So you think a wedding photographer’s job is easy? I will share some of my experiences below. You will get insight to what happens behind the camera and a typical workflow for a professional wedding photographer.
A wedding photographer is a hired professional who captures and preserves moments in the form of still images (pictures) from a wedding day. Sometimes the wedding photographer starts working from the location where the bride and the groom are getting dressed – This period is known as the ‘Pre-Ceremony’, ‘Bridals’ or ‘Bride and Groom preparation’ or ‘Bride and Groom Prep’ for short. This allows the moments leading up to the ceremony to be captured. This allows photos of the Groom/Bride and their Groomsmen/bridesmaids to be captured naturally in their environment when they are chilling, playing games together or having moments of laugher. Items such as rings, shoes, bouquets, jewelry, dresses, suits and ties are usually photographed during this period of the day as they are still crisp and unworn but mainly because this is the period of the day the photographer will have the most time to focus on small details. The bride and her bridesmaids’ makeup is covered during this period as well. Sometimes during the Pre-Ceremony a photographer will organize a ‘First Look’ for the couple. A first look is an activity where the bride is revealed to the groom. The groom is blindfolded or is positioned with his back turned to the bride and she approaches him from behind. This activity allows the groom to see the bride for the first time on the day of the wedding. The photographer gets to have a selection of photos for your album with these candid moments of this reveal. There is usually a lot of smiles, hugs, laughter and sometimes even tears!
After the Pre-Ceremony is complete the next task for the photographer is to cover the wedding ceremony. The photographer will take photos during the wedding ceremony making sure to capture candid moments and especially not missing significant moments such as the couple’s reactions during the vows and the first kiss.
Typically, after the ceremony is complete there is the ‘photo session’ with the couple’s families. Sometimes this is at a different venue from the ceremony or reception. A photo session is the designated period usually an hour for a large wedding that the posed photographs are done. This sometimes can be the most stressful part of the day for a photographer as there are sometimes large groups of hungry people that would prefer to be eating instead of taking photographs. Some Photographers work with assistants as this lightens the load on the main photographer. The Photographer’s Assistant will organize the groups and do the family photographs while the main photographer does the Bride and Groom photos for example. The photographer’s assistant will also assist the with any artificial lighting needs the photographer will have such as flashes and Strobes. The photographer’s duty would be to engage in photos all the family members in group photos, parents of the couple, friends, other photo requests of the couple, then photos with just the couple alone. (Sometimes the couple’s photo session is done on a different day from the day of the wedding ceremony).
The reception is the grande finale and is usually is the least stressful part of the wedding for the photographer. Receptions are usually just about pure fun and here the photographer does not have to deal with organizing posed shots or posing groups but can engage in true photo – journalism style documentation enabling more candid moments to be preserved. The photographer will generally cover the entire reception unless they are working based on hours and it gets too late.
After all the fun is done…. The real work Starts! It is said that 5% of a wedding photographer’s job is taking photos. Some of the other 95% is explained as follows. The night of or the day after the wedding is done the photographer engages in the storage, backup and processing of the images taken on the wedding day. All images are imported from memory cards to a computer and backups are created. Backups are duplicates of the images usually stored on a secondary device. Following this is the long process of sorting through hundreds of images and removing similar images, removing images with lighting deficiencies, excluding photos where eyes were closed and the like, and then selecting the best moments with the best facial expressions. This process can take days or weeks depending on the number of images to sort and how detailed the photographer is. Every photographer may have a slightly different step in handing images to clients. Some may build the album for the client others give the client freedom to choose their photos for the album, large prints and souvenirs. This period is called the photo selection. The client is sent or shown a pool of images to choose from. After the selections are made by the client the final pass of editing is done to those images making sure they have the best look and feel. This period could be a few more days or weeks depending on the number of images the client requests to be processed into finals and also the level of detail that each photographer spends on their work.
The final step is the delivery of the completed wedding package. Digital files are made available for download and the physical package is prepared and shipped to the address provided or a physical meeting is done in which the package is handed to the anxiously awaiting couple.
