Wedding photography is a demanding job. The responsibility is huge and you have one chance to get it right and deliver what you promised. To do the job well you’ll need to some pretty expensive equipment, get properly insured, work weekends and don’t you dare get sick!
Regardless, if you discover you have a talent with photography you could earn a good income with a bit of effort. The big mistake to make is thinking you can buy an expensive camera and take snaps that just fall into place. Wedding photography is hugely demanding technically, and the diversity of environments and conditions involved means you owe it to the couple to be equipped and skilled enough to get the job done without excuses.
Practice over and over again until you are ‘one’ with your camera. Read some good photography books and visit popular photography blogs –sorry to remind you of the obvious, but there are no short-cuts to being a pro – least of which is the AUTO setting on your camera. With photography you never stop learning and developing your technique as a photographer. Work hard at mastering how to nail exposure and post-production processing and your photography will soon clearly stand-out from being just ‘snaps’.
The other critical skills to develop are an understanding of lighting, flash photography and composition. It can easily take you a full year just to learn the essentials of photography. Be prepared to give up too. If you don’t find it fun – you’ll never succeed in dealing with clients long term.
Wedding photography is very competitive not only because good photographers are booked years in advance, but because there are also so many ‘wannabees’ who are quite prepared to pretend they are of professional grade. As the majority of weddings take place on a Saturday, this is a job that has you working mostly on your weekends, so competition is also one of availability.
Your reputation is your biggest asset, so make sure you are available to meet clients or give good advice. Confidence in what you do will reflect in the pictures you take on the day. Think of every client as an investment because recommendations build your business. If you’ve also developed a particular signature style to your photography, you’ll gain interest from other photographers and kudos in a particular segment of the industry which can help you with your pricing strategy. If you just go with the flow in your proposition, clients will look elsewhere as you can expect them to aggressively compare you with many others in order to trust you fully as their photographer.
Be sure to have a repertoire of memorable poses in the back of your mind for just the happy couple on the day. Plenty of clients can be a little camera shy and will look to you to pose them and make them look good. Similarly remember to cover mums and dads and important group shots with variety and style. Keep an eye out for small details for close up shots and always scout the environment for interesting backdrops, patterns, colours and shapes can all add to the mood of a picture.
For church weddings, be polite and respect the rules. No flash photography will test your camera and lens choices. Life as a wedding photographer is much easier if you plan to purchase a camera with the best possible ISO performance and a lens with the widest/fastest aperture you can afford; if this means nothing to you now, do not learn why the hard way.
The final piece of advice is to build yourself an attractive website. Look around and you’ll be amazed how poor some photographer’s websites are considering they are selling a look and style.
This article is copyright of www.Visualsnap.co.uk – Wedding photographers in Kent. Established and Professional Kent photographer and wedding videography services for London, Kent and the south east of England.
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Tags: Photographers