Original subtitles

If you photograph weddings, then you know it's

a do-or-die.

I mean, you've only got one chance to

get this right.

It's not like a portrait, or it's not

like any other, really, genre of photography apart

from an event-driven shoot, that you have

to get it done on the day.

And it was up to me.

If I was the president of the photography

association in the world, and I could regulate

photography in the wedding industry, I would basically

say that you would have to get a

license to be a wedding photographer.

You have to understand storytelling.

You have to be capable of a decent

quality of work, understand the culture of wedding

that you actually are photographing, and here's a

license, and now you can go photograph.

Of course, that's not the way photography is.

We can get a business card designed, mailed

to us.

We are now a professional photographer.

We can open up a business.

We can charge what we want, whether it's

high, low, whatever it may be, and we

can photograph a wedding.

So it is a tough gig.

Now, I say again that these are the

must-have shots, or as I call them,

do-or-die shots.

Now, one of the very first lessons I

learned from my first and only boss in

photography, a guy named Peter Barlow from the

Studio Photographers, and it was the first studio

that I ever worked for, and only studio

I worked for apart from my own, and

I knocked on his door, and I basically

said, I love your work.

Can I carry your bags?

Did that for a year and a half,

and with no camera in my hand, and

then I started to shoot my own weddings

through the studio.

Of course, shot my first wedding at the

age of 20.

Now I'm 46, so it's been 26 years

in the making of what I'm about to

tell you.

Now, so what I'm going to tell you

here, guys, is not really from a, how

do I say, here's how you get wow

shots, here's how you get all these different

things, or talking about lighting and posing.

I'm talking about more specifically the kinds of

shots that you just have to get, and

the ones that people expect, and even if

they actually don't ask you.

If someone says to you, I just want

photojournalism, and I don't want any pose shots

at all, do not believe them, because I've

made that mistake probably twice in my career,

and the bride and the groom said, well,

where's this shot?

The parents said, where is this shot, and

so on.

So there are going to be some shots

that you just have to pose, even if

they want a photojournalistic approach.

My first boss, Peter, like I mentioned to

you, he told me that a shit shot,

in his words, a shit shot is better

than no shot.

In other words, we can all do better

with what we do, better lighting, better posing,

better composition, whatever, but even if the shot

could be better, at least you've got it,

and that is really, really important to understand,

that there are some shots that you just

don't come home without them.

In other words, don't leave the wedding until

you get these shots, and that's what we're

about to tackle right now, is what are

the kinds of shots that we just simply

have to get, and in which situation, and

so on.

Now, here's a few, I call them, and

as you mentioned, I call rules common denominators,

but let's be more factual now.

As a fact, as a rule, this is

what your mindset should be when you're photographing

a wedding.

Okay, first of all, you want to tell

the story, right?

You want to make sure that if someone

was not at the wedding, and they looked

at the photographs, could be the future children

of the bride and the groom, it could

be someone who wasn't at the wedding, it

could be someone who was sick or whatever,

would they know the spirit and the soul

of the wedding just by looking at the

photographs?

Not just how cute the bride and groom

are, but the story, the moments, the moments

between the moments and everything, so the story

is important, okay?

Flattery, of course, when we look at a

photo of ourselves, the first thing that we

do is we critique ourselves, we're all insecure

about some things and the way we look,

and you look at your photograph of yourself,

and if you like it, great, it's a

great photograph.

So it's very rare that someone who does

not like the look of themselves in the

photograph, they end up liking that photograph.

Now, certainly emotion beats perfection, but we want

emotion, but also we want to flatter the

bride and the groom, so you'll obviously learn

more about that in my posing episodes.

So story and flattery are very important.

Also, show off things they've spent money on.

I know that sounds really obvious, but think

about it.

Did they spend money on the dress?

Okay, would you never photograph the back of

the dress?

Well, that would be a mistake because she

may, the bride may have spent a lot

of money on those details on the back

of the dress, and, of course, at least

at one point on the wedding day, you

didn't get it, so that's a problem.

And obviously detail shots, and, of course, you

may know my theory on detail shots, but

we'll come to that shortly.

Probably the most important is what's meaningful, because

there are some brides and grooms who are

going to want little intricacies of the day

or whatever, or they will not reveal a

part of themselves unless you found it or

find it and unless you ask.

In other words, who are you closest to?

Do you have a soft spot for someone

in your family?

Who did you grow up with more so

as a child?

Who are your closest friends?

Are there any fun things that you do

with your friends?

Is there a way that you high-five?

Is there a way that you hug or

whatever?

There are certain things that you want to

find out, so being meaningful is important.

Also, shoot to sell.

That's a really, I mean, the must-have

shots in a wedding.

You should be shooting for a story, for

an album, making it difficult for your brides

and grooms or your couples to not know

where to stop because they love them all.

So shooting to sell is important.

So what I do is, and if you

go into shooting to sell the channel, so

if you go to episodes, shooting to sell,

you'll see several episodes where I talk deliberately

about that topic and expand on that as

well.

So in other words, I walk into a

room.

I see a shot.

I photograph it.

Great, there's my one photograph.

Don't think about the album spread until that

first photograph is taken.

Then I say, what else is going to

go with these photographs?

Bang.

So then I get that series of shots.

There's my spread.

I will not shoot 50 and hope to

get three.

I might shoot three or four or five

or ten, and bang, I'm done, and then

I'll go to the next story.

Now the story, so I call the spread

of an album a story, and of course

over the overall story as well, but that

story has to be good independently, as in

look good as a spread in the album

and look different enough to the next spread

in some sort of way or fashion.

Rather, you would have to consolidate those spreads.

In other words, if you've got the bride

here laughing, having fun with tungsten lighting on

her, then you've got her playing with her

veil outside in the sun.

Well, that's different.

The different color palette may be a different

mood.

You might have boudoir over here and family

shots here.

You wouldn't combine those in a spread and

so on.

So it's really important that we separate those

things as well.

Also, let's have a look here.

Okay, there are some certain questions that you

have to ask your couple in terms of

the relationships that they have.

So if we go, Melissa, if you can

go to the relationships document that we actually

send out to our clients, let's go through

that and discuss the importance of that as

well.

So I think we have it up on

the screen now.

This is a document that Jerry created.

And then when we do our pre-wedding

meeting with the couple, like we have one

today, actually, for a wedding for next weekend,

next week, we are going to go through

this form.

And it just helps us on the day

to make sure that we don't miss any

of those family groups and also not create

any awkward family groups.

Like if the bride's parents are divorced, we

kind of need to know that so we're

not putting them hugging next to each other,

if that makes sense.

So here's the form.

It's four pages long.

We start with the bride's family, bride's name,

of course, their mom, and then we want

to know their parents' names as well so

that we can talk to them and speak

to them on a name basis.

Are they divorced?

If yes, are they in speaking terms?

Because sometimes they can't even be in the

same photo together.

So you need to know those kind of

family dynamics.

And then if we scroll down, if they

are divorced, does the mom have a new

partner?

Does the dad have a new partner?

And what is their name?

We have brothers, sisters, their partner's name, children.

That way we know who everyone is.

We know all of the VIPs at the

wedding, who the important people are.

We scroll down grandparents that will be attending.

Will they be there?

Will they not be there?

What are their names?

And then we have the same thing for

the groom's family.

So we have the same list of questions

and we go through the whole groom's family

dynamics.

And then we scroll down some more and

we come to the wedding party.

So we want to know who the best

man is.

Is the best man married?

What's his partner's name?

Do they have any children?

Because what we're going to do is if

we have even a little bit of extra

time, we're going to get the best man,

his wife, and his kids, and we're going

to do a quick family portrait of them.

I bet he's just drinking a lot of

water.

You hear that in the background.

Our puppy's thirsty.

So we'll get a family portrait of the

best man, his wife, and his kids because

that will be a great reprint later on

and a little extra sale for our part.

Same thing with the maid of honor.

We go through the flower girls, the bridesmaids.

You get the idea.

At the very end, we have sort of

in others, important notes or other important people

at the wedding that they definitely want to

have a photo with.

So it could be the bride was in

a sorority, the groom was in a fraternity,

they want to get a photo with all

their fraternity brothers, that kind of thing.

Hey, buddy.

So we kind of go through, and we

have a list of all of that stuff

so that we know exactly who everyone is.

All right, fantastic.

And you might be thinking, well, what is

the best way of asking are the parents

alive?

Because that is a very important question.

So probably the most sensitive way of asking

a bride and a groom, so you speak

to the bride, say Mary, for example.

Mary, are your parents still with us?

And nine out of ten times she'll understand

what I'm saying by that.

One out of ten is, what do you

mean?

Well, are they both alive?

And then she'll tell you quickly that if

they're alive or not, it could be that

they're aging or something like that.

So you've got to make these notes very,

very importantly.

And, of course, you might even say, do

you have grandparents on either side, maternal or

paternal grandparents?

That's a really important question to ask.

So that relationship guide, that's going to help

you with the must-have shots.

Now, I'll have those documents in my camera

bag, and your assistant or whatever, like in

our case, Melissa will often look at it,

and she'll keep me on track as to

who's who.

So imagine if dad passed away just a

month ago and his dying wish was that

the bride and groom get married, don't delay

on the wedding, and then all of a

sudden say, hey, let's get the bride's dad,

and then I look like a real idiot.

So that's a really important thing to keep

in mind as well.

Okay.

So now that we've established all of that,

and, of course, there's a lot more intricacies,

but I'm trying to sort of make this

simpler for you.

It's important now that we look at each

section.

Now, traditionally, I will photograph the grooms first,

the grooms' coverage first.

Now, by the way, guys, just to be

sensitive to same-sex weddings, I'll often say

bride and groom.

This could be bride and bride.

This could be a groom and groom.

For the sake of the examples I'm going

to show you, they are a bride and

groom.

But just know, of course, we need to

be sensitive as to same-sex weddings and

different culture weddings and things like that.

So, baby, do you want to talk through

little sections of each particular coverage, and then

I'll show examples of what those mean.

Yeah, for sure.

So through the checklist, you mean?

Yep, that'd be great.

All right, so we have a checklist that

we go through that Jerry's created just to,

because so many people asked this very question

of why we're doing the broadcast, and so

we've pulled it up, and we're going to

go through, and then Jerry's going to share

examples, because he does this at every single

wedding, and it's not like he has the

paper in front of him.

Just after doing it for so many years,

he's now gotten used to having to do

these must-have shots.

Yes, you want to do super creative, cool

shots that you're going to see in the

cover of everything, but the fact of the

matter is you've got to get these first.

If you have extra time, then you can

play, but you can't just go in wanting

to get the super creative, fun shots that

you think you're going to end up in

a magazine, because that's not what's going to

make the client happy.

If you have time, then you can get

to those, but bang through all of these

first.

So we'll start here with the groom's coverage,

because that's typically what we will do first,

is we will go to the groom's home

first.

And so at the very beginning, one of

the first things, Jerry always asks that the

groom and the groomsmen be dressed up to

their shirts, pants, shoes, and socks.

So no details, no accessories, no tie, no

cufflinks, none of that is done yet, no

jackets, no vest.

We'll do that on camera.

So what happens is as we get there

and we say hello to everybody, just before

we actually start photographing them, we'll do detail

shots.

And this can include the groom and the

groomsmen, but it'll be detail shots of the

accessories and getting ready shots with the groomsmen,

such as shirt cuff, cufflinks, belt, tie, vest,

jacket, cologne, shoes, watch, you get the idea.

All of those details and accessories.

Let me tell you from there actually, just

for a moment.

So guys, if you are photographing the groom's

coverage, for example, I personally feel like an

hour and a half is quality time, not

being stressed, not being rushed, not too much

time, an hour and a half is perfect

for the groom.

So if, for example, they only give me

one hour, or half an hour, or 45

minutes, which is very rare, I will say

to the groom, get completely dressed groomsmen, completely

dressed family, all ready to rock as the

minute I get there so that I can

rush through them.

Let me show you two examples.

So I've just bought a couple of random

weddings.

I just have to pick two or three

to show you and sort of cross-reference

them.

So if we look at my computer here,

you can sort of see how the groom

here is not completely ready, right?

He's basically just got his shoes, pants, shirt,

in this case vest as well.

So standard shots, you know, laughing shots, having

a bit of fun and so on.

We've got doing up the vest.

We've got a bit of the watch.

We've got the guys sort of helping him

out getting ready.

I think it was his brother from memory.

And then we get the jacket on.

So if you wanted something a bit more

storytelling, you sort of got that.

Now, in this case, if we go to

another wedding, this will be featured on JGBT

in future episodes, but you can sort of

see how he's completely dressed, and that's totally

okay.

Now, as far as detail shots, well, there's

really not much there.

Now, yes, you could shoot the shoes on

their own.

You can photograph the tie just sitting on

a bench.

You can photograph the ring and the watch

and everything.

But I find with detail shots, and as

I've said many times on JGBT, I prefer

detail shots with a heartbeat, and that is

basically detail shots with the person, like a

bride in the shoes, the bride in the

dress, the guy wearing the tie, the guy's

feet in the shoes, and so on.

So in this case, there's not much detail,

because a guy's suit is pretty basic.

What's traditional and acceptable, like in this case,

I think this was part of his college

or university crest or something like that, so

I went a bit closer there.

I got him doing up his watch.

So this is sort of like a nice

split lighting there for a groom, quite dramatic.

By the way, all the shots that I'm

showing you here are straight out of the

camera.

I haven't touched them.

They're straight out of the camera, and that's

it.

So you'll see there that I've gone –

actually, baby, can you – so we've talked

a bit about detail now.

Talk a bit about the next set of

shots, like close-up, full-length, things like

that.

Yeah, so next we have the groom by

himself, which we've seen, and when Jerry does

the groom on his own, it's full-length,

three-quarter, and close-up.

So he does all of them because people

have different preferences.

So let me talk a bit about that

now.

So let's say, for example, if I'm running

at a time and I find that the

groom's suit is very predictable.

