We had a great time! The couple was joyous and we took as many photos as humanly possible. As I had hoped, David and Mark were wonderful that night. Kathy, the groom’s mother and church coordinator, said the guys were more professional than some other “professional” photographers who’ve showed up wearing shorts!
That night I tried to download photos from their cards to a little hardrive I purchased, but it failed! Ah, well. The guys waited around while I tried to get it to work, but it was eventually agreed that they would mail me CDs/DVDs. The next day, after burning an original copy of everything, I started sorting through photos and deleting the odd ones (of floor, ceiling, eachother). Once I got theirs, the only glitch was the lack of time sync. It was first on my list to do, but there are always things that slip one’s mind ‘in the moment’. One of us was off my an hour (probably on daylight savings time), so I had some wedding photos mixed into the reception photos when I viewed them all together in Lightroom. Luckily, I was able to use Breezebrowser Pro to adjust the photos that were off. David and Mark both shoot with Nikon and I’m a Canon girl, but I had no problems with their .NEF files once I got them. I’m actually a bit glad I did have to wait a few days to get the other files from them. There were so many to look through! By the end, I had a friend sit next to me and help me delete the last 100 or so until I had a manageable set for the couple. Here’s a short list of some of the other things I took away from this project:
1. Get there early. Scout the area and get photos of the setup. David and Mark both did a great job of this. Me, not so much. I only allowed myself about 20 minutes of scouting time before heading out to where Ashley was getting dressed. As a result I missed some shots of the outside and inside of the church that I would have liked.
2. ISO 400 or below. This is a big one. We were indoors in a candlelit environment, but that does not change my belief that ISO 1600 should be used sparingly at events like this. There were some shots that were great, but too dark. Because of the ISO, when I fixed the exposure or brightened them, they were incredibly noisy. That made some of them unusable. I tried to save them by converting to B&W, etc., but really, there was enough light in the church for a lower ISO. At least 800!
3. Flash is your friend. This goes along with #2. It was something that I didn’t want to do much of either, but when I did use flash some things, like the portraits, just evened out much better. An off camera flash setup would be ideal. We all saw how hard it was to get the ambient light right in that church, even with a reflector.
4. Get an expo disc! I shot at a good ISO, but my color was way too cold at times. It was an easy fix, but tedious.
Overall it was the positive attitude of the couple, their family and their friends, that helped make it this an amazing professional experience.
To see more shots of the party, visit the flickr gallery.
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