All language subtitles for 2. Wedding Photography is a Great Teacher

So you could have picked any genre of

photography, why wedding photography?

You could have actually chosen to do sports,

you could just do portraits only, you could

do any of that, why wedding photography?

And why do I believe it actually is

the best genre to learn the art and

craft of photography?

Well quite simply guys is that if you

learn how to be a great wedding photographer,

I believe really you are exposed to all

genres, you can do anything, you can go

in any direction that you want.

When I started photography in fact I wanted

to shoot fashion, in fact let's be honest,

I just wanted to photograph pretty girls, it

just seemed like the obvious thing to do,

it seemed very glamorous, I want to be

a fashion photographer and I thought to myself

well most people get married and a good

news about divorce is that we get two

more chances at the wedding, so what do

we do?

I thought it might be the obvious genre

of photography to actually make money from, but

also as I started to actually appreciate the

complexity of a wedding and the pressures involved,

I'm like man I can do anything, because

if you're shooting fashion for example, not underestimating

fashion photography, you are photographing a curated sort

of set design, you've got art directors, you've

got hair and makeup, there's so many people

that just make you look good, whereas on

the day, yes you've got the dress and

you've got the hair and makeup artists and

everything, but really we become the coordinator of

the day, so why is it the best

genre of photography to learn in this industry?

Well let me prove it to you by

showing you a handful of examples of one

particular wedding as to exactly how many genres

are within that wedding funnel let's call it.

Okay, so first of all we photograph boudoir,

so if you like the idea of doing

boudoir photography, well on a wedding day you

will find that brides would like to do

something like that, now how do you even

ask a bride if she wants to do

boudoir photography without sounding like a creepy old

man?

Well you quite simply, in all honesty and

good faith and sensitivity, you would show examples

of boudoir to a particular prospective bride and

groom and I would suggest that you would

do that after you book them, because it

could put them off quite simply if they've

already booked you, you could simply say well

hey you know rather than saying would you

like boudoir photography, you might show a couple

of photographs and say hey would you like

something like this and of course it's for

your eyes only, no one else will see

it and so on and so forth, but

going back to our original statement, we are

suggesting that we are photographing brides and in

fact if we call it boudoir right, we

are photographing brides and grooms that are normal

people, so when you photograph, I mean she's

a gorgeous girl, got a great figure, no

problem, but sometimes you photograph challenging, let's call

it challenging looking brides with different body shapes

in boudoir, so in other words if you

actually start practicing photographing real people on wedding

days, then if you photograph fashion or do

swimwear or lingerie photography, well that's really easy

because I can do this with normal people,

let alone you know the pretty people over

here and I have all the time in

the world to do it, so you're doing

this under challenging situations and to have to

work with different body types to achieve that,

so again boudoir photography is a big, can

be a big part of wedding photography, so

you'll learn it very well.

Of course when you're actually photographing a wedding,

you are photographing a bride, I mean so

you will be photographing beautiful gowns and fashion

and portraits, so you would call this, if

her veil was off and it wasn't a

wedding dress, you would just simply call this

a portrait, well yes that's exactly right and

you would call it fashion because you are

photographing the dress from front on behind and

all that kind of stuff.