In other words, most guys wear a monotone

suit, as in it's just blue or it's

just gray or it's just black or whatever.

Once you pretty much see the jacket, you

pretty much know what the pants are going

to be, and I'm not – that's sort

of like a – it's a must-have

shot, but I'm not overly going to die

if I don't get a full-length because

I'm going to get a full-length of

the groom naturally in the ceremony, dancing at

the reception, things like that.

But I will make an effort to do

a full-length shot.

So in this case, you've got, you know,

just simple, classic shots.

Now this I basically photographed through an ornament

on the wall that gave me a vignette.

Here I'm photographing his reflection.

I'm photographing his reflection here and a silhouette

here, walking down the stairs.

I've got full sun.

So basically – and then you've got full

-length but sitting down.

So in other words, you see his entire

body but he's sitting down.

So we've done all those shots.

Now if you look at another wedding, for

example, you can sort of see how this

groom is a little bit larger.

So in some ways, you would say it's

better to crop him a little bit tighter.

So I eliminate a lot of his weight

and then I cut a little bit here

as well.

And then I didn't really do the full

-length because I'm not really worried about it.

I didn't have too much time.

As you can see, from there to there

was my coverage, and then I went to

the brides, and that was basically it.

So what's next on the list?

Apart from the groom, full-length, three-quarter,

and or close-up, what else is left?

So then we've got the groom and with

all of the groomsmen, and that includes any

ring bearers or page boys, depending on what

country you're in.

And then once you get the whole group

of them together, it's the groom with each

of his groomsmen.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

So let's have a look at those.

So for here, for example, you've got traditional

full-length.

Guys, this is not going to win any

awards.

You have to remember, don't be too creative

for your own good.

Melissa implied at the start of her conversation

that you've got to do what you have

to do to do what you want to

do.

Just get it done, and then you can

play.

So this one, the grandparents are going to

like it.

The parents are going to like it.

This is what they look like.

This does not tell you who they are.

When they interact, now you get a sense

of their camaraderie and what they do.

So I always do interactive shots there as

well.

Now let me go back and let me

show you.

So you can sort of see, like, here's

a traditional shot of the groom and the

groomsmen here.

But then if you go to, say, April

and Joey's wedding, now I've done this inside.

I had nothing to work with.

I had a small little hotel room.

So this was shot at, say, aperture F10,

as you can see, so everybody's in focus.

And there you have it.

So it's a different way of doing things.

So again, looking at this.

Now my suggestion is once you've done that,

you also, of course, have to do individual

shots.

Now this is some shots that some people

just don't do, and that is the groomsman

with each groom, so the groomsman with the

groom.

Now if I was running out of time,

I would not do these.

This is what I would afford to sacrifice.

I grew up in the culture that you

just had to get this shot because it

could be someone who's from overseas who traveled

all the way for the wedding.

It could be a brother.

So these individual portraits, they take no time.

They're the same thing.

It's very easy, so you might as well

just do them.

Okay, so really, really important.

All right, what else?

Okay, so once we do that, then we

move on to the family.

So we get the groom with his mom

and dad together.

And if they're, again, once we've gone through

the relationships form, if they're divorced and not

on speaking terms, then that might change.

But even if they're divorced but are on

speaking terms, Jerry will often get a photo

of the groom or the bride with both

parents, even if they are divorced, because they

are still their parents.

Those two people created this child.

And it is nice to have, for history

purposes, a photo of the three of them

together.

You might not have mom and dad being

cuddly if they're divorced.

You might have them on either side of

the bride and groom.

But that's really an important picture unless there's

a lot of animosity there, and then you

can skip that.

But then on top of that, Jerry will

always get photos of the groom with the

mom on his own and also with the

dad on his own as well.

And then you have the immediate family.

So that includes any immediate siblings without their

spouses.

So it's just basically the family that the

groom grew up with.

Have them all together as one big family

photo.

And then just with the siblings.

So you have just the groom and his

siblings, and then you have them with each

of the siblings.

So the groom can have a photo with

each of them.

All right, so let's look at examples of

that.

So in this particular wedding, you'll see that

there's one with dad.

Guys, no one's going to win an award

with this.

This is just nice reflected light.

The sun was reflecting off a white wall,

giving us that beautiful glow in camera.

I normally do one looking in the camera,

one interactive.

Then you've got mom.

The interactive one didn't work, or it may

have been unflattering, so I didn't actually use

it.

Then you've got mom and dad.

Now this is a kind of shot that

I might do, let's say, for example, if

the mom and dad are together.

So usually you will have most photographers will

do dad on one side, groom in the

middle, mom on the other side.

I find because the guys are a little

bit taller, mom loves being the center of

attention, so this is a nice way of

framing her.

Also because guys are usually wearing a dark

suit.

In this case, mom's wearing something dark, but

she might be wearing something light, so therefore

we've got the dark clothes framing the lighter

colored ones.

So I do one looking in the camera.

I basically do one interactive, a couple of

shots like that.

Also, if you have time, I wouldn't say

this is a do or die, but if

you want to make the parents happy, do

this shot.

Photograph mom and dad together.

Now, if you want to be extra special

about it, you photograph dad on his own

and mom on her own.

Now, knock on wood.

Let's say dad passes away, mom passes away,

they're aging parents, they're 60 plus, 70 plus,

or whatever.

You know what?

This could be the last photograph that we

have of these individuals, and this might be

the photograph that shows up at their funeral.

I know this sounds terrible and morbid in

some ways, but we have to photograph with

hindsight.

So if you can, you would do that

individually.

Now, then what I did after this, I

thought, well, let me do some different kinds

of shots.

So you may have seen me do this

several times over the years in JGBT.

It's a very popular shot.

Foreground background shot with mom and dad, getting

them looking back, interacting, giggling, and then we

get a bit of a kiss, a little

bit of a lens flare.

I actually quite liked, and then it gives

us more photographs to play with.

Now, so let me explain something, guys.

Whenever you've finished the do or die shots

and you have more time, what you're seeing

here is that I'm doing them again in

a different way.

Okay?

I'm doing them again in a different way.

So in this case, this is a different

full length shot of the groom.

This is somewhat similar, but of course vertical

and closer.

That's a full length of the groom and

obviously a bit more graphic.

That is a different shot of the boys.

And then, again, if I'm running out of

time, I can quickly get the groom in

the foreground, the guys in the background.

As you can see, if I've got enough

time, I'll always do the shots again.

So, for example, these ones are the parents.

I would not call this a must have.

I would call this bonus material.

But, of course, it's going to help you

sell and it's going to make the parents

and the couple happy.

If I had left after this photograph, that's

okay.

If I have time, that's when I'm going

to actually do those different shots like we

discussed.

Okay?

Now, with this one, I'm thinking, you know

what, I want some bonus material of the

groom.

So I did one of this.

It's different lighting.

It's quite dark.

Then I need something to go with it.

So this is off camera flash, a couple

of different perspectives.

And then I'm like, well, wait a second,

wouldn't it be cool to have the guys

walking?

Because guys love that reservoir dog shot, as

we call it.

In Australia, not sure what you guys call

it, but that classic photo of Tarantino's cast

in reservoir dogs as they walk.

And it's sort of often synonymous with these

kind of groomsmen shots.

So looking in the camera, passive.

Then we've got walking, cracking up, laughing, giggling,

all that kind of stuff.

So that gives us a shot to do.

Then I looked at it.

I was about to go to the brides.

I see this and I'm thinking, how cool

would it be to get some shadow shots?

And that was it.

So to show you some comparatives, if I

go, again, back to the grooms, well, you

might say, well, what are the different shots

that I got of the groom?

Well, you would say that if all I

got were these ones, fine.

But how much more flavor does this add?

And that's why I did these, because they

were in the same situation.

I closed the blinds.

We get the shot.

So I'm very conscious of making the shots.

How do I say look?

Sorry, photographing in a way that's versatile.

I don't have to change my environment too

much, but I can change the look of

it very quickly.

So you can sort of see here how

quickly I went from foreground, background shot.

This was in a small little bedroom.

And then I got all the boys involved.

And then I got that shot.

I'm like, you know what?

I need a bit more flavor.

This was photographed against a TV.

This was photographing into the light, that little

hint of detail there.

And again, that gives me some shots to

take as well.

If you look at this coverage, this was

Aaron and Jeremy, one of our favorite weddings.

Now, in this case, I had him basically

up to his vest and tie.

So we got some shots with light coming

through.

A couple little detail shots you can sort

of see there, shot at 1.4. And

the bride gave him a present.

So he opened it up.

So I just basically saw, witnessed him opening

up the present.

Then in this case, because the jacket, the

suit had a little bit more flair and

it was quite old school, I ended up

shooting different parts of the suit.

So if you want to make it look

interesting, you can actually do it with your

cropping.

Even the tail, that's pretty boring, but you

might as well do it.

Back of the head, I don't know.

Why not?

Let's do it.

Shooting at 1.4. If you remember this

wedding, handsome groom, nice guy, but took a

while to warm up, actually warm up me

and him on the day.

So it was sort of quite passive.

The energy didn't feel right too much on

that morning, but we opened up a little

bit and we got some classic shots.

So if you're not getting much emotion, in

this case, as you can see, at least

we're getting some shots that are quite classic.

So we've got the cropping in, all that

kind of stuff.

This was photographed in the shower, if you

remember.

Now, you can see how all these shots

are taken.

Then I do my bread and butter every

shot with the groom.

Then I do the groomsman.

Then all I do is change my angle.

So if I only did this and didn't

get this, I would say that's okay.

But if all you've got to do is

step aside and do this shot, or perhaps

your second shooter can do it, great.

Now, this is another different bridal party shot.

I'm not digging this too much.

It looks a little bit contrived, even though

I'm not trying to hide that it's contrived,

but something doesn't feel right.

That's why the laughing broke that up a

little bit.

I quite like that he looks like a

man of action.

He's got his hands out ready to rock.

Then I'm like, all right, let me do

something more classic.

So you can see again how I'm doing

all these shots and it's changing.

It's a different three-quarter shot.

It's a different close-up.

It's a different close-up.

I'm shooting through the guys.

This is a different bridal party.

Basically, if you finish what you just have

to do and you've got more time, you

simply do repeat the shots that you've done

in a different way.

So different bridal party we said, different kind

of groom shot.

You've got a different close-up.

You've got, again, a different one there as

well.

You've got a different bridal party shot.

You've got a different groom shot and so

on.

The more you do, and again, guys, I'm

not telling you at all that these photographs

are anything spectacular.

It's just solid, good bread-and-butter stuff.

Tells a story.

What did we say at the start?

We needed to tell the story.

We need to flatter the people that we're

photographing.

We need to show things that they've spent

money on.

We've made it meaningful.

We've shown the gift being open and all

that kind of stuff.

We're shooting to sell and so on.

So we've covered all the bases.

All right, baby, let's talk about the bride's

coverage now.

Okay, so moving on to the bride's coverage.

We come down here, and pretty much it's

a mirror image almost of exactly what we

did with the groom's coverage.

So Jerry will always start with the detail

shots, accessories, getting ready shots with the bridesmaids.

So you've got any veil or headpiece, earrings,

rings, front and back of the dress, not

just the front.

Necklace, bracelet, bag, bouquet.

You'll see with a lot of the detail

shots that Jerry does, you've often heard him

say that he likes details with a heartbeat,

and so he, like the front of the

dress, he almost never, I've actually never seen

him photograph it hanging on a hanger, for

example.

But he'll always have it in front of

the bride or on the bride.

Same thing with the rings, the earrings, her

putting on the earrings so that there's a

little bit more personality, a little bit more

life to it.

If it's a really formal wedding, there will

be times when Jerry will just lay out

all of the jewelry and the accessories and

photograph it that way as well, but those

are always how he starts the day.

Okay, awesome.

Now, I just wanted to allude to something

here, guys, because you may have looked at

one of the groom's coverage.

So what's missing out of this groom's coverage?

You look at him with detail shots.

You've got all these classic shots of him.

You've got traditional bridal party.

You've got sort of cool bridal party.

You've got many variations.

And what's missing?

Well, family.

So with the groom, I believe, baby, he

was the only child, Kayla, Sterling?

Yes.

So Sterling was an only child, so we

didn't have any sort of siblings or spouses

of kids of those siblings or anything.

So it was quickly done, basically having the

parents and the groom.

But you see how family shots are there,

but then you also get nothing here, which

means that I have to go back, keep

that in my memory bank and basically say,

you know what, when the parents are ready

and it's later on in the ceremony after

the church and before the reception or somewhere

before I leave that wedding, I must get

those parent shots.

So groom with mom, groom with dad, groom

with mom and dad, mom and dad and

siblings and so on, mom and dad and

siblings and spouses and kids and so on.

All those combinations that we discussed.

So let's look now, we're talking specifically about

the brides.

Now I asked the bride to be ready,

hair and makeup completely done, in a robe,

ready to get into her dress.

So depending on the bride, she might want

to get boudoir shots, so I'll do those

quickly.

If she, other than that, we might just

get her getting into the dress and then

just finessing the back of the dress and

finessing all those different things.

Now you might say, Gerry, do you go

to the wedding and get the bride getting

ready?

I personally don't like the bride getting ready

because I'm saying, as in the makeup is

half off or you've got the bride in

just an old T-shirt and with no

finesse and there's just mess everywhere.

Well, I just think it's not really personal.

The first impression I want to give the

bride is actually of her looking beautiful, looking

amazing, but we want a storytelling that she's

about to get into the dress or she's

just got into the dress and she's adjusting

her details and earrings and necklace and things

like that.

Now if I get to the brides and

I've basically said I need two hours and

I get there and she's not ready yet,

well, yeah, I'll take some shots.

So in this case, right, so we've got

chaos everywhere, but this is the granddaughter of

the bride.

So she's got a couple of kids from

another marriage, but you can sort of see,

I mean, which grandparent would not like this?

So I am going to be photographing all

these shots and giving it to the bride.

Isn't that really cute?

And her doing the father.

And then while I'm waiting for the bride,

I'm not going to waste my time.

