Wedding... please critique

[ryancarter]

Hi folks, I just finished a wedding and would very much appreciate

your critiques of my work. I used a Canon 20D and a 1DMII with

mostly a 50mm 1.4 and a 24-70L 2.8 for the shots. I really want to

learn from this and I have thick skin so let me have it.

Information, critiques, ideas and suggestions from other wedding

photographers is invaluable, and much more helpful than family,

friends and clients. The photos are in the weddings folder in my

portfolio. Thanks.<div></div>

[melisa]

The first dance ROCKS! Like the kid w/the champagne and the groom getting ready. I like your work Ryan, but looks like lots of manipulation. How long is it taking you to do all this?

[johnmarkpainter]

Just a personal opinion....

 

Don't get carried away with over-manipulation. A little goes a long way.

 

Think about keeping the look more consistent. Your B&W looks very different from Shot to

shot. You are taking good shots and I am sure that they will be very happy.

 

I think that your outdoor B&W shot needs a tweak. It would have been easier without the

direct sun (Blowing your whites completely clear).

 

I find it helpful to keep real B&W Prints and Files around as a reference when emulating

B&W with Digital. Be hard on yourself.....prop up a good Avedon Book next to your

monitor :)

[grant g]

"Think about keeping the look more consistent. Your B&W looks very different from Shot to shot."

 

I was thinking that it looked like several different photographers shooting. It could just be the way you are processing.

 

Looks like the kiss at the altar shot is soft and unsaturated and I can't tell if it is intentional or a salvage of a bad shot or lack of photoshop experience.

 

Typically, I'd expect better results from both of those lenses.

 

If the bulk of your shots shown are not already cropped and reframed to 2:3 (they are your full-frame shots), you will be in trouble if you try to crop for 8x10s from many of these pictures.

 

Otherwise it seems you have a pretty good eye.

[alokppatel]

Ryan,

Great job. I think, as said above you have a good sense of subject matter, i.e. the "good eye." The cropping to 8*10, yea, that might be an issue in some of those, at lease it may not be the shot as you saw it when enlarged to those proportions. I really think the "first dance" shot is great. I will try to pick up on an idea mentioned above; the idea of consistency. When shooting an event, you need to focus part of your attention on capturing the event as a dramatic event, or story. To that extent, your differeing styles seem to be different becuase you thought, probably while PSing the images that certain things would benefit a certain picture. What happens is that when you haen't preconceived of these techniques as benefitting the images as a collection in capturing the event, it tends to break up the effect of narrative continuity. Great job, and keep it up.

Alok

[suzanne carey]

Hi Ryan! After looking at your wedding pictures, I went and looked at all your other folders. I absolutely love your work, the people and kids portraits. This may not be appropriate in this forum, but I would love to know what lighting you use, lenses you have used in some of the samples you have in your folders. Your style is exactly what I want to aspire to! Feel free to email me if you want to not distract from this thread.

 

PS - I liked the wedding pictures!

[mark_l]

Hi Ryan,

 

I think your two strongest photos are the bride looking away at the window, and the groom looking straight on (black and white). Those are really nice, good work!

 

I agree with the others in that your b/w conversions look different, and a sense of consistency and continuity in your photos would work better. The photoshop manipulations that are more overt tend to draw attention away from your subject matter and more to what you are doing with the photos. I'm not sure if you did manipulations on first dance, but those work better than the other one with the blurred colors. The b/w conversion on the kid with the glass looks "off" for some reason, too little shadow detail, and the grain or something about it looks kinda strange. Hope these comments help!

[grant g]

Just wanted to add that I thought the strongest shots were the bride in the window and the first dance shot, mostly because they do not look manipulated at all. I don't think the dance shot was at all, just good motion-blur technique...dragged the shutter from 1/15 to 1/30? Reduced the fill flash or used the on-camera flash?

 

The boy with the glass looks flat. Especially his face. I'd try working with the contrast and maybe the red/orange/yellow filtering to give his face a little depth.

