My first wedding... *gulp*

[minicoop1985]

I flubbed the ring shot, but my wife got several with her macro lens that are MUCH better. She was GOING to be my second shooter, but just took maybe 4 photos of the ring.

 

[gsgary]

She only took 4 photos at the wedding ?

 

[minicoop1985]

Yeah, it's a long story. She wasn't able to go to the ceremony.

 

[Derrel]

Yeah, blue shirt guy's presence pissed me off. The fact he's drinking something ..

No, he's not drinking.

That's a spit can.

That is EXACTLY what it looks like to me as well...that he's chewing tobacco, and using the can as his spitter. I grew up in a logging/farming/ranching area, and believe me...I've seen this more than once or twice...

 

[minicoop1985]

Even better! Wow, I need to do something with that shot.

IMG_6767 by Michael Long, on Flickr


Here's the background for the ceremony. It's so terrible.

 

[Granddad]

You did your best with what you were given. You can't do more than that. Well done for shooting it in the circumstances.
Personally I try to avoid weddings, they scare the heck out of me.

Like many others here have said, I've seen MUCH, much worse.

Anyway, it's the marriage that's important, not the wedding.

 

[minicoop1985]

I appreciate hearing that you guys have seen worse. It actually makes me feel much more confident about this. I'm on the calendar for another next year, so this has been a good experience overall.

 

[Derrel]

Chin up, man! Take a look at this Pinterest board, with some absolutely egregious blunders and utterly ridiculous wedding pics!

https://www.pinterest.com/gohendotcom/wedding-fails/

While this venue might not have been all that, I will NEVER forget the wedding album I was shown some years ago, of a wedding that took place with on-site reception in an Elks lodge....OMG...there was a mounted elk head every 15 feet or so on the walls, as well as loads of plaques and old photos of old, dead Elks lodge members...the place was like a taxidermist's showroom....full-head mounts, one FULL body mounted elk, elk horns on plaques, omg....elk mounts, elk horns, yeeeesh...and the glares from all the nameplates on the wall plaques....god, it was so,so tacky!

 

[minicoop1985]

I really didn't think it could get WORSE... There's an Elk's Lodge behind my house. I can imagine how horrible THAT was. Wow.

Also, oh Russia.

 

[FITBMX]

They appear sharp and clear and with pretty good, pleasing color. MUCH higher quality than smartphone images, which they will probably be receiving from friends and family via text, e-mail, and Facebook over the next week or so. The shot of the groom and the three ladies looks just a wee bit too bright, due to the generous exposure, in which the blacks look like they were hit with a lot of flash power.

My sister had a friend shoot their whole wedding with a iPhone!

So these are much better, and you should be able to make them look real nice after some edit work.

 

[minicoop1985]

An iPhone? That's just awful.

Thanks, I think I've got them about as good as they can possibly be now after doing some tweaking to just about all of them, unfortunately, which isn't great.

 

[vintagesnaps]

I don't know if he's drinkin' or spittin' but he looks happy enough! But he's got to go... lol

They look good, considering well, everything (low/lousy lighting, available backgrounds, etc.). With the first one along with straightening I'd crop out the brown thing and outlet to the right, and the edge of the lights overhead.

With the one coming up the aisle, I think I'd minimize the other people - probably crop from the left of the beer can/spittoon(?!), and some of the bottom edge (get rid of the shoe/whatever to the lower right, which might be gone cropping that side); then the top from the bottom of the lights, and the left side from just to the left of the chair (that guy being close to the camera made his arm take up a lot of the photo). (Or I guess I could've just showed you... lol).

If you're going to do more weddings, what might get you some practice with at least part of it might be to take pictures at say, seasonal events where you're allowed to take pictures, and frame some shots as things are happening. I think lots and lots of practice helped me doing sports and events.

 

[minicoop1985]

Thanks, Sharon. I did exactly that, actually. Got rid of Mr. Spittoon. Cloned out the power cord in the first kiss photo. Used a different image than the first one (ladies had flowers) where the door isn't showing and made sure it was straight. Made a large number of little tweaks.

As for capturing an event, I've done a fair amount of race track shooting. Gotta be ready or you lose your shot. I think I did pretty well with covering the action from the rest of the event, like the cake cutting, ring exchange, grand march, etc. Are they ridiculously creative, artistic shots with perfect lighting and composition? Um... no.

 

[The_Traveler]

These are really nice and sharp and with a little effort (and more care than I spent) you could actually tighten up the first one quite a bit to lose some of that empty space.

 

[vintagesnaps]

I think that cleaned it up nicely Lew. Didn't realize Michael that you'd already done some editing etc.; for some reason I got the impression you hadn't particularly done much in the way of events.

Well, I hope Mr. Drink 'n Spit had fun at least! since he wasn't exactly helping the background much there.