Are you photographing moments, are you photographing family,

are you photographing anything photojournalistic, well we get

to the point where we're photographing maybe the

father seeing the bride for the very first

time dress as a bride, now although in

a different segment here in this wedding bundle,

I'm going to discuss with you how I

actually achieve these kinds of photographs, but ultimately

this was somewhat directed and if I did

not say what I said to evoke this

emotion, you would actually not, we would not

have got these photographs, but quite simply this

appears and is beautifully photojournalistic, so there's going

to be times where you have to know

where to stand, how to anticipate the moment,

when to click the shutter, so you are

going to learn how to be an incredible

photojournalist because there's this spectacle in front of

you and you're going to have to know

what to do, so again wedding photography opens

up that door to become a great photojournalist,

if it was up to me everyone would

cut their teeth on photography, on the genre

of photography with weddings and because they're most

pressure I believe, and then now hey pick

a genre that you want to do and

go for your life, of course we're photographing

in different locations, so we're doing you know

internal rooms and things like that, using like

a bed, using a chair and of course

we are shooting a bride in different ways

and how do we look for light, how

do we pose our brides, what do we

do, well of course we're going to teach

you that as well, now of course you

are going to be photographing detail as well,

you are going to photograph detail the whole

day, in fact detail shots are very prominent

in our industry, it's because the bride has

spent or and or the parents of the

groom whatever, they've spent a lot of money

on different things, so you need to capture

those little details, now for me personally I

actually prefer to photograph people and faces and

family, I prefer to humanise detail, but even

as simple as a suit, it's not that

difficult, just a button on a suit but

little what I call vignettes of the groom

like this, you are photographing detail and you

are photographing the male form as well, so

we photograph fashion, we photograph boudoir, we've photographed

detail shots, we've photographed fashion and now we're

photographing guys and again we're photographing normal looking

guys like you and me and girls and

so on, also we photograph car shots, you

know often you'll be presented with photographing next

to a car and then what do you

do, well you've got to know how to

use the shapes and the angles and things

like that, do you photograph groups at a

wedding, well of course you do, you are

going to photographing guys together, girls together, you're

going to photograph guys and girls together of

different age groups, you are going to photograph

children, these were some funny, really some fun

shots where I actually created the moment between

when the girls and this little page boy

saw each other for the very first time

at the wedding and you see this beautiful

expression, so with wedding photography what happens is

you really get to understand people, personalities, dynamics,

energy, how to shift it, how to shape

it, how to move it, how to maximize

opportunity with your humor, your empathy and most

people think it's all about technique, like what

will make me a great wedding photographer is

just technique, in fact I think it's your

people skills, so the fact that you are

dealing with people of so many different cultures

and age groups and ethnicities, religions, it's amazing,

so I love it because you get to

work with some incredible people and it makes

you cultured, it makes you richer as a

person, so again I implore you that you've

purchased this course and you're thinking great, I'm

quite sure about wedding photography, I want you

to be sure that this will teach you

all the best parts and the bad parts

I guess of this industry, in fact if

you can photograph a wedding well, please mark

my words you can almost photograph anything well,

because a wedding you're doing all these genres

under time constraints and weather constraints with normal

people, so if all of a sudden you

get to photograph animals or photograph landscape and

you're photographing fashion or portrait boudoir or anything

like that, well you know what to do

because you've experienced it under very adverse conditions,

you're photographing ceremonies, you're photographing rituals, you're

photographing events, so again this could be likened

to a corporate event that you might photograph,

it could be an awards ceremony or something

like that with someone doing a fist pump

because they just won a corporate award or

something like that as well, you're photographing lots

of people and these are group shots, so

these communication skills that you would need to

learn if you're an introvert, you can almost

make that camera like your cape, like you

turn into a superhero, in fact I know

many photographers who are introverts but somehow as

soon as they have that camera in their

hand they just change, they just evolve into

this superhero because you have to be, there

is most weddings you would need to be

able to be a leader of sorts, to

be able to control 50 Macedonian families waiting

for a photograph, all have to be done

in 10 minutes, sounds intimidating but I'm telling

you now if you follow my process and

you follow the idea of being able to

learn properly and plan for longevity and that

is by repetition, experience and practice and of

course Geri Giorno's photography training, so people, we

photograph groups of different ages, this could be

likened to a family portrait, so the family

portrait, if you take the veil off and

take the context of the bouquet of flowers

off, this is a big family portrait and

we're also doing environmental portraits, how to actually

make the most out of a scene, we

have to do that so quickly, it's crazy,

like I had literally five minutes to do

this, we were already running late to this

particular ceremony and I beeped the horn, told

the limo driver, I was like hey just

stop, we stopped, we went outside the actual

car, found this vineyard, took photographs, I totally

ignored the limo driver who wanted to be

there on time, I'm like, I said to

the bride, well bride hey you're the boss,

like you're not late because you're here, like

the whole wedding is revolving around you know

you and the groom so don't worry about

it, we took this shot, you know environmental

portraiture is a lot about what we do

as well, the next time you get faced

with doing a family portrait with something, with

a house or a building that's meaningful to

the couple, you are going to need to

know how to do that and there is

no better teacher than a wedding to do

that with you as well, we do night

shots, we do events, we have existing light,

again guys I can't tell you enough how

important this course will be to your career,

because even if you don't end up doing

weddings full-time or whether you choose to

do a handful or whether you choose to

do this as an absolute career, which I

know you can, I'm telling you that this

is the best industry, the best genre of

photography to learn it from, because you do

everything as I've just proven, so stay true,

stay strong and I want you to understand

that yes it will be challenging, but enjoy

the ride and let's have fun together.