall is about 4500k, depending on how warm the light is. Spotlight, about 5600k, depends on the output of spotlight. This ensures the general accuracy, of course, it is not completely accurate, but only a correction, because we still need some sense of the scene, the hall should be kept warm and the lights should be kept cold. Because that's what our eyes see. What we do is not to deviate too much, and there is no difference in color. Just don't make it all yellow and blue.

In terms of light, it belongs to technical proficiency. The main thing is to pay attention to whether the flash under the backlight outside can be replenished, sometimes it needs to be replenished, and sometimes it doesn't have to be replenished even under the backlight. Make good use of light from all angles to get the best effect and feeling.

2. Angle and standing position

At the wedding I follow, I often see friends who play photography, but most of them just stand there and zoom. Will not deliberately pursue the angle. How can we make the documentary shine? This requires us to grasp different angles. In fact, the angle is very simple, that is, the normal overhead shooting and the parallel shooting of overhead shooting, which is the seat. The angle between the photographer and the subject on the cross section is also very important, front, side and back. This vertical and horizontal plane is actually a three-dimensional 3D space with countless angles to capture.

Grasp different angles

The station is mainly at the wedding scene. Although our photography is basically guerrilla, we can't be completely self-sufficient. Here we need to pay attention to the central reservation of cameras. Its position will basically not move, just zoom in and out. So it can't be shielded for a long time. When we have to stop it, we should move quickly and get out of the way after clicking. Moreover, when we shoot the stage, it is impossible to stand still in one place, so the angle we shoot will not be very vivid and will be recorded rigidly. You can shoot from both sides of the stage, in front or even behind, creating a rich perspective and giving people a different sense of change.

3. Coordination among shutter, aperture, ISO and flash.

It's hard to say on the whole. Experience is to grasp a key point, that is, when using the flash, it should be played naturally, so if you want to play naturally, you need a mode: slow synchronization. In fact, it is to brighten the subject on the premise of ensuring natural light. It is called "slow" because the shutter speed is relatively slow in dark environment to ensure ambient light. Besides, we're shooting a wedding, and we need to take a snapshot, so we need to shutter quickly. What should we do? We must cooperate with high ISO.

My experience is that the indoor environment is generally in iso400-iso 1600, m file, the shutter is in 1/60s- 1/200s to ensure the ambient light, and then manually output the flash to control the fill light. The basic angle of the flash is between the shooting direction in front and 60 degrees in the vertical direction. Ensure the overall brightness, accurate subject exposure and natural soft picture.

4. Communication with some important people

Communication is necessary and needs to communicate with a large number of people. This is very, very good for our shooting.

Communicate with the bride, arouse her emotions, and let her feelings of joy and happiness show, so that we can capture. Usually brides are nervous at first. You can chat with her easily, tell stories about other people's marriage, and let her tell interesting stories about her previous relationship with the groom. Naturally, she will relax, smile, be happy, and be happy naturally. If we click on it, we can catch it.

Communicate with the bride and arouse her emotions.

Communicate with the groom, let him relax and let him not care too much about messy things. These things will be managed by special people, supervisors and helpful friends. Let him interact with the bride as much as possible, let him relax and feel the happiness of this wedding, so that they have a tacit understanding and our film production rate is greatly improved.

Communicate with the supervisor to understand our arrangement of shooting related content. For example, the route of the team, the situation of the camera car, the departure time, the arrival time and so on.

Communicate with the supervisor to understand the shooting situation.

Communicate with the wedding site supervisor to understand the wedding start time, process, lighting situation and the location of important people. Because we don't know the bride and groom's seven aunts and their leaders, we must know some snapshots of them in advance before we can put them in place.

Communicate with the host MC to learn the details of the process, including the appearance of the new couple, the location of the new couple, the location of the host, who will speak first, light candles, make a glass of wine and so on.

Before the wedding, we must fully grasp the whole process and closely cooperate with important people in all aspects, so as to master the advance amount and prepare for shooting before the process leaves.