I am going to get the granddaughter, the

daughter of the bride and their daughter and

the husband.

I will take a nice, clean, classic portrait.

This is just window light.

This is just out of the camera.

Like I said, you're seeing the proofs that

the bride and groom got.

This is every single photograph.

So I take those shots and then we

get some interactive ones as well.

I'm going to, you know, get her on

the seat and we're going to basically take

some photographs of her on her own.

And she's looking adorable.

Why would I waste time?

I am going to shoot to sell here.

I mean, what parent and or grandparent would

not love these photographs?

And then while she's there, let's get mom

involved again.

Let's get her back.

Then the auntie wanted to come.

Sure, please, let's get the auntie.

Let's also get the mother and the sister.

And again, while we're there, so basically she

sat on the lap of the dad and

I thought, well, let's get another shot here.

So now I'm like, you know what?

I've got no time to get her completely

ready.

So bride, get completely dressed.

I'm ready to photograph you because we're running

out of time.

So in this case, I photographed the bride.

So gorgeous girl, but she's quite plus size.

So we softened that with the shawl that

she brought.

So we took all these shots.

This is my detail shot.

So we've got flowers.

We've got the ring and the bracelet.

We've got a bit more detail with the

bracelet.

We've got putting up the earrings.

And then we've got the back of the

dress along with the veil.

We've got her hair, which is a fiery

red color, which is beautiful.

We've got those traditional photographs of the bride,

and she looks amazing.

A bit of negative space because I might

want to use that in an enlargement or

a wall art or something like that.

I've got, and then I quickly get into,

I'm just trying to think.

So dad wasn't there yet.

I think the mom and dad had divorce,

right, baby?

Okay, so we've got, now this is important

because the bride has two daughters.

So there's going to be more shots that

you're going to have to take.

So there's the bride with her daughters.

Okay, classic, interactive.

Then with her mom.

So you've got all the girls together.

Fantastic, interactive.

Then, of course, we've got chosen families.

So you've got the husband of the daughter,

of the bride, and, of course, the child

as well.

And then we've got the individual irrespective families

with the bride.

And then we've got the bride and her

granddaughter.

She wasn't cooperating too much, but we finally

snuck in a shot.

She was quite cute there, beautiful.

Then we've got the bride with each of

the bridesmaids.

That's really important.

Okay, and then a close friend.

Then we've got mom because we hadn't done

that yet.

Then finally mom and dad get involved.

Now, do you see how there is a

bit of a disconnect with the veil?

One, the veil's over her shoulders because we

want to soften her a little bit because

she's plus size.

But then you've got dad on that side,

and then you've got mom on that side.

So it's a way of being civil even

though you're divorced or you're broken up, but

this is your child.

So we do that interactive.

Then, of course, we get the whole family.

Now, by the way, this room was chaotic.

There was mess everywhere.

So I'm deliberately cropping in tight so I

don't get all that fuss and mess.

And, of course, I do not forget to

get the shot of dad and so on

as well.

Now, by that time, the little bridesmaids got

ready too.

So that's that.

Okay, so we've got them involved.

And then we've got both mothers in a

photograph.

So that's the mother of the groom.

Okay, and then if we can, so I

wanted a shot maybe of her finishing off,

getting ready or something.

I didn't have time to get the bride

walking out of the house or the bride

rocking up to the car or anything like

that.

So I needed a shot to emulate the

finishing of that coverage.

So, baby, can you talk to us about

the do-or-die shots of once you've

taken all the photographs, what are the storytelling

movement shots that one would do?

At the brides.

Yep, so you've done all the family shots,

so like with the veil over and so

on.

So then we move on to we get

the telling shots as we're moving out of

the house.

We'll move on to the veil being placed

over the bride's face, for example.

That can happen, you know, if the bride's

going to have a traditional with the veil

covering her face as she goes down the

aisle.

Typically, the parents or the dad will do

that.

So you have that.

Then you have the bride actually leaving her

home or wherever she is getting ready.

So, like in the album, it's kind of

can be sometimes abrupt if you're doing the

getting ready photos of the bride and then

the next second they're coming down the aisle.

Like there's no connection, no connecting story.

It's like you've gone from one scene to

the other with nothing connecting in the middle.

So Jerry will often get the bride leaving

and then entering the car.

So he'll always get the dad or if

the dad is not there, perhaps her brother

or whoever is going to walk her down

the aisle to help her get into the

car.

So you have that story.

And then once we get to the ceremony,

we'll have the other side when she's coming

out.

But you need something to lead into that.

Awesome.

So let's show you some examples of that.

And then I'll just go back.

I want to touch on one other thing

here.

So you can sort of see here that,

like, if you remember Erin's coverage, like I

took these photographs.

We're running out of time.

I quickly snuck in this one.

And then I'm like, well, I can't, as

Melissa said, I can't just abruptly, well, bang,

she's at the ceremony.

I need something of her leaving.

So we actually went into this room, took

this shot, then out of the car, and

then dad was holding the flowers.

It was quite fun.

And even though the time was of the

essence here, we're driving to the wedding, and

I'm like, well, we can't not stop for

these photographs.

And I don't know if it was even

caught on camera.

I think I've said to the bride, look,

you know, the wedding is not going to

start without you.

Don't worry about the time.

We can never get these photographs.

You looking your breast, your best breast.

Whoopsie.

Well, baby, your top is alluring me into

those words.

But not looking your best and your freshest,

we have to take these photographs.

So we did that.

Isn't that a funny faux pas?

Joe's got a collection of faux pas that

I've said over the years.

So I took all of these photographs, and

they obviously added huge value to the wedding

ceremony.

Now, I want to show you another thing

here again.

So you may have seen this wedding.

I don't normally start off with shots like

this, but there was sort of harmony in

the chaos.

You've got the dress everywhere, the flowers.

There's all this sort of crap everywhere.

But I actually quite liked it.

So if you feel like you get to

the wedding, and there's things going on, you

want to take it, and it's actually good

enough to start the wedding with, then go

for it.

Then the bride come in.

As you can see, she's in her pajamas,

and it doesn't look as nice.

But then with Erin, see how she's got

on her dress and the back of the

dress, and even the loops of the dress

are not on?

That's where I'll usually start with the bride.

And, of course, they've got the mom and

the sister helping her get ready.

So this is how most coverages will start.

And, of course, we have the equivalent of

the close-up.

We have equivalent of the full length.

We have three-quarter.

We have traditional bridesmaids.

We have, and often you'll see this, a

reveal of the dad, for example, the dad

with the bride.

So in this case, they go back to

back.

And one of the most epic father-daughter

reveal stories that you'll ever see.

Now, in fact, what you may not know

is this family, so the parents, are not

together.

So, again, I got them close and cuddly,

but they feel comfortable that they're not really

touching each other because they're no longer married.

But you would look at this, and you

would swear that they're a happy family, and

they are.

But they're just not together, and that's okay.

But at the end of the day, they're

still the parents, and that's the way it

is.

So you can sort of see how I

get that connection with mom, and then dad's

looking away, so I've got someone to make

him laugh, and then I sort of get

that intimate portrait where it would look a

bit unusual if they were divorced, not on

speaking terms, and so on.

And, again, I create stories within stories.

So as you'd appreciate, I need a shot

with dad, then I need a shot with

mom, and there will always, almost always be

one looking at the camera, one interactive.

We're looking at the camera, interactive.

And that's with most formal portraits.

And the only reason why sometimes I don't

include them is because the interactive ones, maybe

something didn't work.

And, of course, these continue to be bonus

shots.

There's that, and there's reflections.

They're a bit sort of, I've been there,

done that, didn't like them too much to

put them in the album.

These ones are beautiful, very classic, and so

on and so forth.

So if you look at the comparative shots,

let's go to the brides here.

So I got to the brides, and she

was actually very, very late.

But I got the detail shots.

You know, this is an old locket passed

through the family.

There were so many rings and necklaces.

I'm like, well, how am I going to

get this?

So I put them all in there on

the same focal plane.

You can see there my aperture is F14

on a 105 macro.

It's important that you know that when you're

photographing detail shots with a macro lens or

even a 1.4 lens, don't shoot it

at 2.8 or 1.4 because it's

so frigging shallow.

You have to know that a macro lens

up close, sometimes like F8 looks like 2

.8. So you've got to be really careful.

Increase your ISO.

Give yourself some breathing space on your aperture,

and you'll be right.

Now, with this bride, she was getting ready,

and I'm like, all right, the hairspray was

being sprayed.

I'm like, I'm going to get a couple

of those backlit shots.

She wanted not so much boudoir, but something

sort of representing her in sort of, you

know, evening wear or something like that.

This was just natural light coming through the

window, a couple of reflections.

Then she wanted some with robes, and I'm

like, I'm running out of time.

What the hell do I do?

But we took those shots with her sisters,

and then we got some beautiful dramatic shots

of her in the hallway with her mom

and her bridesmaids doing that as well.

So you can sort of see how, you

know, the father-daughter reveal can look a

little bit different depending on context, situation, where

we're at, and so on.

And, you know, we go from those intimate

shots that happen after the reveal, but then

we go straight into that classic formal portrait,

looking in the camera and then smiling.

Now, you can see it's not as flattering

because she put her chin down, but then

she brought her chin up, and then she

looked away, and then that's probably a better

shot for the bride and so on.

And of course, we do those shots individually,

close-ups.

This is a close friend or cousin, I

think it was.

But again, if I'm running out of time,

I can go back to my concepts that

I've done over and over again.

So sometimes we want to reinvent the wheel.

Time's running out.

What am I going to do?

I'm going to go back to those safe

shots that I know will make everybody happy,

know that will work, and not get too

creative.

Now, because, of course, at this stage, I

haven't photographed the bridesmaids yet altogether, so I

do that, get them interacting.

Quickly can get her in the foreground to

create some different shots.

She had some more detail and gifts that

she wanted to give the parents.

So do you sort of see how there's

a common thread with the three weddings that

I've been showing you, but each of them

have their own little unique challenges?

Anything that you don't do, you have to

put that in a bookmark, and if you

have to, either you're inexperienced or lack a

bit of confidence, just write it down.

Must have shots for later on in the

day.

Here we have bridesmaids in a different way.

Obviously, with full sun, you've got that beautiful

shape and the texture of the wall, and

so on.

Now, you see how this wedding, so what

we don't have on the checklist, per se,

is the reveal.

So if there's a reveal, now, for some

cultures, some people who don't know what this

basically means, it means that the bride and

groom are seeing each other before they get

married.

So we're revealing what the bride looks like,

the groom looks like before the wedding, and

usually, it's so that we have time to

photograph the couple before the wedding, and some

people just want to get the nerves over

with, and they want to soak in the

moment together before they walk down the aisle

or, again, culturally dependent.

So in this case, we got these shots

back to back.

We're soaking each other in.

They turn around.

They start crying, and it's really beautiful.

It's a beautiful story, and we get to

this point where he's twirling around and so

on.

Now, with this reveal, the bride and groom

actually are requested, and this is where, don't

just put things to memory.

When you're having what they call a pre

-wedding meeting, this is about a month before

the wedding where you discuss all the finer

points of the day.

We discuss those names and relationships, the must

-haves, what's meaningful.

I often will ask a bride and groom,

is there anything that's important to you that

I wouldn't know unless I asked you?

So don't expect that I look like I

take photographs of things that, again, to an

outsider wouldn't be important.

So is there anything not obvious to me

or I haven't asked you that is important

to you?

And she'll ask.

In this case, the bride and groom said,

we want the reveal, and we want the

family, the bridal party, to be somewhat suggested.

So there we were, bridal party in the

background.

I wasn't worried about showing every human being

in the back.

It's more about the couple.

So then I focused on the couple, focused

on the background.

Then we got her hugging him from behind,

a bit close up, turning around.

And then we get some focus on the

bridal party, focus on the foreground, go close

up, giggling.

And then while we're there, why would we

waste that easy line?

Now we've got a different bridal party shot.

So we've got a walking along shot as

well.

So there we have it.

What's next?

So assuming, so we've gone from those shots

where we discussed maybe the shots of the

bridge, basically, for the bride's coverage, and then

walking away.

And then we arrive at the ceremony.

So what's important from that point onwards?

So once we get to the ceremony, we'll

scroll down in our little checklist here.

So we remember that we left off by

saying we have to get the bride walking

away.

So we talked about how we need to

have the bride getting into the car and

then coming back.

So then we'll get the bride, once you

get to the ceremony, the bride in the

doorway.

And then her dad, or if her dad's

not there, whoever is going to be walking

her down the aisle, will be helping her

get out of the car as well.

So giving her his hand.

And then escorting him.

Once she gets out of the car, Jerry

will get the bridesmaids adjusting.

You can see number three is adjusting the

dress just outside of the church.

Then the bride walking into the church.

So all these different storytelling aspects.

And so if you want to just take

it from there, because then we'll cut to

the next section.

Perfect.

Okay.

So now obviously, guys, there'll be some of

you watching from different parts of the world

who will be thinking, well, that doesn't really

apply to me because I do a tea

ceremony.

I do a South Asian ceremony and so

on.

Of course, it's culturally different.

It really depends on the culture that you're

photographing.

I think I'm showing you some different examples.

I can't show you every different culture that

I've ever photographed.

I'll be here forever.

But ultimately, in this case, I got to

the wedding, the ceremony location.

And of course, I am going to photograph

things like this.

Anything, what did we say?

Story, flattery, things I've spent money on, what's

meaningful, and I'm going to shoot to sell.

So all these things tell the story, show

off what they've spent money on, and they

will remember these little bits and pieces.

So I ended up doing all that.

So they had a bagpiper.

This is actually not in Scotland.

This is actually in Melbourne, Australia at an

old artist colony, a place called Montsalvat.

It was made about 100 odd years ago,

but it's made to look centuries old and

so on.

So if you look at this, these are

all storytelling, and obviously we're getting into more

photojournalism here.

We're not, a lot of these shots, of

course, are not going to be posed.

