Photos from a wedding - Critique requested

As I've said here before I'm not a wedding photographer and don't intend to

become one, but I attended a good friend's wedding over the weekend and took

some pictures as a guest.

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The guests at this wedding, by the way, looked like the press corps at any other

event; I think I saw about five D200s, a couple of D80s, and several other

top-end DSLRs. The pro used a Canon 1d of some sort but I didn't get a close

look. There were so many flashguns it was sometimes tough to get the ambient

photos I prefer; the pro handled this very gracefully and without any conflict

and was able to get her shots without flash interference from the guests - I was

very impressed with her.

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Since I post here from time to time I thought it only fair to give you a

selection of my pictures to critique.

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Look <a

href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/blakley/sets/72157604914172414/show/">here</a>

for a slideshow containing a 19-photo edit. I'd love to know how you think I did.

I liked image #4 of grandma.........

 

Do you really want a critique???

My only suggestion is to get your monitor calibrated and look at the images again. They're rather dark.

Out of focus, camera shake, crummy exposure, bad color balance; must be that Leica mystique thing working for you.

You NEED to get your monitor calibrated. I could hardly see most of the pics. They are very dark and some have a green cast.

 

[since I post here from time to time I thought it only fair to give you a selection of my pictures to critique].....

Critique is difficult as we are professional photographers, whom aspire, and endeavour to get the best possible images we can! Do you want us to critique them from our view point? As if you are looking for a crit from non-pros etc then maybe this isn't the best forum to show them. [Although it does say first time togs]

 

I wasn't really moved to be honest, and i'm glad there was only 19 pics, as they were dark, blurry and I couldn't help thinking I wish I could see the professionals' images now, as with such a fantastic and charismatic bride [and family] you could have got some brilliant images.

I am really interested, David, not in a critique (because I'm obviously not aiming for a

conventional wedding-pro look in my photos), but in your reaction.

 

The photos are dark. It's not mis-calibration; dark is what I do a lot of the time. It WAS

dark. And yellow. I've kept some of that. The photo of the groomsman IS out of focus; I

did that on purpose. A couple of the dancing photos have motion blur, which was

intentional, and some of the rest have camera shake, which wasn't intentional but

doesn't bother me that much.

 

On the other hand the photos are certainly far from perfect even as expressions of my

intention, which was to give the couple a set of pictures which would look different from

what the pro shot; I like some shots better than others & am genuinely curious to hear

the reactions of other photographers who have been there (so far the consensus seems

to be a pretty dim view).

Bob, I'm sorry, I did like the image of grandma (or it could have been the bride's mom) but the rest are all dark, OOF, etc.... They'll be different than what the pro will likely supply.

 

I once had a photo instructor that encouraged students to "break the rules" but I think that the rules are there for a reason. An occassional image blurr photo can be considered "artistic" but should be really limited in total number.

Numbers 1, 6, 16, and 19 were dark and prone to motion blur, but altogether quite lovely. I would have taken a different approach, but I thought your creative intent was clear. You captured some unique moments... perhaps not in a commercially viable style, but with style nonetheless.

I think you captured some interesting emotion, and perhaps the softness/blur is part of the feeling. But I suspect that most of the brides I shoot would not appreciate that softness.

"What do you think?" Like most of the others said, the dark and out of focus did not do it for me.

so far the consensus seems to be a pretty dim view :) unfortunately that's what happens with a critique. The bad points are picked up on. The harsh reality is your hard work is picked at like a flock of hungry birds ;)

 

Bob, I realise that you have done some nice pics and they are for yourself...however like I said it's hard to ask people who are trained, aspire, and live photography [creatives] to comment on these pics...that's all. No reflection should be taken on your character or ambition. In my opinion, as a professional photographer and someone who aspires to be creative, your pictures appear dark and blurred from technical sources etc...and not from being creative. I assume you wanted to get the photos to look a certain way, which should be commended...but as already stated there are rules...and those rules are usually there for a reason, creatively and technically. If you break away from these rules then you have to have a very strong image, and understanding of what you are breaking and why it enhances the feel of the image. Just making a picture blurry because you feel you want to do it still needs to adopt rules...such as emotion, or playing with the light, movement and atmosphere [to name a few]. This is why we spend all our waking lives researching, practicing and enhancing our style, and knowledge. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't...but it's about knowing what and why something is working, and presenting the ones that work.

