Capturing location images on your Wedding day
You probably spent a lot of time mulling over the location of your Wedding. This can be one of the most stressful decisions a bride and groom makes. What is your style? Where do you think portrays who you are as a couple? What is within your budget? Do you want an over the top location? Local or Destination? Nature or Beach?
This location can be the determining factor in a bunch of decisions on the Wedding day. One big thing for my style of work is incorporating Wedding locations into the Wedding day images. I think that every location should be captured to the best of my ability in a number of creative ways. In fact, the one Wedding image that I have on my wall in our bedroom is a beautiful canvas of my beautiful wife and myself on the balcony overlooking our Wedding ceremony location. This was a must have shot and I think Roy Katalan for capturing it for me.
This brings me to my point, so many blogs that I see these days have pretty images BUT lack the key images of the Wedding day. I see all these creative shots with blown out skies and blown out everything and they say nothing of the beautiful location.
I shoot on Mackinac Island a good amount and I always see images of locations on the island where the background is just blown right out. Yah, the bride and groom look nice but this image could have been in my back yard, really. Some images like this are fantastic but having the whole day like this is a disservice to the client. Spend the extra time and light the couple correctly so that you can add the backdrop in the image. This is at any location, I just made an example of the island.
Now, how do you do this, you ask. Off camera lighting is the way to go. You have to have off camera light or you get flat images and blown out backdrops. I laugh when I hear people say, well I am a natural light shooter. Well, good for you, but you are doing a disservice to your client. If they even know how great of images you can make with a bit of fill light off camera they would look elsewhere.
Bottom line is to make sure you see an entire Wedding and look at the images overall. Do they truly show the beautiful Wedding location with the bride and groom? Are there images of people interacting in the Wedding locations?
There is a reason that you chose the Wedding location and make sure that it is documented correctly to tell the story and be an image the you will cherish on your walls for life! Happy Weddings to all!
