by Bill Hurter
Claude Jodoin. Claude Jodoin is an award-winning photographer from Detroit, Michigan. He has been involved in digital imaging since 1986 and has not used film since 1999. He is an event specialist, as well as shooting numerous weddings and portrait sessions throughout the year. You can e-mail him at [email protected].
Jeff Kolodny. Jeff Kolodny began his career as a professional photographer in 1985 after receiving a BA in Film Production from Adelphi University in New York. Jeff recently relocated his business from Los Angeles to South Florida, where his ultimate goal is to produce digital wedding photography that is cutting edge and sets him apart from others in his field.
Kevin Kubota. Kevin Kubota formed Kubota Photo-Design in 1990 as a solution to stifled personal creativity. The studio shoots a mix of wedding, portrait, and commercial photography, and was one of the early pioneers of pure-digital wedding photography. Kubota is well know for training other photographers to make a successful transition from film to digital
Cal Landau. Cal Landau was an art major in college in the late 1960s. Although his mother was a talented painter, he did not inherit her skills, so he spent the next 30 years trying to become a professional racing driver. His father was a photographer hobbyist and gave him a Nikkormat, with which he took pictures of auto and bicycle racing for small magazines for fun. One day, someone who crewed for his race car asked him to shoot his wedding. Cal turned him down a few times and finally gave in. “Of course everyone knows the rest of the story, I fell in love with this job. So I am a very late bloomer and I pinch myself every day for how good I have it.”
Charles and Jennifer Maring. Charles and Jennifer Maring own Maring Photography Inc. in Wallingford, Connecticut. His parents, also photographers, operate Rlab (resolutionlab.com), a digital lab that does all of the work for Maring Photography and other discriminating photographers. Charles Maring was the winner of WPPI’s Album of the Year Award in 2001.
Bruno Mayor. Bruno Mayor is a French photographer living in Corsica. He is a member of the French trade union of photographers, the GNPP (Groupement National des Photographes Professionnels) and recently finished second overall in the French National portrait competition. You can see more of Bruno’s images at his web site: www.espaceimage.com.
Mercury Megaloudis. Mercury Megaloudis is an award-winning Australian photographer and owner of Megagraphics Photography in Strathmore, Victoria, Australia. The AIPP awarded him the Master of Photography degree in 1999. He has won awards all over Australia and has begun entering and winning print competition in the U.S.
Tom Muñoz. Tom Muñoz is a fourth-generation photographer whose studio from Fort Lauderdale, FL. Tom upholds the classic family traditions of posing, lighting, and composition, yet is 100-percent digital. He believes that the traditional techniques blend perfectly with exceptional quality of digital imaging.
Laura Novak. Laura Novak is a studio owner in Delaware. She has achieved more than a dozen Accolades of Excellence from WPPI print competitions. She is also a member of PPA and the Wedding Photojournalist Association of New Jersey. Laura’s work can be seen in wedding magazines across the country, including Modern Bride and The Knot.
Dennis Orchard. Dennis Orchard is an award-winning photographer from Great Britain. He is a member of the British Guild of portrait and wedding photographers, and has been a speaker and an award-winner at numerous WPPI conventions. His unique wedding photography has earned him many awards, including WPPI’s Accolade of Lifetime Photographic Excellence.
Joe Photo. Joe Photo’s wedding images have been featured in numerous publications such as Grace Ormonde’s Wedding Style, Elegant Bride, Wedding Dresses, and Modern Bride. His weddings have also been seen on NBC’s Life Moments and Lifetime’s Weddings of a Lifetime and My Best Friend’s Wedding.
Martin Schembri, M.Photog. AIPP. Martin Schembri has been winning national awards in his native Australia for 20 years. He has achieved a Double Master of Photography with the AIPP. He is an internationally recognized portrait, wedding, and commercial photographer and has conducted seminars on his unique style of creative photography all over the world.
Brian and Judith Shindle. Brian and Judith Shindle own and operate Creative Moments in Westerville, Ohio. This studio is home to three enterprises under one umbrella: a working photography studio, an art gallery, and a full-blown event-planning business. Brian’s work has received numerous awards from WPPI in international competition.
Michael Schuhmann. Michael Schuhmann of Tampa Bay, Florida is an acclaimed wedding photojournalist who believes in creating weddings with the style and flair of the fashion and bridal magazines. He says, “I document weddings as a journalist and an artist, reporting what takes place, capturing the essence of the moment.” He has been the subject of profiles in Rangefinder magazine and Studio Photography & Design magazine.
Kenneth Sklute. Kenneth began his career in Long Island, and now operates a thriving studio in Arizona. He has been named Long Island Wedding Photographer of The Year (fourteen times!), PPA Photographer of the Year, and APPA Wedding Photographer of the Year. He has also earned numerous Fuji Masterpiece Awards and Kodak Gallery Awards.
Alisha and Brook Todd. Alisha and Brook Todd, from Aptos, California, share their passion for art in their blend of documentary and fine-art photography. They are award-winning photographers in both PPA and WPPI competitions and have been featured in numerous wedding/photography magazines.