Now, sometimes they're somewhat directed, and I'll get

to that in a moment, but you sort

of get the idea.

Now, let's cut to this wedding.

Now, we did the reveal to do some

photographs of them in between and then family

shots, but then, of course, the ceremony's a

different deal.

They're already at the location, so those shots

at the car and all those different things

don't really apply.

In this case, again, we did locations after

the reveal, and then we did some detailed

shots at the wedding, so you sort of

see these kinds of shots and so on.

Okay, they're nothing fancy, but I'll give you

an example.

Like this story, they didn't ask me to

be there.

I just happened to be wondering where the

bride was and they were doing a prayer

for her.

How important are these shots?

Look, and the tears rolling down the faces

of the bridesmaids after that prayer, that's the

things that you just have to look out

for.

I can't tell you that's a must-have

shot.

All I just need to tell you is

that you need to know and be wary

of things happening around you.

So the must-have shots are a combination

of shots that you direct and you pose,

as in your foundation, it's somewhat directed, and

then there is just storytelling moments that are

going to happen without you that are photojournalistic,

that you really want to understand.

Now, going back to Melissa's list and of

this wedding, so for example, I get to

the ceremony, I've taken the shots, so what

I do is I actually, you know, the

groom's waiting, so I've taken the shot of

him and the boy's just waiting.

So you can see that I've got the

filmmaker there, so I'm like, oh, let me

crop in, change my angle, this cute little

kid was walking around, so I didn't pose

this, we're just walking around, then these girls

were playing on their own, of course I'm

going to take these shots.

I am a photojournalist, but I'm also a

director, so really I have that combination of

looks in there.

So then, you know, the girls walk up,

you're constantly looking, so when you're photographing guys,

you're photographing here, and you're waiting for a

moment, and you might peer off to the

right, then you might peer off to the

left, and then look back in again, and

you're always doing that.

Don't be so one-dimensional.

I want you to look from all different

angles.

So even when I have a second shooter,

so often Melissa might second shoot, often Joe

might second shoot, I never rely on their

photographs.

I sort of pretend they don't exist, so

that if something happens to their shots, they're

in the wrong position, I've got those shots,

and vice versa.

Pretend I don't exist, tell the story from

a different angle, and we go from there.

So again, to bridge the gap of the

story of the bride leaving the location, or,

you know, if it is in fact a

separate location, these shots, you know, we've got

this storytelling, like him in the foreground, the

car's coming up.

I'm showing off the location, I'm showing off

and setting the scene, rather than just photographing

this building on its own.

This is a lot more meaningful when it's

the car that the bride arrived in.

I show a different angle, different perspective of

the gate and so on, driving in.

Then I go in the front seat, photograph

these shots, looking in the camera, bread and

butter, get that shot, boom.

Then get some more emotion, love that shot.

I can't remember what I said to them,

but we've got that beautiful moment between them

as well.

Then we've got a beautiful moment between the

father of the bride and then getting there

as well.

We keep on going, forehead's touching.

We mentioned, again, the bride coming out of

the car, that's important, so before she gets

out.

Then arguably being escorted out.

Then in this case, I did a reveal

with the page boy and the flower girls.

I got gold, I love that.

Now if we keep on going, you can

see how these shots were taken.

I was inside the car shooting outside and

there was some things that they had to

get settled in the ceremony, so we were

buying some time here a little bit.

So why waste it?

I'm gonna get the shot of the page

boy and the girls because it was a

little bit taboo for the kids and seeing

the opposite sex.

I'm like, oh my god, this is freaky.

Then we got them involved and so on

and the adjusting of the veil and then

I go inside.

So what I'm doing is I'm quickly looking

at my environment and saying, how do I

maximize this story?

How do I maximize being able to shoot

on this angle, shoot this particular moment?

Is there anything happening here?

Okay, wait there, take that shot.

Let's go here.

Then look over your shoulder, go back again

and keep on going.

Guys, it's important.

So this is where you over deliver.

No one, if I did not show photographs,

let's say for example, if the bride didn't

see this one, she wouldn't know.

She wouldn't say, Jerry, where's that shot?

If the bride didn't get say this shot,

well maybe the father's not emotional but I

actually brought that out of him in this

moment.

That would be an over deliver.

If I, most people will not get this

kind of a shot escorting out.

Most people will not get the reveal with

the kids.

Most photographers will not get this kind of

a shot.

So again, I'm not saying I'm amazing.

I'm just saying I'm just maximizing and creating

every opportunity to tell a full story of

the wedding day.

And let's just go back here for a

second, like I said, because every wedding will

be a little bit different.

In this case, we were all, we were

basically everything was in the same location apart

from the location portraits, which we ended up

going for a quick drive.

So in this case, this ceremony was here.

There was a reveal with the dad, as

we saw, we've got the family shots.

We've got the traditional bridal party shots.

There's the reveal.

But when this ceremony happened and I've got

to say guys, this was probably the fastest

ceremony I have ever been a witness to.

And, but when I got there, all right,

so I've got the mother-in-law putting

on the mother's nail polish.

I've got some sort of photojournalistic shots here

as well.

I thought that's pretty cool.

They've got the cornhole.

So I'm like, I'm taking some shots of

that happening.

Got nice dramatic shadows there on the right

hand side.

I've got the, the blank ceremony there as

well, which I think was really fun.

And again, so these kinds of shots are

important to tell the story and the bride

would have expected me to get a photograph

of all these different things.

Even this room, this is the bridal room.

We love you, but bride and groom and

bridesmaids only for the rest of the day.

Boom.

So that's just private.

Then I realized that she was just putting

some finishing touches to her vows.

And I wouldn't have known that again, unless

I walked in.

So I took all those photographs.

So we'll talk about the ceremony at a

separate episode, but you can see how all

of these shots are leading up to the

start of the ceremony.

So guys, all I got to say is

that I, there's going to be some inexperienced

photographers may, who may struggle with technique, who

may struggle with lighting, who may struggle with

posing, but as a mentor to you, as

a brother, as a, as an affectionate uncle,

do not frigging shoot a wedding unless you

know these must have shots.

That is irresponsible.

You just can't do that.

You, you, you should not photograph a wedding

unless you know what to take.

And the thing is that it takes people

like me and other photographers in the industry

who've actually made the mistake of not taking

those important photographs to end up knowing what

those photographs should be.

So over 26 years, I'm like, well, yeah,

these are the must haves.

You know, I've never had a couple say,

well, where are these shots?

Well, no, they're always there.

And if for some reason, circumstantially the weather

time, anything for some reason, I do not

get to do those shots.

Even if it's not my fault, I will

not leave the wedding until I do them.

In other words, let's say if I miss

some family shots, let's say if I miss

some classic bridal portraits and literally I just

had no time or the bride was sick

or something happened during the day, I will

go to the reception and every so often

I'll bring the bride out of the bride

and groom out of the family and chip

away at those must have do or die

shots during the reception so that I just

don't miss them.

And if for some reason I could not,

I could not do those must have shots

for any reason.

And again, even if it's not your fault,

you push and push until you can't push

no more.

And at the end of the wedding, I

want you to grab your paperwork and put

some notes down bride, let's say in Vegas

here, for example, July wedding, summer wedding bride

drank, didn't eat, fainted, was out for two

hours, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Because by the time you do the proofs,

by the time you do the wedding album,

there may be some issues and you want

to cover your ass to basically get the

facts on paper and stuff like that.

But again, you can see how I've shown

you now to brides and grooms, coverages, nothing

award winning, nothing crazy, ridiculously difficult, just solid

portraits of the bride and the groom up

until the ceremony.

And that's basically it.

Now, like I said, culturally, if you photograph,

say India wedding, South Asian weddings, and you

really have not much time on the wedding

day to do them because there's so much

tradition and culture.

Then what I have done and used to

do is I'll say to the bride and

the groom, hey, as a bit of a

bonus, I'm going to give you a complimentary

location shoot the day after the wedding or

two days after the wedding.

So they'll get dressed again, no family involved.

And I do the groom's coverage, do the

brides, do those location portraits.

And now I've over delivered.

I didn't charge any more for that extra

time, but I'll make so much more money

with those extra photographs that I've taken there

as well.

And certainly, for example, if you're doing say

a, an Asian wedding where you've got a

tea ceremony and things like that, or you've

got a bride and a groom where they

go to each other's houses at 7 a

.m. in the morning, and you've got to

play games.

The groom is going to play some games

to win the, win the love of the

bride.

So this has been passed down for obviously

many, many years and tradition where the groom

has to fight for the affection of the

bride in the day.

Obviously you photograph that as well.

If you've got a tea ceremony, you want

everyone passing that cup of tea.

Sorry, the host passing the tea to the

guests or the relatives to the bride and

the groom as well.

If you do not understand the culture of

a wedding, because you've never done it before,

like the first time I did a Jewish

wedding, I'm like, what is that?

The first time I did a tea ceremony,

the first time I did a South Asian

wedding, Lebanese, Orthodox, Russian, whatever.

If it moves, shoot it simple.

If there's a different action that takes place,

shoot it.

And before you even shoot that different action,

you should have photographed that first particular scene

from different perspectives, different biases over the shoulder

of the groom over the shoulder of the

bride and so on and so forth.

So just make sure that you get a

complete coverage.

Do not say that it's not your responsibility

and there is no excuse.

Even if it's not your fault, the weather

is bad.

There is a problem.

There's not much time.

It basically they're paying for you for it

to be your fault.

I'm saying to you at the end of

the day, take ownership of those, those responsibilities

so that when you are photographing, um, you're

over delivering and certainly you're creating this beautiful

story and a beautiful album and you are

going to sell more.

Remember to guys, and we'll remind you this

as well.

Um, remember this, the wedding is not really

about you.

And I'm going to say that as a

photographer growing in the years, and as I've

been sure as a photographer, I've got to

say that sometimes I just focus on photographing

and effect.

Let me photograph a reflection.

Let me find a reflection and go bang.

Let me find a shadow and go and

photograph it rather than doing that.

I'm saying do those things, but find out

what's meaningful to them first, because you might

be missing this beautiful story that you wouldn't

know unless you ask what is important to

the couple rather than say, well, look, I

photograph, I photograph everything back lit.

That's why they booked me.

And that's all I'm going to do.

Well, wait a second.

What is it else?

Is it about your work that they liked?

There could be, it could be one wedding

where you did something a little bit different.

So you've got to know that they probably,

that you were probably sold, that they were

probably sold on one of your weddings on

your blog, on Instagram or whatever, based on

a particular photograph.

And if you don't know what that is,

that's a difficult thing.

So you might say, what is it about

my work that attracted you?

what, what would you simply just, you just

want to have?

I mean, you know, you as a girl,

you're growing up or a guy, you're growing

up and you've pictured your wedding and all

you wanted was this.

What are those special moments that you're looking

for?

They're, they're going to be written down and

they're going to be taken care of throughout

the day.

And like I said, you do not leave

the wedding unless you, you get them done.

Even if it means staying extra hours at

the wedding where they didn't pay you for

it.

And that's why guys, this is a really

important point too, that a lot of us

will actually charge a certain hourly rate.

We'll do like a three hour rate, a

four hour rate.

I'm not talking about like a quick shotgun

wedding in Vegas chapel that we just quickly

do.

I'm talking about a wedding that is, uh,

let's call it a traditional wedding as in

ceremony, reception, a celebration.

And there's the groom getting ready, bride getting

ready or two guys or two girls, depending

on if it's same sex or not, whatever.

How do we ask for time?

How do we get the time that we

need?

So rather than offer a three or four

hour rate, then you may miss the groom's

coverage, have half an hour at the brides

and maybe an hour into the reception.

And then you've missed all these different stories.

What I do as a minimum groom's coverage,

bride's coverage, ceremony, location, portraits in the first

hour of the reception.

And then my second and third collections will

bite more into the reception.

So if, for example, like I said, if

you don't do the brides or the groom's

coverage, because they, you didn't get an opportunity

to do it.

Well, what about the groom on his own?

What about the groom with the mom, the

groom with the dad?

No, one's going to say, well, the couple

obviously only had a three hour coverage and

that it's not the photographer's fault.

That's why the photographs aren't there.

Take it seriously.

And some of us may be dealing.

And I said, with respect, maybe dealing with

an unsophisticated audience.

In other words, they don't really know that

it's the first time they're getting married.

They sort of get married and good enough

is good enough.

And they get you and you do these

photographs, but I want you to go back

to your grooms and brides coverages and look

at the photographs that we've talked about and

find out if you're missing anything.

So if you're missing anything in your repertoire,

mate, tattoo it frigging on your arm, if

you have to, or write it down on

your arm.

I know even Joe, actually, when he was,

did first couple of weddings, he had this

checklist and he had a, uh, one of

those, uh, play, play by play.

What do you call it?

Like you, you know, like one of those

footballers have, yeah, quarterback book.

So you basically put it on your wrist

and then you sort of Velcro it and

then quickly open up and go bang.

Or you can even have it on your

phone.

You can even actually photograph.

Imagine it.

That's not a bad idea.

Actually.

I'm quite proud of myself of the idea

that I haven't shared with you yet.

Photograph the checklist, um, of the groom's coverage,

the first photograph that you take.

So the cool thing is that if you

ever sort of missing anything, rather than sort

of looking at your playlist or looking at

a piece of paper, you sort of now

with mirrorless, of course you can look in

the viewfinder and you can see all the

stuff that you've, you know, have either done

or haven't done.

If you haven't done it yet, bookmark it,

shoot it later on.

So guys, I know I'm talking fast, but

I wanted to at least include the groom's

and the bride's coverage in, uh, in this,

but again, watch this rewatch this, get your

shots.

And if you're, if you're inexperienced or you're

a hobbyist and you've never done this before,

do not offer your services at a wedding

unless you understand what I'm saying here.

And of course, when we start talking about

the ceremony and the location portraits and the

reception coverage as well, the basis in which

you photograph a wedding, um, certainly is in

no particular order.

We've got flattery.

People want to look good and feel good.