Fourth, equipment and equipment.

Generally, some friends ask me, mainly about equipment and equipment. Of course, although this is the key, it is not the most important. The most important thing is our thinking, the theme we grasp, the moment of snapshot, running out, composition and so on. Since you are very concerned about the equipment, I'll mention it here.

The most practical focal length is 24-70 focal length converted to 35mm; Close-range focal length is 70-200 after being converted into 35mm; The focal length of shooting a big scene is 16-35, which is actually the so-called big ternary.

We don't necessarily need full focal length coverage.

However, we don't necessarily need to completely cover these focus parts! Our main lens must be zoomed to cover the focal length of 24-70. Because some positions can't be close to the distance, it's not convenient to focus.

Fixed focus is a brilliant lens, and other lenses can be fixed focus, from 16 to 200. The fixed-focus aperture is large, and the picture quality is good, which can make a very tasteful documentary effect. Focuses of 35, 50, 85, 135 are also mainly used.

Large scenes need ultra-wide lenses, and the focal length is wider than 24 of 35mm.

The requirements for the fuselage are: continuous shooting should be fast, high sensitivity should be good, and focusing speed should be accurate.

Quan Huafu is natural and ideal, and the C format is completely acceptable.

It is best to have three machines and three mirrors, or two machines and three mirrors, or two machines and two mirrors. You'd better not think about changing your head. You hardly have time to change the lens.

Try to use the equipment in your hand.

I won't say much about the equipment, because my friends are not professional wedding photographers, and natural shooting has their own preferences. Try to use the equipment in your hand!

Five, the general shooting process of wedding photography

1. Start shooting.

At present, wedding photography is synchronized with makeup. If it is a single stop, the photographer should come to the bride's house at about the same time as the makeup artist, and follow the bride to shoot, because the bride is the focus and highlight of the day. If there is a double room, another photographer will go to the groom's house to follow him.

2. Overall shooting process

The whole process is roughly divided into three parts: the first part is at the bride's house. This part includes the process of the bride's makeup, the process of the groom going to the bride's house to marry the bride, and the process of starting from the bride's family's motorcade. Secondly, some customs have been added in the process of taking the bride back to her new house. If you go directly to the hotel, it's in the motorcade part of the road. Third, it is the whole process of the hotel.

Summary: Home-Road-Hotel

3. What do we need to shoot in each link?

(1) The part of the bride's house.

This part of the shooting content should be the most free and easy to shoot. There is enough time to debug the camera and enough angle to grasp. Both natural light and flash can be changed; You can take a snapshot and pose. It's very free. The content is also very rich: small things at home. For example, there are too many things to shoot, such as pasted happy characters, small toys at home, balloons specially arranged for the wedding, photos of couples, wedding photos, cups, pillows ... Here, we need to observe with special care, find the best angle and use the most appropriate focal length. Generally, natural light can be used, and a long fixed-focus lens with a large aperture can be used to avoid complicated background. If the environment is particularly good, in turn, you can use a wide-angle large aperture lens to collect some background elements. Then there are important items on the wedding day, such as wedding ring, bride's shoes, souvenirs, marriage certificate, guarantee and so on. These things should be photographed brilliantly, the photos should be impressive, the imagination should be used, the composition and light should be paid attention to, and the artistic effect should be expressed. Because these are very critical things.

You can shoot small objects at home.

Then, shoot the bride's makeup process, close-up, panoramic view and appreciation. The purpose is to make the bride beautiful and happy. After the bride finishes making up, she takes some actions. At this time, you can pose, or the bride and bridesmaid interact and shoot some funny, interesting and happy scenes. You can also take some photos that the bride expects. This kind of quiet picture can also take some family photos. After the mother, father and bride finish painting makeup, try to avoid taking photos with too many people and waste this precious posing time. I've been filming a lot these days, and my makeup is very good, and I'm in good condition and not tired.