[paul_sokal___dallas__tx]

Ryan, the first dance is quite a shot with phenomenal motion, but I wish you could lighten it some. It seems almost too detached IMO and maybe a hint of the background would reconnect it. I like the pose with bride in his arms but cutting off the corner of her dress throws the pic out of balance and probably she'd rather see the rest of it. I'm developing a thing about angled perspective in wedding photography. I think it's way over used and it's best use is to emphasize motion or energy. Using it in a picture that is clearly a static, posed shot to me seems gimicky, trying to add something that isn't there. I have a shot in my porfolio where the bride is sitting in his lap. I angled that to emphasize her leaning into him, taking a breather after the ceremony. I'm not sure it worked, but I think it does, but maybe I'm misusing the technique too. I like the kiss shot though I wonder if rather than gausian blur you might have used blur tool to de-emphasize the lattice behind them. The available light portrait is nice but the lateral profile is usually not the most flattering and the high lights look a little blown, at least on my computer. I love the posing of the groom and his merry men EXCEPT show me his face. This is supposed to be a happy occasion. Looking at the ground almost conveys melancholia IMO, someone who won't make eye contact. The portrait of the groom in his vest is dramatic. My only question is the grain, though in this shot it probably adds to the drama. In the other B&W's I think it's a detractor. The grain may be an artifact of dumbing down your pics for PN as I thought the Canons were supposedly low noise. What ISO were you shooting?

[pazellisphoto]

Your work is great! I, too, love the first dance... but i would also lighten it, maybe remove some yellow (was the dress true white?) If so, I would definitely tone it down in hue/saturation and lighten a bit with curves. You have a wonderful eye, Ryan!

[ryancarter]

I love these forums, thanks for all the responses and keep them coming. Let me give you all a bit more information on these pics. These are most of the PSd images from the wedding. I thought that they were the most interesting. The rest are just the standard shots. As for the b&w, the grain is created using a filter that is supposed to make the pictures look like old fashioned pictures. The highest ISO I used was 400, so the grain/noise was not from the cameras.

 

Melisa, I shot about 600 pictures and edited them down to the final 125 in about three hours.

 

John, thanks for the comments. I have tried to make my b&w be different from the majority that are out there. I am not sure if that is good or bad, just different. Many of these shots were at 2-3 in the afternoon with no clouds in the sky. The highlights were a problem, I could use some ideas on how to combat direct sunlight. There weren?t many options at this location.

 

Grant, the altar kiss is a different version that is supposed to look a bit soft and subdued. The regular shot will be presented as well. These are not cropped yet.

 

Alok, thanks, I really hadn?t even thought about having a consistent look. I need to work on that.

 

Suzanne, I will send you some info.

 

Mark, I agree on the kid with glass. I need to redo that one. The first dance was burned and masked to focus just on the couple. I got this idea from a guest at the wedding that said when she was married, and they had their first dance it seemed like no one else was in the room. Maybe that is silly, but that is what I was trying for.

 

Grant, both of the photos you mentioned were PSd. I must have done ok with them if you could not tell. I was using a 550ex on a Stroboframe Pro RL with an omni-bounce on the flash. I agree the boy pic needs work. I couldn?t resist shooting him, he was a character.

 

Paul, the cut of bride pic was because her dress got really dirty. In fact if you look at the bottom of the pic you can see how dirty it got. She didn?t get it all picked up when crossing the parking lot. This is the first time I have used the angle look on anything, I am not sure I like it either. It needs some work. Thanks for the comments on the groom looking down. I hadn?t considered that. The grain was my filter not the camera, going for the old fashioned look.

 

Yvelisse, the dress was just off-white. The yellow comes from the lighting they had in the room. I might whiten it up a bit.

 

Everyone?..I am just curious, with all the b&w comments, what percent of your final wedding prints that you present to the bride and groom are b&w? I probably have about 15-20% in b&w for this shoot. The bride?s mom told me she doesn?t like b&w, but the bride told me she liked b&w and wanted a bunch.

 

Thanks for all the comments, its obvious I still have a lot to learn, and this is a great place to improve my ability with the help I?m getting here.

[paul_sokal___dallas__tx]

Ryan, on my lap top at home as opposed to the crappy monitor I have at work, I now see much more detail in first dance and I like it even more. I still think it needs just a nudge of light. BTW, looked at the rest of your portfolio. Primo! Paul