Um, the story, obviously you want to pretend

like someone who was not at the wedding

will understand what it was like to be

at the wedding by looking at your photographs,

things they spent money on.

So things like the front of the dress,

the back of the dress, and all the

details that they've done and all those kinds

of things certainly are probably the most important,

what's meaningful to them.

And you can find that out by simply

asking them, what are you expecting?

What would be meaningful for you, uh, for

me to capture of you and your, the

relationships and your family and so on.

And also, uh, shooting to sell.

So when you're photographing, let's just make sure

that when you walk into a room, take

that first shot of that particular scene with

that color palette, that color palette and that

sensibility, and then ask yourself what will go

with that photograph.

And then you finish off that story.

Now don't take 50 shots and hoping for

two or three in that spread.

I would just say, slow down, take three

or four or five or six.

And then, you know, that that little story,

that sensibility, that color palette will be a

story.

Ceremony, my advice to you is this.

I think that there are many shots that

you will actually take, uh, on a day

in a ceremony that will be viable for

verticals, for horizontals, and things like that.

Once the ceremony starts, try to do a

patch of images in the same orientation.

If you simply go vertical, horizontal, horizontal, and

so on, it, it starts to be difficult

to, to design.

Now, yes, we can make it work, but

ultimately, I find everything in a bit of

a row can, can certainly help.

A row of horizontals, a row of verticals,

and so on.

Um, so maybe, maybe we'll cut back to

you if we can go through the wedding

checklist.

So let's look at the screen, uh, because

you'll sort of get an idea of what's

going on.

Now don't forget, of course, there will be

times, um, there will be times that your

ceremony, where they're getting ready, the reception location,

everything is all in the same place, so

there'll be no car.

Um, and that's okay.

It is what it is.

Um, all I need, though, is something to

represent a bridge from the gap of, between

the brides and the ceremony.

So imagine if we take this beautiful bridal

portrait, and then there's nothing of the bride

putting the veil on, if that's applicable, uh,

nothing beforehand, and then all of a sudden

she's coming down the aisle.

It, it just doesn't feel right.

So we need a little bit of a

bridge, um, and again, of course, we can't

cover every single, uh, denomination here, and every

kind of culture, and anything like that, but

I will show you a couple of examples.

So what you're seeing right now, you know,

driving up, so in this case, we've got

sort of driving up, um, to the ceremony

location, and then we got some beautiful shots

of the bride and dad, you know, fun

shots, emotional shots, forehead touching, and everything like

that.

Then we had the bride, uh, in the

doorway of the car, and then we had

the, the father escorting her out, which is

really cute.

Uh, in this case, we did a reveal.

Uh, it's the first time I've done a

reveal, actually, of the page boy and the

flower girls, which ended up, uh, being awesome.

This was one of my favorite shots.

As you can see, the body language of

all three girls be very different.

Love that.

Um, so now, so what did I do?

So where did I add extra value?

Because we've got the must have shots, but

where do we add extra value?

Well, these are the kinds of things.

So this was, uh, basically, I went inside

the car, and then I took shots outside

the glass, and they were sort of, uh,

using the dress, and all that kind of

stuff.

That was really fun.

Then the girls sort of started sort of

sitting there on their own.

I thought, perfect, let's get him involved.

Um, but we didn't have the go ahead

yet to photograph the ceremony.

In this case, I, I did want a

bit of a bridge.

I thought, okay, let's get the, the father

adjusting the veil one last time.

So we did that.

You can see how I saw this, uh,

this sort of stained glass, or this beautiful,

uh, lace, uh, framework.

So I went inside that area, and you

can sort of see how I've stuck to

horizontal for quite a while, and then I

just added one last vertical just for, um,

to give me a sort of an option

afterwards.

And then I continued vertical for a while.

This one, this shot obviously suited horizontal.

This is basically where they're about to, uh,

get ready for, for walking in the ceremony

location.

And again, I've gone from horizontal to vertical.

One, because it suited the shot that I

was taking, but also to give me a

choice.

Uh, in this case, the father is sort

of escorting her, and of course now I'm,

I'm including a bit of detail.

Going back to the kid, this cute little

kid that was there as well.

And then I'm just constantly shooting some photojournalistic

shots of what's going on.

You can see in this case, uh, we've

got the, um, the boys waiting, and I've

got sort of a combination of vertical and

horizontal.

And then we finally got these shots where

they're walking in.

Okay.

So these are pretty standard, but, um, it's

important that you know that most people will

not do these kind of shots in the

wedding album, but they would appreciate them in

their proofs for history's sake as to who

walked down the aisle and how.

And don't forget too that there's going to

be often where you have no filmmaker.

So the moments between the moments end up

being just as important as the obvious ones.

Um, so just be, just be wary.

If there's no filmmaker, they're probably going to,

the families are going to expect a bit

more from you or they should, or, or

at least you should expect more from yourself.

So in this case, we've gone from walking

in, then coming down the aisle, and then

I'm going back to the guys.

Then I'm going back to the couple.

Then we get the actual shaking of the

hand, which you know is going to happen.

So make sure you're in a position to

do so.

Also guys, don't forget that when you're photographing

at the front of the aisle, do not

stand in front of the groom.

You may stand in front of him, but

squat down.

don't, don't stand in front of the parents,

because like I said, you know, you've got

the parents who are there, uh, you know,

and uncles and aunties come from overseas.

I mean, they were there since they were

born.

And all of a sudden, one of the

most important moments of their life coming down

the aisle, and you're right in front.

So be wary of those around you and

also be wary of the filmmakers.

So you can sort of see how that's

basically evolved up until this point.

What if everything's happening at the same location?

So the bride's getting ready at the same

place where the ceremony is.

Is it a good idea to stage a

car shot, um, just to keep it feeling

more real or authentic?

Well, arguably there would be no car.

It makes sense.

So there would be no car symbolizing that

story.

I have no problem in staging something or

getting a bit more aesthetic value out of

something that actually happened.

But if there's no car and she walked

to the location, I would say that's fine.

Probably a good segue into this next wedding

as an example, because you can sort of

see how I was showing you three comparative

weddings as to how this is all done.

So this wedding, we ended off, um, you

know, she was putting some finishing touches on

her speech.

Then we got her getting the prayer done.

And then I went a bit wider to

show the environment.

Then I'm going to be closer, crop out

the, all the crap there and all that

kind of stuff.

We've got a few tears, which is beautiful.

Um, and then, you know, we set the

scene from behind.

So I didn't quite catch the mother and

the father walking down because I was actually

already in that room.

Well, here I've got something.

So I got the father and the mother

walking down the aisle.

Then I ran around and got the father

adjusting.

Then I've got the entire wide shot, uh,

of the ceremony location.

And then I've got the boys sort of

coming in towards that environment.

I went wide, I went close.

Um, and then I basically shot over the

guests to get a feeling of what the,

the, the groom was feeling in this case.

And then of course I've got every single

person, uh, walking.

So this one was a nice little scene

set to bridge that gap between the guys

were set.

And now the, the, the bridesmaids are walking

down the aisle.

And then I ended up staying put focusing

on the girl in front and then, then

changing my focus to, to be that of

sometimes the person from behind, as you can

see, they're splitting between that first person and

that last person kept on doing that.

Then I went back to the groom.

And then now of course we've got the

bride.

So I've got nice and wide.

Then I've got close.

Then I, you know, don't, don't forget to

that when you're walking down the aisle, that's

an emotional moment.

Don't just be one dimensional and photograph the

bride, give yourself a bit of breathing space

to sort of look over your shoulder.

Maybe the groom's crying or having a great

reaction or the parents on either side, I

got a great reaction.

So remember just sort of put your eye

to the camera and then if everything moves

in that, in your peripheral vision, you can

just move and take that shot.

Um, especially if you're shooting on your own.

Um, I've shot most of my weddings on

my own and yes, I've, I have an

assistant often, but they're usually there to help

me with my camera gear and lighting and

all that kind of stuff.

I find them more useful in that way

than being a second shooter.

That being said, sometimes Melissa, sometimes Joe and

or both in a bigger wedding, we might

do some various angles from the ceremony perspective.

Um, in this case, um, I was on

my own.

Um, I wasn't on my own.

Um, per se, Joe was there, but he

was filming.

So this wedding will be featured on future

episodes of JGPT.

Um, but as you can see, this is

very quick.

So if just to show you, so there

I am on my own, I photographed them

coming down the aisle, the parents, I've got

grandma sort of crying, love that.

Then back to the bride.

Uh, and the father, then the other parents,

then back to the bride and then his

reaction.

And then we've got them as well.

And as you can see, it's quite tough

because you're going from sunlight to, to backlight

and all that kind of stuff.

And you simply do the best you can.

My advice to you is that when you're

photographing, let's say if you're photographing, you don't

have to shoot that way and then that

way.

Well, there's a couple of options.

Either you should aperture priority and you hope

for the best knowing that you could be

anywhere from a third stop to two stops

out potentially.

Um, or you have a habit of actually

understanding the exposure difference between here and here.

For example, you might say sometimes when I'm

looking this way, the bride's coming down the

aisle for full sun and then I've got

backlight.

That might be three clicks as I call

it three, a third stop increments, one stop

difference.

So either you just remember to go, you

know, click, click, click.

So when you, when I'm shooting the sun

in full sunlight, I go click, click, click.

And then I shoot there, click, click, click,

click and then shoot there.

or now with mirrorless, you're seeing a, what

you see is what you get.

You can simply just adjust, you know, one

of your dolls, whether it's the ISO shutter

speed or aperture and simply move until you're

happy with what you get.

And of course we can do that very

easily these days.

Um, so that's really cool.

So in this case, let me come back

here.

Um, yeah.

And that's basically it.

So don't forget there will be after a

while you'll, you'll learn where to stand.

You might even ask the groom or the

coordinator, where is the groom going to greet

the bride and the father?

Uh, and it could be halfway down the

aisle.

It could be all the way up.

It could be also depending on the culture

and the religion as to where they're going

to meet.

So please ask these questions if you're unfamiliar,

um, with how the ceremony goes for that

particular religion or culture or ethnicity or anything

like that.

Um, but remember, it's not just about the

bride and or the father and or the

groom.

It's obviously about pretty much all the main

players.

And even though that you might be on

your own, the pressure might be on you

as, as it was for me here.

Um, it's just something that we have to

do and, we have to work it out.

All right, baby, let's talk a bit more

about, uh, once they've greeted the bride, uh,

you know, the bride, the groom.

All right, baby, your turn.

Um, when the girls are coming down the

aisle, before they come down the aisle, remind

them just not to look at your feet

because that when someone's nervous, that tends to

be one of the first things that they

do and they just look down and then

you don't get any photos of them looking

up or at their faces.

so I, a quick, a quick thing there

as well is, is remember to tell them

not to look at the camera either, because

sometimes a bridesmaid or a bride or anything

will actually acknowledge you in camera and basically

be right there and then just sit there

and wait for you to take a photograph.

Um, and that's when I, well, first of

all, you sort of try to pre warn

them not to look at the camera with

anything photojournalistic.

And number two, if someone does look at

the camera, just keep the camera there and

look away.

Then the attention will be taken away from

them.

And then you simply click, click again.

And that's how you do it.

Sorry to interject.

Um, and another reminder too, is if you

are getting a chance to talk to them

anyways, before the ceremonies, just remind them to

walk slow because there's nothing worse than having

them rush down the aisle because they're just

nervous and they're trying to speed walk down

the aisle and then you're trying to focus

and recompose and, and it's hard to get

them in focus.

Or you get, you don't get more than

one shot because they've walked down the aisle

for so, so quickly.

Um, so give yourself every chance to get

them all in.

But if we go back here to our

list, um, let's see, we have, uh, so

the bride and groom at the front of

the altar.

So once they've walked down the aisle and

then the next one that we want to

make sure that we get is a wide

angle shot from the front and from behind.

So basically from the front, so you can

see all the guests that are in attendance,

um, but also from behind.

So you can get to see it all

from that perspective and then look for any

detail shots.

Sometimes we are so focused on detail shots

from the reception that we forget that there's

a lot of details that are put in

at the ceremony, like the programs and the

flowers and that kind of thing.

Um, then of course we have all of

the normal formalities that you would have during

a wedding ceremony, ring exchange, kiss, everything.

So just, you know, good rule of thumb

is what Jerry said earlier.

As soon as anything moves or anything changes,

just photograph it.

You just got to get it.

Uh, if there is a program, you can

kind of look at it to see when

everything is going to be taking place.

If there isn't, you just have to be

on, you have to be prepared all the

time.

And sometimes you have to work really, really

fast.

Um, after that, at the end of the

ceremony, if you're in a country where they

sign a register and know in the U

S that we don't do that, but in

most other countries after the ceremony is finished

and before the bride and groom walked down

the aisle, they actually go to a table

on the side side and they sign a

register.

That's where the marriage license gets signed and

the bride and groom have to sign and

their witnesses have to sign.

So that makes sure you get that, uh,

taken care of.

And if you're there early enough and you

see where it's set up, you know, there's

sometimes where it's an outdoor ceremony.

If it's in a location, let's get really

bad light.

There's nothing wrong with asking if that can

be moved a little bit off to the

side.

You might get be in a situation where

the table, where they're going to sign the

register is half in sun and half in

shade.

So the bride is going to be in

the sun.

The groom is going to be in the

shade and that's going to be horrible.

Whereas if you just moved the table over

two feet, you can get them both in

the same light.

So things to look out for even before

the ceremony begins.

Uh, let's see.

So we have here, uh, walking down the

aisle.

So after the ceremony is done, walking down

the aisle, trying to get a wide shot

as well.

So you can see all the guests being

really excited for them.

Group shot from the balcony or the front

of the church.

This is something that you'd have to coordinate

with the couple ahead of time.

Um, make sure that you're going to let

them know that you're going to do this.

If you can do it during the ceremony

and get the, uh, celebrant or whoever to

be able to make that announcement, that would

be fantastic.

Otherwise you can just do it after outside

of the church or the ceremony location after

everyone is finished congratulating them, then you can

get up and try to do a big

group shot, but that's pretty important.