 

Again, your pictures are too dark. Which seems to be from an uncalibrated monitor as most of us have calibrated monitors and they look 'darker' than perhaps what you realise. Nothing to do with your technique in this case. However, a few pics to mention, to back up my own view...1st pic, they look great together and there is some emotion etc, but they are dark...not dark in a creative way...but in a technical way. The light was limited so you have upped the iso...but the exposure is not enough as their upper bodies aren't exposed enough. They need more light on them and less on their surroundings. 2nd pic, lovely pic...but his tie and ear are in focus...it should be his eye..or the flower [if that is the point of interest? POI] the focus of interest should not really be his tie and ear...this is a technical issue not a creative issue. 3rd pic, again nice pic, however it falls down because her eye should be in focus, and as she is looking/turning away it detracts from the emotion...she looks angry...or sad...the blur is from the lack of light [slow shutter having to be used]and not because you wanted movement [could be wrong?] ...and 3rd and 4th pics back up what I have just said because they contradict your first three...well lit, sharp points of interest, and some emotion directed or captured by you, the photographer. The picture of the bride [i presume is the bride] is really what you should be looking for with all your images. Well lit, Sharp POI, everything leads you into or towards the POI and no clutter or distractions etc. On the other hand the bride dancing is blurred and dark...without any emotion or creativity. You may have tried to break the rules with this pic but unfortunately it doesn't/hasn't worked. Where is the focus? Not sure what I should be looking at because there is no POI, and nothing leads me towards the POI. There is a lot of distraction with background elements...the light is even so she doesn't pop out from the background, there is no real communciation between you and her...for example she isn't looking at somewhere or at you and expressing a captured emotion which takes this photo from a snap to a piece of art or great photo. Again the photo of the chap in b/w is out of focus...and it looks like this, it doesn't look good, it looks like you took a picture and missed the focus point. Also with the next photo of the girl with flowers, I thought you may have done this on purpose, but i notice again the fingers are sharp...so you have missed the sharpness of her eyes.

 

Maybe I am being critical...but like I said you are asking for a critique from your peers...and this is a critique. It is a platform for you to progress as a photographer. I have taken the time to show you the problem areas of your photos, but not disuade you from taking photos, or determine what sort of person you are. I think you have a good understanding of what makes a good photo, but perhaps your technical understanding is limited and needs working on.

 

Keep up the hard work...being a photographer is not pretty :)

 

When I look at Bob's larger collection on Flickr (over 1,000 images) I see a broad understanding of the rules and craft of photography, and an appreciation of various genres. One may disagree with his creative choices in this wedding set but they are, I believe, choices and not technical errors.

 

Artistically I have no problem with a photographer willfully breaking rules--nobody gets hurt, and maybe the boundaries of taste and style get moved a bit. I found a few images in the wedding set that conveyed a real sense of place, time, and mood. And I loved the last image in the set... wish I had taken that one.

 

For most photographers making a living at wedding photography, this kind of creative interpretation isn't really an option. Clients with tastes along these lines have to be pretty rare, and certainly wouldn't sustain a business. But Bob got to make some wedding pictures on his own creative terms, and that's an enviable opportunity. Shooting weddings is pure fun when you're not on the clock.

 

BTW, Bob... my compliments on the Hurrell and Jazz sets on Flickr. Especially loved the OOF bass player.

Martin, "unfortunately that's what happens with a critique. The bad points are picked up on. The harsh reality is your hard work is picked at like a flock of hungry birds" Bob is a big boy and can handle the negative I think. If he would have wanted a bunch of "attaboys" he would have said so. I don't feel like a "hungry bird", I feel like a viewer that did not care for the images and told him so. Bob has tons of good stuff and wanted to know what people thought of this particular batch. Most of us did not care for them and told him so, much more helpfull and educational than lying to him.

Tim's right; I'm very hard to offend and you're not likely to wound my ego with critique. In fact I'm quite happy with the comments I've gotten here and they're all very useful, though perhaps in ways you might find unexpected.

 

I have taken a careful look through the photos I've posted in light of your comments and have concluded that some of them aren't as good as I'd like and should be removed from the set to make it stronger - but many of the shots I'm likely to keep are the ones which drew the most criticism.

