Helpful tips to improve your photos

 

I am a candid / documentary style photographer. I don’t spend hours cleaning and prepping locations, because I believe it is more important to capture the moments, naturally, as they happen.

In saying that, there are a few things that you can do to make sure your photos are the best they can be.

Usually this revolves around cleanliness, organisation, light and planning.

Let’s dive in.

 
 
 

GETTING READY - CLEAN UP!

This one is for the girls… If I take a beautiful photo of you and your mum getting ready and you see a bright green woolowths shopping bag next to your head becuase it’s in the background. The first thing you’ll think is ‘wow that’s a lovely photo but I was that bag/water bottle/rubbish/etc wasn’t there’. So in the morning, have one of the bridesmaids do a quick clean up and try and keep it clean and organised throughout the morning.

For the getting ready photos, I usually shoot with a wide angle lens, to get more of the story in the frame. So anything that’s laying around, or sitting on tables etc is likely to be in photos.

Here’s a couple of examples:

A beautiful moment of the mother of the bride and her family inspecting the veil (which was a family heirloom). This is still a beautiful photo and a special moment, but the chip packets in the foreground are a distraction.

GETTING READY - LIGHT!

Photography is all about light. Sometimes, the hair and makeup artists will setup in a location that’s less than ideal for photos (usually because they need to be close to a powerpoint). I always recommend finding the brightest natural light in the room and having you and your bridesmaids facing that.

Here’s some examples:

This room was light and airy (which is nice) but the hair stylist had to be in a dark corner (as there were limited power points). This image was very yellow due to the overhead downlights. I’ve fixed this a little with editing, but just notice how dark it is compared to the next image. Pay attention to the harsh shadows running down the bridesmaids forehead and chin. This is from the overhead downlights.

This image is about 1-2 meters away from the previous image. The make up artist (who doesn’t need power points) sat the bride in the doorway, in beautiful natural light. Notice how much softer the light is on Alice’s face. The light is more even and those harsh shadows are gone.