And a lot of us don't do that,

but it's a great way for everyone to

have a record for the bride and groom

to have a record of every single person

that was there at their ceremony.

And that may be the only time that

they have that one photo where everyone is

in there.

Um, and then a couple of the traditional

shots that you want to get the bride

and groom at the entrance to the ceremony

location, especially if it's a church, if it's

just a normal ceremony location, it may not

be as necessary, but if it's a church,

that's something that you'd want to make sure

that you get in there because they've chosen

that ceremony location for a reason as they're

coming out.

If there's confetti or bubbles or anything like

that, you want to be prepared for that.

Get ready for that.

Uh, cause if you're shooting inside the church

and then you quickly come outside, your settings

are going to be completely different.

Of course.

So you want to make sure that you're,

you've prepared for that ahead of time.

So you can quickly change your, your exposure

settings before you get outside to get those

confetti and bubble shots.

Um, and then the mingling and that's when

everyone's congratulating them and that kind of thing.

Uh, we have here, we're going to see

examples of these in a minute, wide shot

of the couple with the church spire.

If you're at a church, of course that

goes along with the couple in the entrance,

just documenting where they had their ceremony and

getting that, uh, in a photo and then

a big group shot of all the guests,

which we already talked about.

So Jerry, do you want to talk about

some of those examples?

Yeah, sure.

So let's go and talk a bit about

the ceremony.

So as it begins, um, the important thing

with the ceremony is, is I know that

sounds stupid, but is to capture it is

understand the word ceremony.

What is the ritual that's happening, uh, between

the bride and the groom, depending on the

culture and religion and all that kind of

thing.

Um, so generally speaking, I think the biggest

problems that I find that people make is

that mistakes that people make is that you

shoot bias to one side of the family

or over the shoulder of the groom or

someone, and you don't get representation of the

other side.

That's an important one to understand.

So in other words, if you find yourself

gravitating towards over the groom shoulder and the

bride, I'd probably do that if the bride

had more emotion, but I've got to make

sure I will do that.

Shoot over the shoulder of the bride and

then go towards the groom and so on

and so forth.

So in this case, let's have a look

at some shots.

Um, so, okay.

So the ritual started, right?

So here we are.

Okay.

So I've got like a clean shot, nice,

even.

I've made sure the pillars between the boys

there in between the girls and it's nice

and even.

Then I've gone over the shoulder of the

guys and bias towards the bride.

Okay.

Then I went a little bit closer.

That's an easy thing to do.

Then I went vertical to crop them all

out.

Okay.

So then, and now I'm actually looking for

opportunities in the audience.

The kid's looking really cute there.

So I'm like, all right, I've got those

three kids.

What about the other ones?

Okay.

I've got those ones.

Great.

Grandma, very important player in the, in the

wedding, uh, family.

Um, and now I've gone back to the

bride.

Then I'm thinking, you know what?

I need to go back to the father

and then the mother.

So they're actually broken up.

So you can see how I've given his

time to shine, then her time to shine.

Then I've got the other father and the

other mother.

So again, I've got all the players that

I'm going back to the bride.

What I'm probably missing so far is a

shot bias to the boys.

And here it is.

It's funny because I didn't even check if

I did the right thing, but I thought

I know how I shoot.

So I'm like, damn it.

I hope I got that shot bias of

the boys, which I do.

He did not have as much emotion as

she did, but it doesn't mean I don't

take any shots.

Then I squatted down.

So if you look basically between the bridesmaids

here, and I squatted down and I noticed

that a little grandson was with granddad.

And then I, I ended up going back

to them quite a few times, but while

I was there, let me take a, a

wide shot of that side of the family,

because I did that before with the other

side.

And then as it becomes ceremonial, you sort

of got to know that when someone's doing

vows, it's catch 22, it's 50, 50.

I don't know what you would say, Melissa,

but when someone is doing vows, they're prone

to being more emotional.

And someone listening to it sometimes is more

prone to being emotional, listening to those vows.

So you sort of get to get the

vibe of what's going on.

In other words, over whose shoulder do you

do the, the valve shot?

Now, what if, what is safe?

Have someone predictably be in the, in the

center of the aisle, photographing anything ceremonial, ring

exchange, vows, anything like that.

I'm kissing whatever in the middle of the

aisle, but don't forget you can get some

real gems when you're shooting over the shoulder

of someone.

I found personally like over the years, I

found that usually the person that's reading their

vows or giving their vows will get more

emotional.

And that's usually only the case if they've

written their own vows, which most couples do

today.

But yeah, for some reason it, it feels

real when they're finally saying it.

Yeah.

So then after that ceremonial stuff, I went

wider.

I've got those beautiful tears and then I

want to be closer.

So of course I'm gonna be shooting over

his shoulder to get her.

And then I went a bit wider so

I can actually get, see, I've got a

shot of her doing a speech before a

bit cleaner.

That's sort of quite an obvious one, but

then we got the kiss and then we

went sort of more bias.

And then we got an idea of the

context.

So remember as well, guys, photojournalism is, is

telling the story, but sometimes it's your, it's

your choice whether to include context or to

exclude context.

Think of it like if the context has

meaning as in the surroundings of the, of

the couple have a bit more meaning than

you included.

Sometimes you want to isolate that moment and

that mood, and therefore you want to exclude.

So in other words, you know, when I

started going on, that's her best friend watching

and she's crying, but then, then you can

sort of see how I did that horizontal,

but I've got a bit of her in

there.

Then I'm like, well, let me go vertical

on a bit of an angle.

And that helped me crop her out a

little bit more.

Then I kept on going.

And then I thought, wouldn't it be fun

to get that shot?

Because I'd done plenty of shots before with

a father and the, and the grandson.

You can see them all here, but then

I need a shot cleanly that balances up

with this photograph.

So we'll look at that one.

And you can see how that is the

balance of that photograph.

Then we go again, more close up in

the middle.

This was actually me climbing up a staircase

that I wasn't allowed to, but I did

kept on going, kept on going again.

She had the hero emotion, but still you

can see how I'm more biased to the

bride.

Now I need to get some shots of

the groom and that's when I'm thinking, okay,

well, you know, maybe when she's doing the

vows, maybe he might get emotional.

And then you can sort of see the

warmth in his eyes there.

And then you can see him being a

bit more sentimental there.

I photographed the other parents a lot.

I've got to come back to them.

Now, is this me freaking out and running

around and going crazy?

Yes.

Am I looking for moments like this a

lot of time?

Of course I am.

And I just keep on working at it.

I keep on working the room.

Of course, we've got the, the running exchange

or giving the rings and then from different

perspectives, putting on the rings because she was

very animated.

It was a bit more biased to that

way.

And then of course we go all the

way up to the kiss.

In this case, of course we have the

register as well.

And then sometimes you can get gold when,

you know, you get some beautiful reactions like

that.

I'm always looking around over my shoulder.

I'm looking for kids having fun.

I'm looking to shoot through things, different perspectives,

biased to mum, for example, close up.

I'm looking for detail shots, including hands.

I mean, this is a, this is a

very tough thing.

Now, this will work better.

If you're shooting on your own, if you

have a lens, for example, that's like a

24 to 120 in the Nikon range.

I think Canon from memory have a 24

to 105.

It's a good all rounder and you'll need

to go close very quickly.

Or you may have one of those holsters

where you have one camera that's close and

one camera that's a little bit wide.

So you can do that as well, of

course.

And then as we're doing it, guys, you,

you got it in a sense, an emotional

moment.

You've got to go to the register.

You've got to go to maybe who's singing.

And then you're going back and forth.

And again, you, you'll be amazed on what

you can find.

So sometimes you might dismiss these kinds of

shots where you're thinking, man, like you've totally

walked down the, down the aisle waiting for

them to come up.

But then all of a sudden they're getting

all this emotional images where you wouldn't have

as well.

Now this one, of course, I've done lots

of closeups.

I've gone wide now.

So now I've got mum sort of kissing

one of the bridesmaids or the sisters.

And then you've got practical homage to, to

Stephen Curry's Afghan girl in the foreground there,

which I love the fact that we're seeing

this ceremony through the eyes of his little

kid, which I think is cute.

Then you'll know that shots like this happen

where maybe it's getting real now.

And I'm going to look at the rings.

We're actually married.

And again, I'm shooting from different angles and

different perspectives.

Now I'm actually getting you to, to, to

witness this ceremony through the eyes of the

matron of honor, the singer.

And then we keep on going.

And here I wasn't quite ready for it.

And of course this is probably better closeup,

but I should quite like the fact that

it's, it shows off these flowers and then

that replicates with the flowers of the, of

the flower girl.

And then you've got this beautiful moment contained

between these pillars.

Then, then I get ready for them coming

down the aisle.

So vertical closeup on the side.

And of course we get the fist pump.

So that all works out.

Well, let's have a look at some other

ceremonies.

Of course, this one was a non-denominational

in a, an old artist colony in Melbourne.

This one is a lot more traditional.

This is in a Catholic church.

So when Melissa was talking about doing shots

like this, this is important.

I mean, they've actually, you know, they've hired

this, this incredibly beautiful church from behind wide

angle.

Then they go close.

Then I'll say, guys stop for a second,

run in front of them, get this shot

and then get this shot like, you know,

full length and then a closer compression.

And then, then some shots that we actually

miss that are so beautiful is when the

bride walks into the church, she'll often get

adjusted and everything.

She walked into the side of this church

and we use this archway to, to just

get her there.

And then we've got sort of the bridesmaids

and dad sort of adjusting.

And then we've got the priest sort of

doing it.

And then we run out and then get

everyone walking down the aisle.

Now it's important to know that, that, you

know, this is going to be tough to

get every single person because they might be

standing very close together.

It's important as well that you get the

groom's reaction.

Now you can see how, look at the

ISO here, 12,800 ISO.

I'm pretty amazing what the D five can

do.

And then in this case, I think we

had Melissa and Joe.

I think you guys were both there as

well.

So we did have sometimes two to three

shooters going on at the one time.

So if you do have a second shooter,

then they could have done those shots in

the aisle.

I down the aisle.

I actually ended up doing a lot of

the shots before the bride walked down the

aisle.

These ones, I think Melissa and or Joe

did.

So they're there.

And it's important that if they can see

me, I can see them, which means they're

in the wrong place.

Squat down behind the dress, take these from

behind.

And then I get all of these shots.

And then we get the shots of them

walking down the aisle as well.

In this case, it's important to note too,

guys, that you should be wearing rubber sole

shoes.

If you're in a church and if you're

wearing like hard leather shoes or anything that

can clunk, then rubber is going to be

the best thing.

So by the way, I recommend Cole Hans,

Cole Hans, C-O-L-E, Han, H

-A-A-N.

They basically make shoes for men and women

that for, I'll say for photographers, for anyone

who works sort of long hours, who would

appreciate like a sneaker bottom, but a leather

top.

So you get that sort of that formal

nature of the nice little shoe.

And then you've got the rubber nature where

you don't have to hear you coming down

the aisles of a church and everything like

that.

Now you'll notice how a lot of the

shots are horizontal.

Like I was saying to you that, you

know, when you're on a bit of a

streak of different, a different look or scene

or feel at the ceremony, try to stick

to a similar orientation.

And if you have to do vertical, like

I took this shot, but then you look

at this one and then you see the

fact that we're showing more context that three

priests are there.

We're showing a bit more there, but of

course you get more emotion there so you

can cut between them.

No problem.

And you can make it work if you

have to, but just know that, you know,

it could be very easy if you just

stand in one position and do nothing else.

But what you want to do is you

go up to the priest and or church

lady and say to them, Hey, my name

is Jerry Gionis.

I'm here for a, can't wait to hear

your ceremony.

You can basically, if you invite them to

say, what can't I do?

Then they might think of reasons for you

not to do it.

In other words, don't use flash, stay here

and be unobtrusive.

Hey, we want a bit more freedom.

You might go up to the priest and

say, Hey, I'm looking forward to the ceremony.

Just to let you know, I'll be very

unobtrusive.

I'll totally respect the wishes of the church.

Let me know if there's anything that I

can do for you.

So it's a nice little greeting.

Everything's good.

And the priest might turn around and basically

say exactly that, you know, please be discreet.

Use no flash unless it's walking down the

aisle.

So perfect.

That's it.

That suits me perfectly.

And that's basically it.

Technically speaking, I usually use flash when they're

coming down the aisle of a church and

either way, recessional and processional.

But most of the ceremony I use natural

light.

And you could see, like I said, look

at the, you know, look at the ISO

that we're using at 12,800.

Is it noisy?

Well, of course it's going to be noisy

at 12,800.

Is it acceptable?

Yes, it is.

So you'll see that when I am shooting

with the second shooter, I tend to basically

say, guys, we have a game plan.

Hey, you'd be biased to the groom.

You'd be biased to the bride.

You'd be biased to the family and the

bridal party.

You set the scene, take detail shots, whatever.

So you need to be like a military

operation.

What I do say to them though is

when you're shooting, always look out for me

because I'm going to have prime and pole

position.

So if ever, whenever you're photographing, just every

so often, every 10 seconds, look at me.

I might see something that I can't get

to because the press is in the way,

someone's in the way, and I might do

this.

That means, hey, I can't shoot that or

I'm seeing something that you're not shoot that.

In turn, they could actually do that to

me and say, hey, Jerry, you're right there.

You're missing someone crying or laughing or whatever.

Ultimately, the main shooter shouldn't really, in my

humble opinion, not rely on the second or

third shooters.

And vice versa.

It's almost like you have to pretend like

we don't exist.

That means the coverage will be done automatically,

but the bias should be shown to the

main shooter.

Now, as you can see, we've got so

many different perspectives here, and I'll just quickly

go through these.

We've got shooting through things.

We've got the speeches.

We've got from focusing to the parents and

to the other parents.

We'd go back to the speeches.

We've got the bridesmaids bias over here.

Then we've got family.

Then we've got the other side of the

bridesmaids.