Then the groom came to pick up the bride, blocked the door and stuffed red envelopes. There is no need to mobilize emotions during this period. Generally, when the mood is high, everyone will be very happy. This paragraph is about the ability to take a snapshot of the postgraduate entrance examination, all of which are fast-paced The groom enters the door, presents flowers, looks for shoes, the best man steals the teapot, the groom puts shoes on the bride, presents flowers, and so on. Customs and habits are different, but these links are generally taken care of here. The scene will be chaotic. You can arrange it properly and put it down a little. But the more natural, the better. Because they are all happy and happy from the heart.

The part where the groom comes to pick up the bride

Other links, such as feeding jiaozi, find a good angle, the angle should be sharp, and it is also common not to be sharp.

When you go out and get on the bus, you should take a good shot. There is no chance for you to pose. Use the lens well. This section involves an indoor and outdoor conversion. The white balance of the aperture shutter iso flash has changed, so you must switch it in time. This action is fast, crowded and chaotic. If you want to take a snapshot, adjust the lens or change the lens, you must make it well in advance.

(2) the upper part of the road

The main thing is to take photos of the team starting and going on the road. You can take photos of the newcomers in the car on the road, let them say hello and pat the dynamic driving mode of the car. Take a wide-angle view of the beautiful scenery on the road and take a beautiful photo with the team. If you go back to your new home first, the camera adjustment will change, which usually won't take long. Take some sweet photos, kisses, hugs and silhouettes of the new couple in their new home during this time. Generally, the layout of the new house will be much better than that of the bride's house, and the decoration will be good and new, so pay attention to the beautiful scenery of the new house and capture it.

(3) Hotel

After arriving at the hotel, the bride should get off first. The environment is very complicated at this time. There are many people and chaos, as well as colorful ribbons and smooth backlight. Some weddings will be arranged and organized. If not, it would be a mess. Be sure to pay attention to the position, angle and capture the most beautiful picture. Generally, this part is wide-angle shooting, and ultra-wide shooting will also be used. Then, the most important place for photographers to take the postgraduate entrance examination is that the bride and groom walk into the hotel from the outside. This change, adjusting camera parameters, must be quick. Some machines have custom functions, so you can make good use of them. Just fix several parameter settings 123, and just change the dial directly.

Next is the welcome stage, in which you can have a rest and easily capture some interesting pictures, such as children. But the relaxation time is only a few minutes. Then the bride goes back to change clothes or something. At this time, she ran to the ceremony stage to shoot ornaments, shoot the scene environment, adjust the lens, drink some water, smoke a cigarette, have a rest and replenish her strength. Talk to the wedding ceremony and master of ceremonies to learn about the switching of lighting effects and the details of the whole process. Then adjust the equipment and wait for the wedding to begin.

After the wedding, we fought guerrilla warfare and constantly changed positions. For the process we already know, we should stand well in advance and don't let those non-professional friends who come to shoot block our theme. Shoot the whole wedding from every link and angle. In fact, the scene is just some snapshots, and the time is not particularly tight. Record records, capture colorful things that others can't see, and it's OK! After the ceremony, grab something to eat and have a rest. Waiting for a toast. The scene of the toast is relatively simple, and it is not easy to make a movie. You must use your brains to find a better angle and special effects to make a wonderful picture. After the toast, the last step is to see the guests off, and it is also possible to take a snapshot. If the bride changes clothes, she can take some small photos to supplement the series of photos taken during the whole wedding.

end

After seeing the guests off, say hello to the bride and groom and ask if there is anything special to shoot. If not, let's stop here and finish our work.

Generally speaking, if you shoot a lot and have experience, you basically follow this process to ensure the necessary content and then keep innovating. If you haven't filmed it, you should generally know something about it and cooperate with your own experience in shooting other things in order to shoot a good wedding. These are small experiences. Of course, there must be something wrong or missing. Please give me some advice.