Tips for Taking Great Pictures of Weddings, Family and Other Important Occasions
If you're serving as the photographer at a wedding or other important family or business event, there are a few guidelines to follow that will help capture the greatest photos to memorialize those important occasions.
You should choose a camera with a 12 to 35 mm lens with plenty of storage and flash capabilities and keep extra camera and flash batteries on hand to be sure you are fully equipped to photograph a lengthy or large event. Not being prepared with extras is the equivalent of running out of film and renders a photographer useless.
Once your camera is in hand, rather than standing in the background and snapping random long shots of people sitting around talking, you should mingle with the crowd, engage them in conversation and then explain that you're there to take photographs. You can then ask them for a quick pose and a nice smile to commemorate their attendance at the event.
It's always best to obtain permission before snapping what could turn out to be evil glares on the faces of people who do not want to be have their pictures taken. At family events, people are usually willing to be included in photos but at business events, many may prefer to remain in the background and not be highlighted in any official photographs of the event.
Pictures of large rooms full of people don't tell much of a story, so it's always better to limit group photos to two or three people and they generally look better if they are standing for the photo rather than sitting.
For group photos, try to arrange your subjects on varying levels rather than having them all stand in a row. Also, the photographer should tightly crop subjects, photographing only heads and shoulders.
For photographing both groups and individuals, you should step back away from your subject and use a longer focal length on your camera since standing closer and using wide angle lenses creates distortion in people's faces which ruins pictures.
You should never take photos of people while they are eating or when their mouths are full since this usually results in unflattering pictures.
Don't rely on Auto or Program modes in point and shoot cameras since they use a very slow shutter speed which often results in pictures with too much light and/or camera shake if the subjects of the photograph move at all.
It's always better to use natural lighting, if possible, so try to get the subjects of your photos outdoors away from glaring lights indoors. A bounce flash is less harsh than a direct flash and a fill flash works well for equalizing light and filling in shadows in photos taken outdoors.
The photographer should delete any pictures of people with their eyes closed or weird facial expressions that make for awful pictures.
If you create a photo gallery, include only the best shots of the event for sharing with those who were in attendance.
Of course, you should be familiar with your camera, experiment with different f-stops and shutter speeds and varying lighting conditions so that you can capture beautiful, memorable photographs of any family or business occasion. However if you try and capture photos of an event and your not quite ready yet you can always get in touch with a professional photographer because you can't go back and capture what you may have missed.