Then we've got a bit of detail.

We're shooting from the bridal party perspective.

In other words, shoot every angle.

Really make the viewer of this wedding, who

was not even at the wedding, understand what

exactly happened.

And will I be caught up in the

romance of it?

This particular bride, of course, whom we're featuring

at the moment on JGBT, bride and groom,

bride and Stephanie, she said, I love the

spirit and sensibility of Grace Kelly.

You can see that there is a strong

traditional ceremonial part of this ceremony, even though

it's quite obvious.

But she wanted that classic look, and I

think we ended up getting it.

I would swear that that was inspired by

Grace Kelly and when she was at the

altar in the south of France.

Yeah, Morocco.

Monaco, Morocco.

A couple of letters.

And then, like I said, don't assume you

can't go anywhere.

Now, of course, don't push it with the

priest in the sense that don't run around

everything like that.

Be very discreet.

Squat down when you're walking in front of

someone.

Slowly walk around different things.

And you can sort of see that we're

shooting from different perspectives here.

So there's times where I'll be shooting from

here back this way, from the outside of

the church back this way, and so on

and so forth.

But here you've got every perspective, escorting down

the aisle, coming on the side of the

crypt of the church, and so on, you

know, over the shoulders of the bridesmaids and

so on as well.

So it is a very, very important approach

that we do.

I want to tell you something.

This is an important one, too.

This ceremony, guys, was done.

I'm going to tell you, OK, the ceremony

started, and I don't normally ask how long

does the ceremony go for, because it's usually

about 15, 20 minutes if it's non-denominational.

And I should be more specific, because I

learned my lesson here at this particular wedding.

This wedding started, so I want you to

look at the time stamp here, OK?

So you've got here, it says 3.09,

OK?

So 3.09 p.m. So then I

just was, you know, my normal self.

I didn't, no one else was photographing on

this particular day.

I quickly went from one side of the

family to another side of the family.

I went by the guys.

A cleaner shot of the family.

A cleaner shot of the other side of

the family, biased to the girls.

Ceremonial.

Over the shoulder of the groom.

Back to the other side, over the shoulder

of the bride.

Kept on going.

Left, right, left, right, front, middle, exchanging rings.

Close up.

Then the kiss.

Now, I want you to pay attention to

something.

3.12 p.m. Can you believe that

this whole ceremony, from when the bride walked

down the aisle to when the kiss happened,

it was literally three minutes?

And I did not know.

So if I took my time and didn't

put the pressure on myself at the start,

can you imagine delivering three photographs to the

bride?

Although when you look at it, it looks

a little bit thin, but I got every

perspective.

Probably what I'm missing is a big wide

shot of everything.

Now, that being said, I sort of got

it because when we were here, okay, there's

the ceremony, so that's looking back that way,

and I'm missing a wide shot from behind,

which I would always do, but like I

said, as soon as that ceremony starts, know

that there's a little bit of time usually,

except for this case, that there's going to

be a bit of time to do what

you're going to do, and that's just it.

We often say, do what you have to

do to do what you want to do.

Once all that happened, of course, I didn't

get a wide shot of everybody, so I

thought, let me do this when they were

kissing.

We did that.

We got a bit of a fist pump

from memory.

Yep.

Then they walk down, and then this is

probably equivalent to what I would have done

in a wider way, and then I went

back the other way.

They weren't even supposed to separate, but they

did, but that's fine.

You just roll with it.

Now, obviously, there's usually congratulating, so this is

the boys walking in.

Usually, the congratulating is done outside, so I

quickly did that.

They had a bit of a kiss.

Now, some weddings will be a little bit

different.

We talked about the recessional, as in walking

down, so this was coming out, so from

inside to outside.

Then the bride and groom were there.

I didn't want to waste any time, so

while all the guests were walking out, I

went in there, did a bit of a

pose, beautiful natural light, and we did that.

Then them coming down, of course, we have

to have a second shooter.

Get them from behind.

Beautiful.

Then they're coming out, and they come down

the path.

You see how cool that shot is, that

most of us would miss that shot from

behind.

Then I'm shooting down low here, and then

we get a big group shot.

We come from here.

I wanted something a little bit different, so

we had them on a bit of an

angle.

We went wider, and you've got to know,

after the big group shot is done, you've

got to know that it dissipates, and it

can look really good.

Then the bride and groom walk down the

aisle, and then all these shots were bonus

shots that we can have.

Now, some weddings, like this one, you'll walk

out, and different kind of magic will happen.

In this case, they're walking out.

I'm not saying a word, and then I'm

like, hey man, pick your wife up.

Just that made him smile, because we said

wife for the first time.

Picked her up, had a bit of a

kiss, giggling, and then everyone came out, and

I'm looking for reactions.

By this stage, I would know who's important

to whom, what reaction's going to be good.

Is it going to be dad, like we've

got here?

Go wider, go closer.

The all-important first handshake with the groom

is really cool.

Then kids are normally emotional in terms of,

like most of the brides and grooms love

the idea of these kinds of shots, and

I just keep on shooting.

This will happen.

As I'm shooting, I'm noticing the kids playing

croquet, whatever you call that game, on the

side.

As I'm photographing, I'm always looking left and

right, looking left and right, coming this way.

I keep on shooting this way.

They're playing the game, and then my attention

diverts.

Then I'm thinking, all right, then the girls

start going there.

This is an important shot to do a

wide shot.

I quite like the fact we've got a

little mystery man here, cute little kid over

here, and then we can see an idea

of what it was like.

While I was there, I've done a lot

of the kids.

I've photographed all those bits and pieces.

Now I'm going to go bird's eye.

I'm standing on that ledge doing all these

shots.

Then you get these cute reactions, which is

really cute.

Just never have a dull moment.

If for some reason you need a toilet

break, there is an issue, you need to

have a drink, whatever, make sure your second

shooter or your assistant is just there following

the couple every single moment.

If it's just you, then bad luck.

Just live through it, and you'll be totally

fine.

You can see how many shots we took

in this particular way in terms of congratulating.

Then we get to the shot that Melissa

ended off talking about, and that is a

big group shot as I showed you before.

In this case, I'm on a bird's eye

view.

Usually, if there's a staircase, it's easy to

put them up and then shoot from here,

and then they're all on staircases.

Then you say the obvious thing, hey, if

you can see the camera, the camera can

see you.

Now, with most cameras, you've got to flip

out screen so you can bring the camera

up and then just flip the camera down.

Make sure you get your exposure right.

Make sure the focus is locked in and

you're fine, and that's basically it.

Usually, I'll do a shot like this and

then cheering.

It's sort of one of those shots that

I do, and I quite like the aftermath

where they're all giggling and having fun, and

they sort of break away from the formality

of you posing them in this particular shot.

Then to break it up like I did

before, get the bride and groom in the

foreground, and you can quickly get a different

shot, and it's a bit more casual.

It's a bit more fun.

Like I said, guys, there's so many ways

of doing that, but just be wary that

you want different perspectives, and don't forget there's

going to be hundreds of people in that

wedding, arguably with an iPhone, who all have

a different perspective, so it's sometimes hard to

compete with every angle.

What we want to do is we want

to exceed expectations, walk all around the couple

and do what we do, but be in

a position where we can do all of

those shots and have some fun, so that's

a really, really important part of what we

do.

What else can I add here that we

need to worry about?

Like I said, guys, importantly, ceremonial, you have

to get those moments.

Now, there'll be a time where you might

miss a kissing shot.

This has happened to me before where the

couple kissed like this, and then literally you're

right there before they kiss, and it just

doesn't work.

So what I will do is I might

say to the bride and groom after they

walk out of the church, guys, I've got

this beautiful light in the church right now,

just before we do some family shots, can

I just grab you in, get you in

front of the altar to do a beautiful

kiss?

Then I'll do a wide shot, like maybe

in a way where it's cropped, where you

wouldn't know there was no other people there,

and then I'll do a close-up kiss,

and then I'll cleverly insert them chronologically in

a way where you think that that was

the actual moment where they kissed, and I've

gotten away with it a couple of times

doing that as well.

So even though it's not my fault per

se, they've shot very quickly, they've kissed very

quickly, it is what it is.

Now, while I've got everyone's attention there, so

while I've taken that shot, and then they're

looking at me, I'll say, anyone invited for

family photographs, I'll be right here right now.

When I say invited, no one's formally got

an invitation for those photographs, but if you've

got a distant cousin, a second cousin, a

family friend that shouldn't really be in the

photographs, I mean, of course, we care about

them, but we don't really need to have

them in the photographs, and the bride and

groom pretty much only want the immediate families,

then that's a way of separating the acquaintances

from the close friends and family.

So at one point, I'll say that, and

I'll say, guys, family photographs will be right

around the corner right now, then I'll walk

up to the couple, and I'll basically say

to them after a few minutes, if they

haven't sort of dissipated, hey guys, come with

me, grab them by the hand.

One last thing, hey guys, immediate family, grandparents,

brother party, siblings, spouses, kids, everyone this way,

and then we go and take those photographs.

Any thoughts or questions or you want to

move on to the next thing?

Yeah, I think we're ready to move on

to the next thing.

All right, let's do it.

All right, so now we're going to move

on to family shots, which, you know, we'll

do these right after the ceremony ends, because

that's when everyone is all together because the

ceremony is just finished, and you won't need

the immediate family once you start photographing the

bride and groom and the bridal party, so

it's best to get those over with right

at the start, and then you can just

let them go away.

So we've got, we'll start with the bride

and groom, like we would have taken some

during the bride's getting ready and the groom's

getting ready, don't forget.

So you may have the groom with his

family, the bride with her family, but you

don't have those family photos with the bride

and groom together, so that's what we're going

to do now.

So ideally, you will have always gotten the

groom with his family done before.

Now you're going to do, you would have

done the bride and her family before, but

now it's important to get those family shots

again, but this time with the bride and

groom together.

So we'll start with the bride and groom

with the bride's parents, then the bride and

groom with the bride's parents, and the bride's

siblings, and then we'll include spouses and grandchildren,

and this is where that relationships form that

we talked about last time comes into play

because you need to know who's a partner,

who's a long-term partner, who's a spouse,

and who's just a girlfriend that they've just

been together for a couple months and may

not last because you need to play, you

need to be very careful with those family

dynamics or else by the time it comes

around time to doing the album, you're going

to have people say, well, they broke up,

so we don't really want them in the

album anymore, and then now what?

So Jerry will always start by doing the

bride and groom with the parents, then with

the siblings, and then add the spouses or

a long-term partner who's been there for

a long time and children.

Then you do both sets of parents.

So you do the bride and groom and

then the groom's parents and the bride's parents.

Now if you're looking, thinking about this in

order, Jerry's doing this in the most efficient

way possible.

Bride and groom are not moving.

They're just staying put in the same exact

spot.

You're adding the parents, then you add the

siblings and spouses, then the siblings and spouses

leave, the parents stay, and you add the

groom's parents.

So you're doing it in a very efficient

way.

Bride and groom's parents haven't moved for the

last couple shots, but you're just adding the

groom's parents.

Once you've done that, then you let the

bride's parents go, and you start on the

groom's side of the family, and you do

the same thing.

We have the bride and groom with the

groom's parents, the bride and groom with the

groom's parents and the siblings.

Same thing with spouses and children.

And then you do the bride and groom

with the siblings only, without the parents.

And then you do the bride and groom

with the grandparents.

Make sure you always get the grandparents.

Always, always important.

And then any other requests that the bride

and groom may have.

They may have, like, really special aunt and

uncle that's really important for them to get

a photo with, and they may be there.

You want to make sure you get that

as well.

And then if you haven't done the parents

on their own at the home, at the

groom's home or at the bride's home, now's

a great time to do that because most

likely for most of them, they will not

have had a professional photograph taken of just

the two of them in a very long

time.

So this is a great way to get

a portrait of the two of them and

possibly get a sale of a wall portrait

or reprints after the fact.

If you have grandparents, just a note about

grandparents and little kids, babies and stuff, try

to get them out of the way first

because if the bride and groom have large

families, this could go on for a good

20 minutes, and you may lose the kids

very quickly because they've already sat through a

whole ceremony and they're already exhausted.

And of course, any elderly grandparents or relatives

may not be able to stand or be

out in the heat or in the cold

wherever you are for that long of a

time.

So always be really considerate of anyone who

may need to have their portraits done quickly

so that you can move on.

And before we just do that, just one

quick comment before Jerry goes and shows you

some of these shots is that Jerry talked

about always moving and always keeping busy.

Even if you go to the bathroom, you

just try to make sure that someone's always

there.

And I have to say that during the

ceremony, Jerry is hustling.

He is constantly moving.

I have never seen Jerry stand in one

spot for longer than a second and a

half at a ceremony.

He is constantly moving around just one shot

after another after another after another going from

the front to the back to the left

to the right to the center aisle.

Constantly moving.

Never wasting a second, which was a great

lesson for me in how hard you've got

to hustle to make sure you get all

those shots in that time period.

So Jerry, do you want to show some

of the family shots now to go along

with what we just talked about?

Yeah, definitely.

So remember too, some of you will not

do a grooms and brides coverage or maybe

if you're lucky, do the brides coverage and

possibly not even have family photographs at the

brides coverage.

So this is where, if you remember correctly,

let's just scroll all the way up again.

So this was the grooms coverage, remember?

We photographed him on his own and we

photographed him with each of the boys and

the boys and so on.

Now with the bride, we had photographed the

bride with the parents individually, siblings, all that

kind of stuff.

So going all the way now back to

family shots, now they were having a bit

of a drink, right?

So we left it at that, having a

bit of a drink and I'm like, well,

while we're there, let's just take a shot

with a drink so it's got a more

festive vibe.

Okay, so we just did that.

Okay, it looks like they were posing for

photographs from memory but I don't think we

did it but then we wanted a big

group shot.

I'm like, where am I going to do

that?

I thought, okay, this little staircase area, that'll

give us some layering and then I set

up the family shots there.

Nothing fancy but then I went back and

did these shots.

