With so many people now doing wedding photography for friends and family it’s great that they can help out and get some amazing photos for the happy couple!

With the superb image quality being produced by today’s cameras  the only thing that is needed is a little bit of know how.

Stand in the isle

You can give a £5,000 professional camera to 2 people and ask them to photograph the same subject and both will get different results. Why? Because they have different ideas, different experience and will do things in their own way. What will be same is the technical quality of the image.
Assuming they have all got the same camera settings to start with then the color, sharpness, detail and quality will be the same, it’s just the content that will be different

Getting the content right is the thing that makes the difference.

If you know the best place to stand to take a photo then your off to a good start.
Standing in the WRONG place can also kill an otherwise great photo because of the poor light, distracting objects in the fore ground or background.

If you imagine the subject to be photographed in this case is the Bride and Groom at the alter.

Most people will be taking photos from the congregation and have the back of  other peoples heads in the  shot, what you don’t often see is people stepping out into the isle to take the shot! this is a perfect example of the same shot from a different angle.

You can also stand at the side of the alter to get another great angle, and once again give a different shot.

This shot was taken by standing in the isle and later cropped in to remove some other items that I didn’t want in the shot.

To learn more little tips like this one CLICK HERE to grab my complete DIY Wedding Photo Guide for £9.97 and you’ll also get 3 other fantastic books to help you get great wedding photos.

Most of the photos you see and probably take will have the subject bang in the centre as that’s the norm, and its what most people do, as most photos taken are of people its normal to just point the camera at the at the person, make sure the are in the viewfinder, and shoot away. That’s fine, though not very imaginative…

If you want to get a little creative with your photography then shoot with the subject off centre, get them to the side or bottom or top of the shot and have something that compliments the shot in the frame too.

This can take some practice to get it right in the camera, though if you’re using a 8 or 10 MB camera and are only planning to use your shots on the computer, on the internet, or to make prints for an album or framed up to A4 then you can crop your shot later without loosing any noticeable quality.

Keep it simple. The saying “less is more” is very applicable when composing a shot, especially for the majority of wedding and people photos. If you’ve ever heard of the 80/20 principal you’ll know that the basic principal is that 20% of effort results in 80% of the results! Or to be more photo orientated 20% of the image you fill the frame with will account for 80% of the interest in the photo! so don’t try and fill the frame with what ever your photographing as you may end up cropping out something you later wished you’d left in and you can always crop it in later and get the composition right.

In this shot the Bride and Groom occupy about 20% of the  shot and are placed in the lower part of the photo leaving the window in the upper background to form part of the overall photo.
When you take a shot like this in the camera you are also leaving lots of space around the main subjects to allow you to crop  in later if you wish, had you zoomed in when taking the photo then this would not be an option.

This is taken from the same shot but has been cropped in using a basic photo editing program.

Had the shot been taken like this at the wedding then there would be no option to use the shot with more background if you wanted to.

Ideally it would be best to take 3 or 4 shots at the event and then you have a good selection to work with later, the other advantage of having more photos from closer up would be the extra detail captured giving better enlargements if needed.

For lots more great professional tips like this to help you get amazing wedding photos get your self a copy of the “DIY Wedding Photo Guide” today. it’s in full ebook format that you can be reading in just a few minutes.  And Its now just £9.97!!! . CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO

Geoff.

This post is taken from my DIY Wedding Photo Guide and if you like what you read then you can get the full package by for just £5  By CLICKING HERE, or pleas feel free to grab my free MINI WEDDING PHOTO COURSE by CLICKING HERE.

Ok, first things first…

Editing and selecting the best shots

Even though editing would only take place at the end when you’ve got the shot’s, it’s important to start with the end in mind at the beginning, as you’ll see that editing can make all the difference! especially to get your photos looking professional. Its important to keep this in mind when getting the shots as when you know the possibility’s with editing the photos, you’ll look at the scene differently and not just as it appears in camera.

Ok, first thing is to get all the shots together from the day, create a folder in your system, maybe “wedding photos” probably good to do it in the “My photos” folder in windows, as this will make easier viewing later, in the folder create sub folders for each card you have and up load each card in to its own folder, if you have the option to change the file you may find it useful later to change the file name to an initial plus a 2 or 3 digit number. i.e., if you get a card from John Smith, copy the shots to the folder “John Smith” and re name the files as js001, js002, js003, then for Julie Jones card, name the folder to “Julie Jones” and the files to jj001, jj002 and so on with all the cards from the day. Now once complete BACK THE WHOLE WEDDING PHOTO FOLDER UP TO DISK IMMEDIATELY!!!, and as disks are only pennies, make a couple of copies for safe keeping.

