The Challenges of Capturing Indoor Wedding Photos

A couple’s wedding day should be the most important day of their lives.

It is a day they invest heavily in, with an average event costing $34,000. It is a day when family and friends come together to celebrate the joining of two people, to be merry and have fun. They often run from morning right through until the evening and when all is done, they have memories to last a lifetime.

Or at least they do if they chose the right wedding photographer. As explained in a guide to starting a photography business by ZenBusiness, there are more than 200,000 photography businesses in the United States, and to be successful you must be good. The responsibility is on your shoulders to capture the moments that the eyes cannot, and provide a thorough and yet beautiful reminder of a special day. That means taking effective and striking photographs which capture a beautiful day for a lifetime.

That might be challenging even on a bright summer’s day, but how do you go about doing the same if you are indoors? Some venues, such as the Proximity Hotel in Greensboro, have great natural light flooding in, but even those excellent facilities present challenges. Here is how to capture perfect wedding photos even under the challenging conditions presented by indoor locations.

Ambient Light:
One aspect of indoor wedding photography you must get right is to use the ambient light within the location. To achieve this, try to expose one stop under the ambient light and use your flash to make the subject the brightest part of the shot. Remember, the couple have spent a lot of money on the venue and so capturing it is almost as important as capturing them, at least in some frames.

Flash:
The flash is your friend and your foe with indoor shoots. It is necessary, but if you are not proficient in using it you could ruin the photographs. Be careful when using triggered flash, there is a chance strong light coming in from outside will ensure your equipment does not trigger and your subject will be a simple shadow. Use manual mode to be sure unless you are in quick-fire situations where you have no chance of a test shot.

Think about bouncing the flash too, ideally in the direction of the subject’s gaze. If your subject is facing 90 degrees to the right, bounce the flash 90 degrees to the right, and so on. If you are shooting collections of people, such as the popular ‘group shot’ of family members, bounce the light slightly behind you to create soft light.

Use the Venue:
A wedding venue is one of the most important players in a wedding shoot and the most undervalued. Look for the location’s quirks, the areas that offer some additional interest and use those, in any way you can. The focus does not always have to be the bride and groom either – a wedding usually boasts around 130 guests and your client will like to see as many of those guests in the photos as possible. You can kill two birds with one stone here, capturing the many facets of a venue as well as the fringe guests and family.

Practice:
The best advice to be given for wedding photography is to practice. Do not be tempted to think you will just be alright, because you will not. Using a flash and shooting indoors is a whole area of photography that requires study, and by adding equipment and practicing constantly, you can carve a niche for yourself within the market. Remember, it is not just the basic photography that demands skills, but also areas such as the first dance, which is usually in low light and at pace, too. Identify all the different sections of a wedding and have a plan for each.

Practice makes perfect and yet practicing during the event is a route to failure!  Hire a professional to capture your most precious day.

Article solely for the use of mikemicciche.com

Written by Andrea Edwards