 

Bruce's sneer about the Leica mystique has finally focused me fully on a problem which the M8 actually *does* have (unlike most of the pseudo-problems discussed on the net); it has a bad problem with noise in the blue channel above ISO 320; it also has a less severe problem with noise in the green channel in this range. These problems cause skin in particular to have a blotchy appearance in color photos. Of course all cameras (including film cameras) have some form of a problem like this, because the sensor/film is simply starved for blue light. But the blotchiness seems to be a special problem with the M8. For now I may just revert to B&W, because in other ways the camera does things for me I've not been able to duplicate with DSLRs after some trying.

 

I agree with Bruce that most wedding pros can't afford to move outside of a certain set of expectations which are not a "formula" but which are constraining. This is one of the reasons I don't ever want to be a pro; a pro is someone who has a paying customer and who therefore is not completely artistically free. Artistic constraint is of course not a "bad thing" - it's just a "thing", and some photographers in this forum do exceptionally creative and artistic work within those constraints, which is one reason I value the opinions here. On the other hand I take exception to Martin's equation of professionals with artistic creatives; art can be done within *or* without the confines of professional work. I am trying to do art. I'm not trying to be professional.

 

And that brings me to the heart of the matter; the most valuable thing about the critique here has been a sort of affirmation (!) that what I'm doing is different enough to be easily distinguishable from "mainstream wedding photography" - in other words that my photographic style is recognizable when I'm photographing a subject for which there is a standard set of expectations (if not a formula). I think that's good news. I do take the point that even within my own rules I'm still far short of perfection. There might be photographers who don't realize that, but I'm acutely aware of my imperfection as a photographer. It's one of the things that makes it interesting to keep doing photography; it's not "too easy".

 

So when you say my photos are "too dark", my reaction is just "no, they're exactly as dark as they should be". On the other hand when you say "2nd pic, lovely pic...but his tie and ear are in focus...it should be his eye", I think you might be right. I mean, I still like the picture a lot but I can imagine it being better if the point of focus were the eye.

 

Everyone likes the photo of the bride's mom, but while I think this is "nice" it's also in my own estimation artistically one of the weakest shots, whereas the photo of the bride dancing (the color shot), which drew the comment "On the other hand the bride dancing is blurred and dark...without any emotion or creativity", looks much stronger to me.

 

This is all great food for thought. My thoughts right now are along the lines of "why do I like what I like?" I think there's a framing and habituation component of this; wedding photographers like "conventional" wedding photos both because they've seen a lot of them and absorbed the aesthetic, and perhaps more importantly because the successful ones are people whose eye is drawn to that mode of expression as a form of excellence. It's an aesthetic I can appreciate and enjoy a lot, but it's not what my eye is most drawn to. So I see a wedding differently than a lot of you do and it's really interesting to analyze what precisely those differences are, and to think about which of them are truly important to what I value in photographs and which ones I could just get over and make pictures which still "look like me" but are also more attractive to others.

 

So, thanks!

I meant, of course, "I agree with *David* that most wedding pros can't afford to move outside of a certain set of expectations which are not a "formula" but which are constraining". Sorry to both Bruce and David for the misquote.

I wrote a massive reply to this...but have decided not to post it as what's the point!

 

Basically...you like them because you like them and that's that. I'm a professional, but what you fail to realise is I come from an art background; a hard grafted education, as do most creative people...I learnt my craft through art and art history as well as photography. I then learnt the technical side to photography and combined the both. So try to understand this:

 

Aesthetics follows rules. If these pics are for yourself then fine, they are fine. But if you place them for others to see and critique then they will cast their creative/professional/ and hard learnt and earned Aesthetic/Artistic rules on them. Take their advice, progress and don't try to patronise them by saying you are an artist, and worse refer to people as creative and that you value their opinion but then use my name in terms of 'not of value', this is rude.

 

What you are doing is subjective, but unfortunately..this is a wedding and you must be creative objectively. You have an idea in mind, so you put it across in the image...but the audience has to be able to see the idea objectively! You cannot be suggesting that being badly composed, underexposed, out of focus, and having no reportage quality is what you were trying to show because you decided to be creative and break some rules?

 

Your pics may be the best you have ever seen in the confines of your own house. But unfortuantely as we all have to experience our photos don't always work, no matter how we see them. No matter how good or creative we think we are being. Creative freedom has nothing to do with it...technique and understanding of light/compostion/Focusing and so-on do, even more so with photography!

 

I did not judge your photos from any other stand point than being an artist...from being a creative...and it has nothing to do with a profession or being qualified to judge. However, I state the professional side to it because it has an IMPORTANT factor in what you have done with these photos, just as important to learn from as being artistic or being subjective.

