Hey guys! Welcome back to my channel. This week we are going to be talking about
detail photographs. How I take them on a wedding day, what my
process looks like, and and some tips for you guys to take away to hopefully improve
your detail photos. But before we start, I first want to mention,
if you are not on my mailing list and getting free photo tips to your inbox every single
week, you should go get on it! Because if you're not, you are seriously missing
out! Ok let's dive in.
So the detail photographs are something that
I take first thing in the wedding day. So I arrive to the bridal suite, I say hi
to the bride, and I gather up the details. So while she is having hair and makeup finishing
touches done, I'm going to go shoot those details. Of her shoes, stationery, her dress, the rings,
stuff like that.
The first thing I want to tell you guys, the
first tip that I have for you, is that the wedding day details:the photographs and getting
the best possible photographs, starts long before the wedding day. So, a couple of weeks before the wedding day
you are going to want educate your client. You are going to want to talk to them about
what you need so that you don't have to go find all of these details once you get to
the bridal suite. So you are going to tell them, "hey! I want to shoot all these meaningful details
for you, and I want to make sure we can get this done in our allotted time, so have your
maid of honor, or mom, or you, put all of these important and significant items in a
box so that I dont miss anything.
Because I want to make sure I photograph every
single thing." So that's what I say. And it works like a charm! I arrive to the bridal suite, and everything
is ready for me. I can just go ahead and move on to my first
priority which is find good light. Even if there is an amazing background, maybe
there is a beautiful piece of furniture or a marble top table, which my heart would just
burst! But if it's not in a good lighted area and I can't move it to that beautiful lighted
area, it's not going to work.
Light is key. So I'm going to go find amazing light . I'm
going to find open shade or some window light where I can put my stationery on the ground,
have the window pour some light in and have a reflector to bounce it back. So find good light! After you find your good light, you're going
to want to find a good background.
I want to find something that doesn't distract
from any of the details and, if anything, can add. And can make it look consistent with the rest
of the day. So one little trick that I have - is I bring
a styling board to my wedding days. I do this because I don't know if I'm going
to be able to find a great background in a location that also has great light.
So this pretty much guarantees that if I'm
able to find good light, I can shoot there. So I have some neutral backgrounds and I have
a bunch of other colors of the styling board and some loose fabrics as well so I have some
good options there. So you have your good light, you have your
good background, and what I do is I work large to small. So I start with all the stationery and I create
a big stationery suite set up.
I put ribbons, and stamps, and any styling
aids that I'm going to add then. I pair back from there. So after I'm done shooting a vertical and
horizontal of the stationery, I move back and I start checking things off my list and
I start getting down to smaller items. So while I'm styling, I am kind of playing
around with positioning and I'm trying to make sure lines are straight, but my biggest
tip is that less is more.
When you're styling, if it feels forced or
cluttered, just remove some items because it's easier to do a simple ribbon and a pair
of shoes, than to have a million things going on and the viewer doesn't know where to look
in the picture. So less is more! Another item that I bring is ribbon. I have a bunch of different ribbon colors,
mostly in neutrals because sometimes they don't provide them or the bride doesn't have
any but you'd like to have a little ribbon so that can be really great. For my photos- For my detail photos- I have
a couple of little tools and styling aids that I use that I want to share with you guys.
Number 1- is this little tiny baby reflector. This is great. It has a gold side and a silver side. It's perfect for shooting rings and earrings
and small items where I want to get a little more sparkle or if there's not a whole lot
of light going on, I can bounce some back.
This is amazing for that! The second thing I have is kind of my holy
grail for ring shots, and that is this elmer's tac n' stick in the white. I can make rings stand up, and mesh into each
other and just get the perfect ring shots, even if the rings are not the right size ratio
to really make that happen. When the bride's ring is really tiny and the
room's ring is really big, and I can't get them to stand up, this is how I cheat at that!
And you can't even tell in the final photo. So this is definitely a must have if you're
into ring photos and you like to pose them.
I dont know if you can really pose a diamond...Set
them up? I don't know what the right word is. The other thing that I bring to a wedding
day is vintage stamps, so these are some vintage stamps that I have collected over the years
through I think mostly etsy shops. Possibly I've gotten some as gifts too. People know that I collect vintage stamps.
But these are just a really nice accent if
there aren't any stamps on the envelopes and it just looks better sometimes if there are
some stamps. Or just around. I work a lot in annapolis, so I have a lot
of nautical looking stamps. I think it just kind of adds a little extra
something to your images when you have those.
Another little trick I have for dress the
dress shot is this command hook. I take a command hook to every wedding and
that way I'm able to choose the dress shot location based on light and I can put this
on a hotel wall or even wall paper. I have a dress shot, I'm going to see if I
can throw it in here, where we were in the bride's kitchen and there was his little patch
of wall that was just really beautiful and it had some wall paper and I wanted to take
a dress shot there and we were able to do that with the command hooks. Alright guys! That is all I have for you - those
are my tips for getting amazing wedding day detail photographs .
I hope that you enjoyed
this video! If you did- like it, give it a thumbs up,
and subscribe and I'll see you guys next time! Bye.
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