8 Tips to Work as a Professional Pre-Wedding Photographer

How to work as a professional pre-wedding photographer?

Pre-wedding photography has become popular with time and has become a well paying profession. It is an interesting but quite difficult job as well as it has some challenges like identifying the right angles, looking for right locations, helping the couple to get rid of nervousness and feel confident about themselves.

So are you ready to face the challenges? Following are some tips to help you work as a professional photographer-

1) Use a longer lens to capture more natural shots:

A lens with long focal length is a must as it helps you capture natural expressions of the couple. Some people get nervous in front of the camera and feel hesitant to pose with photographer standing right in front of them. You can solve this problem by using a long lens for the shoot. It will help them feel more confident and it will be easier for them to pose. Natural expressions add up more beauty to the photograph and a long lens will help you get such output in a better and easy way.

2) Try shooting in Burst Mode

You should surely try shooting in burst mode as it helps you catch any random moment between the couple, they are unexpected but some might turn out be really amazing pictures because they look more real and natural in comparison to the posed ones.

Beginning might be tricky and difficult because of couple’s awkward and stiff poses, but once the pose is done, they will feel relaxed and start acting naturally. This turns out to be a golden opportunity for you to capture some great photographs. So do not waste it at anyhow as these moments are really very important and can provide you with some random yet beautiful shots.

3) Shoot at a faster shutter speed

When you are shooting in burst mode, motion blur is common in photographs. It can be avoided by shooting at a faster shutter speed than normal and be guided by your lens focal length. The longer the focal length, the more it becomes necessary to increase the shutter speed for avoiding motion blur.

This is a great technique for many photographers, if they have lens stabilizer and proper handheld technique.
Motion blur reduces the beauty of a photograph, so try to avoid it as much as possible if you want to capture incredible images with burst mode.

4) Communicate with the couple before shoot

Different couples want different types of shoot and have different ideas in their minds, some might love to have a miniature photoshoot whereas some might find it kiddish. Some couples want it to be cinematic and glamorous with loads of editing while some want a very simple and elegant shoot with minimal editing. This is an important point to discuss before the beginning the shoot so you can deliver the exact output as the client desires to have.

It will be best if you meet them in person, but sometimes it’s not possible, therefore a phone call or video call will also do. Talk to them about their story, matters and observe their personalities. Discuss about their happy and important moments, like how they met, what theme they have chosen or want to choose, etc. You can also recreate their special and important moments in photographs or videos.

Couples usually have made up their mind on what they want for their pre wedding shoot, but it is more helpful when the photographer listens to them and enhances their ideas by adding more creativity and finding solution for their implementation.

5) It’s not necessary to capture only the faces

This might sound a little weird but it’s helpful. It’s not always important to shoot just the faces of the couple, as it might not give you variation in your work. You can shoot various other elements as well, such as closeup of their entangles fingers, close up of their engagement ring, their footprints on sand, kiss closeup and many more such elements. They will help you provide variation in your work album.

Body language of a person also portrays a lot of emotions and expressions in a photograph. So try using them to add a variety of work in your portfolio.

6) Use Backlight for Cinematic Effect

Though it requires a lot of practice to use backlight in your pictures, once you become an expert of using backlight in your pictures, it will help you a lot to add a cinematic and dramatic effect in your photographs, especially in the case of pre-wedding shoot.

Placing your light in the back of your subject will create an amazing rim light which highlights the outline of your subject, separating it from the background and therefore bringing them into focus and creating an amazingly beautiful silhouette effect.

7) Portray their story

Portraying their story through pictures is a simple yet effective way to make your pictures look beautiful and amazing. Usually, photographers capture good work but they fail to portray any story which does not creates a very good impact.

You can portray their life as a couple, recreate their favourite memories, knowing their imagination, or something like capturing their behaviour and mannerism when they are together.

It will help you to arouse the interest in your audience helping you impress them in a better and effective way. Think of different ways in which you can portray their true story and choose the best one!

8) Help them pose

Not everybody in your client list is used to come in front of the camera, maybe some of them haven’t even done it once. This is what makes them self-conscious and they are not able to pose properly. They get confused and blank, and start asking you where to put their hand, where to look, or anything like this. So you should help them pose and guide them in every way possible. Tell them where to place their hand, where to look, whether to look in the camera or not, and anything that they want to know.

Help them throughout!

These were some of the tips on how to work as a professional pre-wedding photographer.

Hope you enjoyed reading it! Do leave your thoughts in the comment section.