Composition Digital Field Guide

Chapter 12. Wedding Photography

As a photographer, you will at some point likely be asked to photograph a wedding. Do not take this request lightly; the wedding images are very important to the bride and groom. Photographing a wedding is a combination of portrait photography, event photography, and good planning. Things tend to move along at a pretty fast pace and there is only one chance to capture those special moments. When shooting a wedding, you can take advantage of a variety of different compositional rules, from using different focal lengths to using the rule of thirds.

I loved the balanced composition created by the white dress on one side and the dark tuxedo on the other. I used a long focal length and still had to slightly crop the image in postproduction. Taken at ISO 100, f/2.8, and 1/250 second.

Composition Considerations

The best thing about photographing weddings is that they offer you many opportunities to shoot a wide variety of photos. The worst thing about photographing weddings is that they offer you many opportunities to shoot a wide variety of photos. To be successful when shooting weddings, you need to pay attention to a variety of composition considerations, from using different focal lengths to using leading lines.

Using the rule of thirds

I have talked about the rule of thirds a lot in this book, simply because it is one of the best ways to create a good composition ...