In a previous blog, we looked at ways professional photographers can maintain their fitness levels to keep up their stamina during busy seasons. While physical strength and flexibility are important, being at the top of your creative game is just as significant. Need some inspiration? We’ve got 5 creative wedding photography ideas to try.
Different Day, Same Thing
Routines are great. They establish efficiency and consistency, but creatively they can be kind of a buzz kill. When providing wedding and event coverage, there are requested images on the shot list, and poses that the couple wants in their professional wedding album, but when does the photographer get to be inspired?
Churning out images from a long list of Pinterest posts can make photographers feel like copy-cats. Pinboards can create a vision for an aesthetic, but they hardly feel authentic, when they are just replicated. A little inspo is great, but there is a balance between trends and an artist’s actual talent. Keeping clients happy with requested images for their wedding album design is just as important as putting your own flair on the way you document their celebration.
Try Something New
If you feel like you’re in a rut and need to build on the variety and imaginativeness of your photography try these 5 creative wedding photography ideas.
1. Have Fun with Wide Angles.
An easy way to get creative with images is by playing around with focal length and perspectives. Traditional portraits require a certain lens and focal length to be appealing, but sometimes you need to mix things up. Try using a wide angle for some edgier-looking images. For all the selfies we see at dramatically wide angles, why not duplicate that cell phone pic vibe with a professional mastery? Throw a 35 mm lens on, (don’t have one, rent one) and do some fun wedding party groups and individuals that reflect a candid, more illustrative look.
2. Change Your Position.
Step outside the boundaries of traditional portrait camera height and go low or go high. If there ever is an opportunity to get drone images – cool, but if not, look for balconies, staircases, or stepladders to get above subjects for a different viewpoint. This is also a fun way to translate the event space itself. Change your horizon line by getting down low for more dramatic landscape images. Photographing from ground level creates interesting scale and compositions. Bonus: Using different angles and vantage points will give the couple more variety when it comes to the images that go into their professional wedding album.
3. Tell the Whole Story
Work on your documentary skills. Get out the long lens, step back and observe. Capturing un-posed, genuine reactions of wedding couples and their guests can convey deep emotions. The secret to being able to get those natural expressions is to be stealthy about your capture. If you’re able to get the required and requested images, take a step back and follow the action and reaction of the couple and their guests from the sidelines. If you have a great second photographer, let them take care of the traditional ceremony capture, while you seek out a vantage point for capturing little vignettes of authenticity.
4. Play with Your Shutter Speed
Incorporating movement into photos is another creative technique. Dragging the shutter to create blur, or using a very fast shutter speed to stop motion can both convey movement in an image. Using a slow shutter speed with the wedding couple standing still as their wedding party dances around them created an image where the couple is isolated, yet together amongst the commotion of the celebration. Using a fast shutter speed to capture mid air jumps, popping open a champagne bottle, or a bouquet tosses make for exciting and storytelling images.
5. Re-create an Epic Image
The last suggestion on our list of 5 creative wedding photography ideas, might take a little pre-planning. To really customize images for a couple’s truly unique professional wedding album, try replicating images of other famous couples. Take cues from famous paintings, fashion magazines, pop culture, movies, or other photographs.
This inspired undertaking will take some pre-planning in order to uncover what story suits the wedding couple’s tastes. Are they into classic movies, famous people in history, Disney, the Marvel-verse? This stylized creation might not be for everyone, but it will really resonate with clients who like to think outside the box. Imagine an image reenacting a Spiderman’s upside-down kiss with Mary Jane on the cover of a unique wedding album!
Producing consistent work that clients expect is important, but every photographer has a creative muscle that they need to flex. We hope that this list of 5 creative wedding photography ideas is innovative and inspirational. When clients see the effort you make, and artistry you provide to help them preserve their memories they will be wowed into giving great reviews and referrals. Big win for doing what you love to do!
Once you have wrapped up that wedding and need to get images into a premium professional wedding album, Zookbinders, a McKenna company, has the services and products to get you there! Happy creating!