Now with all the photos backed up you can begin to edit them, I would first create a duplicate of the original “wedding photos” folder for editing, this can be done by right clicking on the folder and selecting copy, then paste, this will give you a copy of the folder with all the photos in. this is the folder to use for editing. Keep the original folder with the original photos in whilst you complete the editing in the copy folder.

When editing, always look for shots of interest, shots that say something, or tell you something about the day, not just the photos of people smiling

DON’T Delete any shots in the camera on the day! why? because I’ve heard too many time that someone pressed the wrong button and deleted to whole lot!, and also the photo may not look that good in the camera but when you get it on your computer you may find it’s ok.
when you get the shots on your computer you’ll probably have some shots that are just no good, they could be:

· Either far too light or dark to retain any detail

· Totally out of focus

· Blurred

· Important detail on the shot to small to enlarge

· Of no interest or relevance

· Repetitive or duplicated

But Don’t delete them just yet if they are:

· A bit light or a bit dark

· Have a colour cast (the shot looks yellow or blue or an odd colour)

· A touch out of focus

· The main point of interest is off centre or leaning

· The whole shot is crooked

· The main point of interest is small or distant on the shot

· There are objects in the foreground or background that are distracting.

As these shots can possibly still turn out quite good.

Light & Dark shots.

Thanks to photo editing suits this isn’t always a problem, many have an “auto correct” option that will work well and save an otherwise lost shot. If you are a more advanced user, then use the levels. If you can fix the shot this way that’s great, if not then try and convert them to black and white or sepia, then adjust the brightness and contrast to get the best result, or better still use the levels. For very light shots, maybe try adding a “soft focus filter” to the shot, and converting to black and white to give a classic “High Key” shot.

For dark shots try to bring in the highlights and leave the rest of the shot dark, maybe add a “grain or noise filter” to make more moody.

These methods may really save an otherwise lost shot, it may even end up being a really great shot.

When it comes to the editing I its better to show you with a video rather than write about it so I’ve found a great video that will show you just that. this video uses a great free program called paint.ne and you can grab it for free here => Paint.net

This video uses pet photos as examples, but the principles are the same. enjoy, and please feel free to add a comment below.

If your on facebook pleas click the “Like” below. Thankyou.

Its been a long time getting everything together but I’ve finally completed the guide for the upcoming 2011 wedding season

With the general economy the way it is I wanted to get the whole package right and be able to help those people who are not hiring a professional photographer for their wedding to get some great photos.

I’ve also included a free membership to my “Photo Savers” club that I’m soon to be rolling out, but as the wedding’s are fast approaching I wanted to go ahead and get people into it right away and help them see the savings and offers that I can find for them.

At this stage membership is ONLY available to those who get my “DIY Wedding Photo guide 2.0″ as they are the ones who’ll benefit from it the most right now.

You can read all about the guide here ( and buy it for £5 ==> http://wedding-photo-guide.com/DIY-Wedding-Photo-Guide/

and you can see why It’s not only going to help 1000′s of people save £100′s around the world, but it’s also going to cause a bit of a stir in the wedding photography industry as I reveal to people that they can get great wedding photos even if they are not hiring a professional wedding photographer.

My fantastic guide also reveals about getting your prints made in the professional labs for a fraction of the cost the professionals are charging.

Please help me to help those 1000′s of Brides and Grooms around the world who are not hiring a wedding photographer for whatever reason but who would still want great photos to remember their big day by with out spending £100′s.

Please Like and join us on facebook to.

Enjoy

Geoff

http://wedding-photo-guide.com/DIY-Wedding-Photo-Guide/

Please read on and I’ll tell you more, don’t worry, there is nothing for sale, just some good free guides and tips you can have and take away to help you get great wedding photos.

Firstly I want to tell you don’t need a £3000 camera in fact you can learn to get your shots looking professional in no time at all and probably with the camera you have right now, even if you only have a £50 compact pocket camera or a camera on your mobile.

Secondly, you don’t need years of training and experience you just need to know a hand full tips on composition and presentation to get your shots looking professional.

Long gone are the day’s when you needed to know the workings of the camera and all about the f-stops, ISO and shutter speed. Today’s digital cameras do all that for you so all you need to know is a good basic understanding of composition to get initial shot right, and then a few little tips on presentation and your there!

I’m a UK based photographer and former Studio owner passionate about my photography! I’ve seen so many 1000′s of photos that could have been so much better had the person taking the photo just done things differently that I had to do something to help! So I wrote a book and called it “D.I.Y. Wedding Photo Guide” to help them out.  I’m soon to have it on sale again (February 2011)  but in the meantime I wanted to help the people who come to this site with my mini crash course in getting great wedding photos.

.

Geoff Beattie

First I’ll send you a confirmation email as an anti spam measure. Just confirm your email and part 1 of your mini course will be with you right away!

If you like that tip then let me know what else you want to know in the comments below and I’ll do you one