“Kaitlin– I am sure you love shooting the entire wedding day, but if you had to pick a favorite part of the day, what would it be and why? Was it always this part for you, or has it changed as you shoot more and more weddings?”

— Inquisitive Beginner

Dear Inquisitive Beginner,

What a FAB question! It was actually a perfect question for this week based on the simple fact that I had images alllllready prepared to go with this post! So go you! hehe

I started shooting weddings just 3 short years ago. When I first started, my favorite part of shooting a wedding was the last 5 minutes…because it meant I was almost done! Eeek, I know. When I started I was strictly families, babies and kids….Weddings FRIGHTENED ME to the ends of the Earth. I had enough responsibility in my life as a mom, wife, business owner….the idea of adding someones most special of days to that list was mind numbingly scary for me. So, taking on my first three weddings was a hard pill to swallow and it really pushed me to my limits.

I think a mixture of the fear, not having the correct gear, and being unleashed on my own from second shooting….it all was a mixture for disaster in my mind. I let that fear chew me alive and I tanked the most simple of things. I was unprepared with the lenses I had. I had one wide angle zoom, one 50 mm and one 50 macro to shoot a WHOLE WEDDING! (I now use 6 different lenses in a wedding day!)

At some point in the beginning phase of my transition to “wedding photographer”, I invested in a macro lens; a 50 2.8 macro for canon at the time. (Now I have the 100 2.8 L and I LOOVE it!) To practice I took my ring off and put it on stones, flowers, wine bottles, whatever I could. I shot the forks on the table, took pictures of grocery receipts to practice focusing on words/numbers. You name it, I shot it…I tried it.

I found out that because I practice details so much, my confidence level started to rise. I finally had a lens capable of shooting the material I had before me. Everything was coming together. Being prepared with gear, more practice….and sooner rather than later…SHOOTING DETAILS became my FAVE part of shooting weddings. (Still is and always will be one of my passions and faves, too…BUT over-time…I think I have a few more parts of a wedding day I wouldn’t trade shooting for the world! )

Basically ANYTHING that kept me away from human interaction….shooting actual people….ESPECIALLY THE BRIDE! I was horrible with posing, horrible at giving direction. I became frazzled, annoyed and disappointed. I went to the safe “prom pose, mom pose, the lean, ugh….the damn lean!” So details couldn’t judge me. They didn’t move…I could lock focus…not talk and go into my own happy place to shoot them. Not the makings of a well rounded or successful wedding photographer!

Things changed when I decided change was necessary. I had to not only practice details…but I needed to practice evvverything associated to a wedding day. But details, at least for the purpose of this post…are an awesome thing to shoot and I think they are the bread and butter to tying an entire wedding day together….they can not and should not replace the importance of formals…but they surely are the sprinkles on the proverbial cup cake!

During my time at UNITED, a class was offered taught by the FAB Meg Kuethen and she had a whole table scape set up and random wedding day details scattered all over an UNCLEANED or organized area….Challenge #1—find and locate details. Challenge #2–shoot the details in areas that were not messy.

They were different textures, sizes, colors…. so challenge #3, shoot the details so all the colors flow together…so a themed was congruent with theme laid out by the table scape.

The theme I took away was organic, vintage flare, classy, lavender meets green. Here are some of the images I took from the class at United. It was nice to have the challenges I had and put into practice the HOURS AND DAYS AND MONTHS of practice I put into shooting details already before.

 

Yes, its my thing….shooting on perfume bottles is SOOO my thing and so so fun!

It was fun showing others one of my approaches to details…I call it the Susan Stripling method…I held the perfume bottle up to me lens, focused on the flower and boom! : )

Prime example of shooting a bush in the front yard….it had NOTHING to do with the wedding or details…but it sure as heck was an awesome filler to tie in the colors…right?

Here is a behind the scenes look at Meg doing her thing in the ‘Shooting Details Class’ — go girl!