Bob, in my opinion these pictures, accept a few, which I mentioned, look as if you have simply held up your camera, pointed it and shot. None of your other images in your gallery [on your blog] show the same artistic 'flow', and make these pics look like your trying to cover up ability with the monicle of 'Art'.

Your other pics demonstrate and understanding of composition, focus POI, dynamics, lighting, technique...and as I mentioned in my post I realise you have an understanding of these crucial elements.

 

However these wedding pics look weak and 'technically' dark and out of focus compared to your other pics. You may have been trying to implement some kind of dark and out of focus element to these...but it hasn't work as well. This is my point, and not that I'm a professional and your an artist.

 

And this has turned out to be a massive reply after all.

Um, Martin, I'm not sure what you're reading. I didn't use your name in connection with any statement of the form "not of value"; the only place I used it at all was to say that I disagree when you draw an analogy between "professional" and "creative" - I think this distinction is just obviously wrong, as there are both uncreative professionals and amateur creatives.

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No audience and no individual ever "sees the idea objectively" - this was my point at the end of the posting. We see in context of what we have seen, which is of course the point of the education you've had in art history.

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You write <i>"You cannot be suggesting that being badly composed, underexposed, out of focus, and having no reportage quality is what you were trying to show because you decided to be creative and break some rules?"</i> We can differ on terms like "badly" and "under", but what I *am* saying is that the focus, composition, and exposure in these shots is something I chose, not something that happened by accident or by mistake. Speaking of patronizing, you said in your first post that my <i>"technical understanding is limited and needs working on."</i>. Maybe, but that's not what's going on in these pictures. When I want a conventially exposed picture of fireworks, I take <a href=" when I want a conventionally exposed picture of a rock concert I take <a href=" (both of these were shot on film, with manual cameras and no meter). When I want a conventionally exposed picture of a piece of architecture I take <a href=" (shot digitally in natural light without consulting the in-camera meter). When I want reportage I shoot <a href=" (shot digitally in ambient tungsten without consulting the in-camera meter at an event at which I was a credentialled member of the press). And when I want a conventional portrait in with conventional lighting in a studio, I take <a href=" (taken digitally with Profoto strobes, Elinchrom wireless triggers, and a flash meter). I link these only to make the point that your dislike of the pictures doesn't mean they weren't done the way they were on purpose, nor does it imply a lack of *understanding* of light, focus, composition, etc... I understand them; I just don't use them the same way you do.

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Finally I'll say that I have no idea what it means to judge photos from the viewpoint of an artist. The viewpoint from which one judges is that of a critic; from the viewpoint of an artist one simply creates. I do understand how one judges as a professional; there's standard of craft and a genre within which one works. The distinction I made in my post above is that if I were a wedding pro I would want to have the viewer think "that's a wedding picture taken by Blakley". But I'm not a professional - what I want is to have the viewer think "that's a Blakley picture taken at a wedding".

I realize by the way that I've left out the explanation of WHY the pictures look this way. To put it simply, when it gets dark inside, a lot of photographers try to show you what it would look like if you turned on the lights. I'm trying to show what the dark looks like. Perhaps after a few martinis.

"I'm trying to show what the dark looks like. Perhaps after a few martinis."

 

Looks like scotch to me, Bob... I get a lot more camera tilt from martinis.

"what I *am* saying is that the focus, composition, and exposure in these shots is something I chose"

 

I which case I don't like those choices - the pictures are too dark.

I'm conflicted here.

 

On one hand Bob has said he is not and doesn't want to be a wedding photographer. Then, he asks wedding photographers for a critique.

 

Now, it seems he wanted to affirm that he didn't shoot like a wedding photographer and therefore is happy.

 

Anyway Bob - you did ask for a critique..

 

What I saw..

 

You were going for moody and perhaps edgy shots perhaps? In some of the images I think you got it. I don't think the photo of the couple dancing with the bottom part lit and the upper body completely dark worked and in fact looked like a mistake. Image of the bride with flowers.... I don't think it ever looks good, moody, edgy or works when you have sun splotches on a female face.. - looked like a snapshot from a point and shoot. I'm never a fan of dark faces when faces are direct on camera... In profiles they can work but not head on. The shot of the couple with the cake for instance... didn't like that the groom was dark.

 

Other shots were moody and "different" and I thinked they worked for what I assume you were trying to achieve.