Luc and Monica's Wedding

Just outside Ottawa at Gatineau City Hall I was shooting Luc and Monica’s wedding when I got this shot.  This was the brides father talking about how much he loves his daughter and his appreciation for such a wonderful groom.  I love emotional speeches at weddings,  they help make my favorite type of photographs.  Its during speeches that you get all the great emotions.  Tears, joy and laughter… all of which make great pictures…

For all you guys getting into wedding photography a great piece of advice I learned about getting candid shots is:  First get a shot of the speaker then watch for peoples reactions to what he is saying.  Often the people closest to the person speaking will react the most to what that person is saying.  So if the brides father is talking make sure to watch the bride for great reactions.

Every wedding has hundreds of elements that make it unique.  What makes a photo unique is combining these elements in a unique way.  I personally find photos that combine elements of a wedding to be more dynamic and appealing to the eye.  Of course this is subjective and doesn’t always apply.

Two areas that I find really helpful to photograph using multiple elements are the bouquet and the cake.  I find it very hard to take a dynamic photo of just the cake alone.  I have the same dificulty with just a bouquet by itself.  Usually I will photograph the bouquet with the bride blurred out in the background.  When I photographer the cake I try to have another key element of the wedding out of focus in the back.

To all you aspiring wedding photographers out there try combining multiple key elements of the wedding into some of your photographs.

In this case I photographed the cake and included the head table in the background in order to add another dimension to the photo.

Lindsay's wedding cake

Getting a couple to interact is a great way to get natural looking shots.  Have them embrace each other and joke with each other while focusing on something other than the camera.  All wedding photographers have different ways of getting couples to interact.  The easiest way for me to get natural interaction between couples it by using a long lens and shooting from far away.  That way the couple is less aware of the camera and the photos end up being more natural.