Neil Van Niekerk. Neil Van Niekerk is originally from Johannesburg, South Africa, but emigrated to the USA in 2000. He has a degree in Electronic Engineering and spent 16 years as an engineer at the South African Broadcast Corporation. He now works for a wedding studio in New Jersey, and is the founder of www.planetneil.com, an unusual and informative web site dedicated to digital imaging.
Marc Weisberg. Marc Weisberg specializes in wedding and event photography. A graduate of UC Irvine with a degree in fine art and photography, he also attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City before relocating to Southern California in 1991. His images have been featured in Wines and Spirits, Riviera, Orange Coast Magazine, and Where Los Angeles.
David Anthony Williams, M.Photog. FRPS. Williams operates a wedding studio in Ashburton, Victoria, Australia. In 1992, he was awarded Associateship and Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain (FRPS). In 2000, he was awarded the Accolade of Outstanding Photographic Achievement from WPPI. He was also a Grand Award winner at their annual conventions in both 1997 and 2000.
Jeffrey and Julia Woods. Jeffrey and Julia Woods are award-winning wedding and portrait photographers who work as a team. They were awarded WPPI’s Best Wedding Album of the Year for 2002 and 2003, two Fuji Masterpiece awards, and a Kodak Gallery Award. See more of their images at www.jw weddinglife.com.
David Worthington. David Worthington is a professional photographer who specializes in classical wedding photography. Two of David’s most recent awards include being named 2003’s Classical Wedding Photographer of the Year (UK, Northwest Region) and Licentiate Wedding Photographer of the Year (UK, Northwest Region).
Yervant Zanazanian, M. Photog. AIPP, F.AIPP. Yervant was born in Ethiopia (East Africa), where he worked after school at his father’s photography business (his father was photographer to the Emperor Hailé Silassé of Ethiopia). Yervant owns one of the most prestigious photography studios of Australia and services clients both nationally and internationally.
Monte Zucker. Monte Zucker has earned every major honor the photographic profession can offer, including WPPI’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In his endeavor to educate photographers at the highest level, Monte, along with partner Gary Bernstein, has created an information-based web site for photographers, Zuga.net.
GLOSSARY
Adobe Camera RAW. Plug-in that lets you open a camera’s RAW image file directly in Photoshop without using another program to convert it a readable format.
Adobe DNG (Digital Negative). An archival format for the RAW files. Addresses the lack
of an open standard for the RAW files created by individual camera models, helping ensure photographers will be able to access their files in the future.
Barebulb flash. A portable flash unit with a vertical flash tube that fires the flash illumination 360 degrees.
Balance. A state of visual symmetry among elements in a photograph or on an album page between page elements.
Bleed. A page in which the photograph extends to the edges of the page.
Bounce flash. Bouncing the light of a studio or portable flash off a surface such as a ceiling or wall to produce indirect, shadowless lighting.
Burst rate. The number of frames per second (fps) and frames per sequence that a digital camera can record. Typical burst rates range from 2.5fps for up to six consecutive shots, all the way up to 8fps for up to 40 consecutive shots.
CCD (Charge-Coupled Device). A type of image sensor that separates the spectrum of color into red, green, and blue for digital processing by the camera. A CCD captures only black & white images; the image is then passed through red, green, and blue filters in order to capture color.
Card reader. Device used to connect a memory card to a computer and download image files.
CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor). A type of image sensor that consumes less energy than other chips (see CCD).
Color management. System of software-based checks and balances that ensures consistent color through a variety of capture, display, editing, and output devices.
Color space. An environment referring to the range of colors that a particular device is able to produce.
Color temperature. The degrees Kelvin (K°) of a light source, film sensitivity, or white-balance setting.
CompactFlash (CF) cards. A format of flash-memory card for digital cameras.
Depth of field. The distance that is sharp beyond and in front of the focus point at a given f-stop.
Double truck. Use of an single image that runs across two facing pages.
Dragging the shutter. Using a shutter speed slower than the X sync speed in order to capture the ambient light in a scene.
EXIF (Exchangeable Image Format). A standard for storing metadata. EXIF data is found under File>File Info in Photoshop.
Feathering. Misdirecting the light deliberately so that the edge of the beam of light illuminates the subject.
Fill light. Secondary light source used to fill in the shadows created by the key light.
Flashmeter. Incident light meter that measures both the ambient light of a scene and, when connected to an electronic flash, will read flash-only or a combination of flash and ambient
light.
Gatefold. A double-sided foldout page in an album that is hinged or folded so that it can be opened out to reveal a single or double-page panoramic format.
Gobo. Light-blocking card that is supported on a stand or boom and positioned between the light source and subject to selectively block light from portions of the scene.
Gutter. The inside center of a book or album.
Head-and-shoulders axis. Imaginary lines running through shoulders (shoulder axis) and down the ridge of the nose (head axis). These should never be perpendicular to the lens axis.
High-key lighting. Type of lighting characterized by a low lighting ratio and a predominance of light tones.
Histogram. A graph associated with a single image file that indicates the number of pixels that exist for each brightness level. From left to right, the range of the histogram represents 0 (“absolute” black) to 255 (“absolute” white).
