I had a wedding to shoot on Saturday. It was a 7 hour event, so I got about 1200 shots which is normal. I honestly cannot fathom how it was ever done in the film days as I cannot see having to reload every 32 shots.

Anyway, I was the primary camera. My ‘assistant’ (and I use quotes because she’s the owner of the company that hired me) took a few shots, but it was mainly up to me. I can handle weddings all by my lonesome, but I’m glad she was there for two reasons – It was a medium-large sized crowd and the mother of the bride was a total….um, never mind. I’ll keep this post PG.

Now, I will admit to some laziness as a photographer that I fall into because it is afforded me by the digital format. At times, I tend to shoot like crazy, realizing that most of the shots simply won’t come out and rely on chance to get a good image. Unfortunately, when doing candids that is the norm. With the posed shots, I can take a little more time and compose, check the light, angles, etc., but when trying to catch action shots, you just kind of fire away and hope for the best.

However, as I’ve been doing this for a few years now, I’m really starting to get better at catching the shots I want with the proper lighting without wasting frames. Normally when I hand off the images to the studio, I cull out all the blurry shots, closed eyes, blown out images, etc. I’ve got very few of those in this wedding!

Of course, I used my big lens for most of the ceremony, and that helps. Motion stabilization, large aperture, and the wonderful bokeh made the shots fabulous. Plus, the perspective compression at 200mm made some great shots (the groom seeing his bride for the first time from over the shoulder of the father walking her down the isle. Perfect!).

I’m just happy so far with all the images I’ve got. Tons of great shots, lots of ‘good’ shots (we use these to fix other images if people’s eyes are closed or whatnot), and fewer rejects than I’ve ever had.

Not bad for being self taught!