Incident light meter. A handheld light meter that measures the amount of light falling on its light-sensitive dome.
JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group). Image file format with various compression levels. The higher the compression rate, the lower the image quality.
Key light. The main light in portraiture used to establish the lighting pattern and define the facial features of the subject.
LCD (Liquid Crystal Display). On digital SLRs, a screen used to display images and data.
Lead-in line. A pleasing line in the scene that leads the viewer’s eye toward the main subject; or, a line that directs the viewer’s eye across a page or series of pages.
Low-key lighting. Type of lighting characterized by a high lighting ratio and a predominance of dark tones.
Metadata. Metadata (literally, data about data) preserves information about the contents, copyright status, origin, and history of documents.
Microdrive. Storage device for portable electronic devices using the CF Type II industry standard.
Monolight. A studio-type flash unit that is self-contained, including its own capacitor and discharge circuitry. Monolights come with internal Infrared flash triggers so the light can be fired without directly connecting the flash to a camera or power pack.
Perspective. The appearance of objects in a scene as determined by their relative distance and position.
Plug-ins. Software developed by Adobe and other developers to add features to Photoshop.
Point light source. A sharp-edged light source like the sun, which produces sharp-edged shadows without diffusion.
PSD (Photoshop Document). Photoshop’s default file format and the only format that supports all Photoshop features.
RAW file. A file format that records picture data as is from the sensor, without applying any in-camera corrections. In order to use RAW images, the files must first be processed by compatible software. RAW processing includes the option to adjust exposure, white balance, and the color of the image while leaving the original RAW picture data unchanged.
Reflected light meter. A meter that measures the amount of light reflected from a surface or scene. All in-camera meters are of the reflected type.
Reflector. (1) A reflective device used to bounce light onto a subject. (2) A housing on a light that reflects the light outward in a controlled beam.
Scrim. A panel used to diffuse sunlight. Scrims can be mounted in panels and set in windows, used on stands, or they can be suspended in front of a light source to diffuse the light.
Slave. A remote triggering device used to fire auxiliary flash units. These may be optical or radio-controlled.
TTL-balanced flash. Flash exposure systems that read the flash exposure through the camera lens and adjust flash output to relative to the ambient light for a balanced exposure.
Tension. A state of visual imbalance within a photograph or page layout.
Vignette. A soft-edged border around the main subject. Vignettes can be either light or dark in tone and can be included at the time of shooting or created later in printing.
Wrap-around lighting. Soft light that produces a low lighting ratio and open, well-illuminated highlight areas.
Watt-seconds. Numerical system used to rate the power output of flash units. Primarily used to rate studio strobe systems.
White Balance. The camera’s ability to correct color and tint when shooting under different lighting conditions, including daylight, indoor, and fluorescent lighting.
INDEX
A
Adobe Camera Raw, 62–63
Anticipation, 18
Assistants, working with, 25–26
Autofocus, 49–50
B
Batteries, 43, 44
Bouquet toss, 86
Bridal magazines, 14
Bride and groom, meeting with, 72–74
Burst rate, 43
C
Cake cutting, 84
Camera height, 94
Cameras, 39–46, 58–60
burst rate, 43
color space, 60
contrast setting, 59
image sensors, 39–43
file formats, 43
ISO, 43, 59
LCD monitor, 43, 58
lens conversion factor, 43
noise, 59
megapixels, 43
metadata, 59–60
PC terminal, 43
removable storage media, 39, 44, 60
sharpen setting, 59
shutter-lag time, 44
white balance, 45–47, 58–59
Ceremony, photographing, 76–80
aisle shots, 76
decorations, 76
exit shots, 79–80
Children at weddings, 86
Color space, 60
D
Detachment, 18
Digital imaging, impact of, 9–12
Dressing for success, 14–15
E
Emerging styles, 35–37
Emotion, 32
Engagement portraits, 74
Equipment, 38–55
EXIF data, 59–60
Exposure, evaluating, 57–58
F
File formats, 43, 60–63
DNG, 62
JPEG, 61–62
RAW, 60–63
TIF, 62
Fine-art wedding photography, 8
First dance, 85–86
Formal portraits, 6–8, 88–108
bride, 96–98
camera height, 94
couple, 101
groom, 98–101
groups, see Group portraits
portrait lengths, 94–95
posing, 6, 92–93
scheduling, 95–96
FTP, 12
G
Group portraits, 6, 88–108
big groups, 104–5
compositional elements, 102
five or six people, 104
four people, 104
hands in, 108
panoramics, 105
posing, 6, 92–93
portrait lengths, 94–95
technical considerations, 108
three people, 104
two people, 102–4
variety, 102
H
Histograms, 57
I
Idealization, 15–16
Image sensors, 39–43
Incident flashmeters, 50
Internet, 11
ISO, 43, 59
L
LCD monitor, 43, 58
Lenses, 43, 47–50
autofocus, 49–50
conversion factor, 43
prime, 49
zoom, 47–49
Lighting, 50–54, 82–85
at reception, 82–85