I think this was with siblings from memory.

So with the bride and groom siblings so

you can sort of see all those.

Now, you see how I've gone back to

this.

I would have done this at the groom's

home but they weren't there.

So I take the bride out because we'll

do these shots with the bride, parents of

the groom with the groom, I've got the

mother, I've got the father, I've got the

mother and father.

In fact, no, pardon me, this is a

different.

Okay, so yes, all right, that makes sense.

So I've got the groom with the parents,

with mom, with dad, then while they're there,

I'm not going to waste it, let's get

the bride involved and then let's get both

sets of parents and then we've got grandparents

and then again, we've got grandparents with the

groom.

So again, what's meaningful to the grandparents?

Yes, I mean, there are a couple now

with the bride and groom but it's important

that we actually have these separate shots.

Then we've got the grandmother on the other

side and then while they're there, let's get

that shot and then we went back to

a big group shot.

So sometimes what will happen is families will

interrupt your normal flow.

You have to remember what in your repertoire

you've missed because someone interrupted you.

Be flexible like that.

Now, what I would prefer to you, rather

than actually ask the family what family shots

would you like, I'm telling you now, they're

going to miss important combinations.

So what you need to do is actually

think of every combination, make sure they're all

set and you know what you're doing and

then you might say on the wedding day,

hey, is there anything other than these kind

of, well, sorry, let me go back a

step.

At the pre-wedding meeting which is about

a month before the wedding, you will discuss

the kinds of shots that you will do.

So for family photographs, bride and groom will

be there, we're going to have the bride's

parents.

Then we're going to have the bride's parents

and siblings, blood family.

Then spouses and kids because they could get

divorced and that photo was ruined.

Then we take them out, leave the parents

there.

Then we grab the groom's parents, great shot.

Leave the parents there, grab the first parents

away.

Now we've got the bride's parents.

Then we've got the blood siblings.

Then we've got spouses of those siblings and

kids if we have them.

And of course, we'll do combinations with grandparents

as well.

Now, if you're running out of time and

you're looking at your watch and like, you

know what, I've got barely 10 minutes to

photograph the couple and location portraits and fancy

stuff.

And I've got this big group, like all

these families waiting for a photograph.

What on earth am I going to do?

They're not going to care about you had

no time.

They're just going to care about being included

in the photograph.

So I'll do this.

I'll do four shots.

In Greek, we call it the soy, the

soy of the family.

Basically, it is the, I'll say, everybody, groom's

father's extended family.

So we grab the immediate family and then

the groom's father's extended family.

Bang.

One big group shot.

Done.

Okay.

Take them away.

Groom's mother's extended family.

Put them all there.

Bang.

Done.

And then you do the same with the

bride.

Bride's mom's extended family.

Bride's dad's extended family.

So with four shots, above and beyond the

immediate family combinations, you are done.

No one can say that you didn't take

all the important shots.

If someone wants a shot individually with the

bride and the groom, they're probably going to

come up and ask the bride and the

groom and or you, and you say yes,

graciously, and you do it, no problem.

Now, going back to this family in particular,

so I've sort of backdated.

I've gone back to the groom and the

parent shot.

I've taken extended family shots, but these ones

are very, very important because we've got parents

and siblings and spouses and kids, and then

we've got what I call the blood family,

the original blood family.

So basically, you've got the bride's brother and

sister and their blood parents, of course, they're

broken up, but that's why we keep them

on either side, and then I've got the

siblings only because I don't think the brother

was there at home because I had the

siblings before with the girls but not the

brother, and then I do the brother on

his own as well.

Yep, and now we add the groom too.

So you sort of see how there's every

combination.

The mother requested a shot with the bride

again.

I had already done it, but let's do

it again, make her happy.

Basically, never refuse a shot because by the

time you argue or respectfully divert, you could

probably do the shot in that time, so

why even waste that time?

Let's go back to some other examples.

So if we look at this family shot,

so we've got here the bride and groom,

the mother of the groom, I think the

father passed away from memory, can't remember there,

but I did all that, and of course,

we didn't do those shots without the bride

beforehand, so we did that.

We caught up with those because the bride's

mother is going to say, well, hey, you

photographed the bride's family like that even though

she's not going to say it's my fault,

I wasn't ready on time.

She's just going to say, well, where the

hell are the photographs?

So I take the shot with the groom

and the mother.

I take with the sister.

I've got the siblings only.

It's every combination, and of course, I've got

the other family, the parents, and then I've

got the mother with the new husband or

partner, and then I've just got the father

because he might not want the mother of

his children in that photograph just on his

own, and then we go back to the

blood family, and of course, we have the

extended with spouses and kids in there as

well.

In other words, guys, do every combination, and

I know that it could seem laborious, but

it'll cover your ass and you do it

quickly, and you've seen me on JGBT doing

these kind of family shots.

This is where I'm not after perfection.

Yes, I'm not going to be lazy about

it, but I'm not after perfection when it

comes to light, light will normally be overcast,

will be sort of open shade.

Normally, they'll be leaning forward and leaning together.

I'm going to sacrifice the perfection for a

little bit of speed here, but ultimately, we

need these family combinations.

In this case, because the grandmothers are aging,

as they all are, I quickly went from

here to this.

The lighting was actually sunlight reflecting off a

white wall.

That's why there's a beautiful glow, and this

is out of camera by the way.

There's nothing there.

We went from there.

We got the emotional shots.

We got one grandmother in, then the other

grandmother.

This is probably more of a typical example.

We went from parents to siblings.

Then we added grandma in as well for

that immediate family shot because I thought she'd

appreciate that.

Then we would do both parents if they're

still together at the same shot with the

bride and groom.

Then we go to the other side of

the family, parents, and then grandmother because we

did that for the other side.

Then we've got both parents with the siblings

and grandmas as well.

Sometimes if the families are small enough to

do them all together, that's fantastic.

She was an important cousin, so we ended

up doing those shots.

Then that was it.

Now while we were waiting, they wanted some

individual shots, which I did.

This is reflected light really quick.

Nice reflected light, which is very complimentary to

mature age skin.

Then we started doing the location portrait.

Like I said, guys, you can see that

all of these shots, there is a repertoire,

there is a formula to doing all of

these kinds of shots and they don't normally

change.

You just got to remember if you're doing

something for one side of the family, you

got to do it for the other.

I usually say it's all or nothing and

preferably all.

In other words, if the bride and groom's

parents, the groom's parents request a shot on

their own, then do it, but you have

to do it for the other side.

Otherwise, it's going to be an issue for

you.

Again, this goes back again.

I'm always covering my butt and doing these

shots that I didn't do before because all

of them weren't ready or perhaps they could

have been.

They're all ready, but we're missing a sister.

Well, that's important to them.

You can see, if you recall, I missed

doing these shots at the bride's house because

there was not enough time, so I put

a mental note and I did all those

traditional shots of the bridesmaids with the bride.

That's basically it, guys.

I hope you got a lot from that.

Guys, all right.

We're right up to where we've finished the

family shots and now we are there with

the bridal party.

What do we do first?

Well, I call them my seven do or

die shots.

Basically, let me go through them with you

and I'll show them to you at the

same time.

It's full length of the bride and the

groom.

Let me come back here and show you.

Now, you'll probably wonder why I've actually skipped

in this particular wedding.

You can sort of see how I've done

family shots and I'm up to the point

where, all right, I'm ready to go play.

You've probably heard your mother or father say,

do what you have to do to do

what you want to do.

That is the same case when it comes

to a wedding story or a wedding collection

and so on.

In this case, they said, well, Jerry, the

car is going to leave very soon.

They spent a lot of money on the

car and would like some car shots.

I'm like, great.

All right, so let's do some car shots.

We went from here walking down.

Why waste that opportunity?

Let's get some shots coming down.

Then we had the car in the foreground,

kissy kissy, maybe shooting through the glass and

then maybe getting them in the backseat of

the car, having a bit of fun.

I ended up loving these shots actually more

than anything.

Then I thought, let's get the bride in

there and let's get the groom in there

and so on.

You can sort of see how I try

to maximize every opportunity where walking down the

stairs is one thing.

Then I've got the couple say, hey, before

you leave, let me run around inside and

get that shot.

Then get inside.

Let me take all those shots.

Now, while the bride is inside, get the

groom out, photograph the bride, get the groom

involved and then get the bride out and

get the groom because if I wanted to

do a spread of this story, well, I

can do foreground, background, I can go the

groom and the bride.

I've got a story here, there and there.

You can sort of see how I don't

overshoot when I'm actually looking at what I'm

doing.

I'm trying to be very concise, not shoot

50 shots hoping that one shot is going

to be good enough to go in there.

Even if you shoot portraits, it's sort of

a good discipline to have that whenever you're

photographing, how can we have all these combinations?

Like you could do a family of five,

for example.

You'll do mum on her own, dad on

his own.

You'll do mum and the girls, dad and

the boys if that's relevant.

Individually, like every combination and I'd rather you

take less shots and make them count and

then we're shooting for stories and wall art

and collections and things like that so that

will all make a difference.

But now let's be very specific now.

As far as the traditional bride and groom

and the bridal party shots, baby, do you

want to talk about that?

So if we go to the traditional bride

and groom and bridal party portraits and then

I'll be very specific as we talk about

it afterwards.

So if you imagine where we left off

was we had all the family together and

if you remember we had the bride and

groom staying in one position and then we

would move the family all around them to

try to be as efficient as possible.

So once that's done, we say goodbye to

the family, let them go away so that

you don't have any distractions and then what

you've got left is your bride and groom

standing right there.

So still on the idea of being as

efficient as possible, that's when Jerry will get

his bride and groom full length portrait and

this isn't anything fancy, nothing creative.

I know we're going to get more bride

and groom photos later on but this is

your traditional historical photo of the bride and

groom full length shot.

You want to show the details.

This is where you'd make sure the flowers

are in her hand, all of that stuff

and then after you do that, you do

a close up of the bride and groom

and then we bring in the bridal party.

So you have the flower girls and the

ring bearers or the page boys depending on

where you're from and we do that because

usually they're younger so you try to get

them in as quickly as you can because

if they don't last then you're okay and

you still got the shot and then after

that, once you've done the ring bearers or

page boys and the flower girls, then you

get all of the bridal party all together

and then after you do that, you want

the bride alone by herself.

So if you can imagine how we're moving

people out and keeping the bride and groom

center, bride on her own by herself full

length, both the front and the back, particularly

if you didn't get that during the getting

ready photos earlier in the day.

Then you do the same thing with the

groom because remember, for the album, you want

to match it up always and then you

do the groom with the groomsmen as well

as the bride with their bridesmaids as well.

Alright, so let me show you proof of

that at this particular wedding and sometimes if

when you're doing it, someone interrupts you, you've

got to remember where you've left off.

So it's like a mental checklist.

Now some people, if you're inexperienced, you might

want to have a list and sort of

tick it off or take your time, change

your lens and then freak out and think,

oh my God, did I get everything?

Think of an excuse or hey, you guys

have a drink, I'm just going to change

my car or change a battery or anything

like that.

So basically, as you can see with this

wedding, sometimes what I do is I take

the children first.

So I do all the photographs with the

children first so they can go, especially if

the actual, you know, the couple have said

and gone out of their way, hey, we

want the kids done.

Let's get them, you know, piss them off

and let's have some fun with the adults.

So after the cast shots in this particular

wedding, the kids were just playing.

So I'm like, well, why would I waste

that?

So these were just photojournalistic, they were just

playing, there was birds, all that kind of

stuff and I just let them play and

then we got some beautiful portraits of them.

So then I did the bridal party shots.

So if you look at a bit of

a grid here, these bridal party shots and

I quite like these kinds of shots where

they're sort of intermingled a little bit so

it's not too perfect.

Sometimes what I do is I will put

them in a row.

Let me see if I've got this.

See, even that sort of, you see how

they're sort of broken up a little bit,

like they're back to back, front to front.

Let's see if this one was done maybe

the way I normally do it or used

to do it.

Let me have a look.

Okay, I'll come back to that thought process

in a moment because there's a few things

I want to discuss.

Okay, let me come back to that.

So, bridal party shots, like say if the

kids are leaving or they're going to cry

or they want to go to sleep or

anything like that or the parents want to

take them, then do every shot with the

bridal party.

So you can see how I've got the

bridal party.

You see how I've just cropped in closer

with the kids and then of course what

we're missing here is for the kids shots

is we do a shot with all the

girls again and then we do a shot

with the boys.

Now, you might say, well, why are you

doing this again when you did them earlier

in the day?

Well, do you see the groomsman shots where

the page boy wasn't there?

If you look at the bridesmaid shots, well,

the girls were there.

So, if for example, if you're running out

of time and you literally only had a

few minutes to go, I would sacrifice the

girls and the guys shot on location because

I've already done them.

I'm just after variety here now.

And also, usually family and parents and the

couple want a bit of continuity.

So, for example, when we talk about those

seven do or die shots, let's run through

them again.

It's the traditional full length of the bride

and the groom.

It is the close up of the bride

and the groom.

It's the bride on her own, the groom

on his own, the girls on their own,

the guys on their own, bridal party.

They're the do or die.

This, you can see how we're doing them

in a different order.

We've got bridal party, we've got girls, we've

got guys, and then I've got just the

kids with the bride and the groom.

That's not always a popular shot.

And of course, you've got them individually earlier

in the day as in the girls with

the bride and the boys with the groom.

Now, let's come back to this.

Traditional full length.

This is not going to win any awards.

This is, some might say it's quite in

fact boring.

Just nice, light, traditional.

You notice how the flowers are slightly off.

We see the actual dress.

It's not meant to be romantic.

They're simply looking at the camera smiling.

Then while we're there, I usually get them

to hold the flowers and go nice and

close because also parents love this kind of

portrait as well.

And then, even though that I've done many

shots of the bride and her own full

length, I'll do one again.

Then while we're there, let's not waste it.

I just get the groom involved, do foreground

and background, and then all of a sudden

I've got a whole another sequence.

While we're there, get the girl out, leave

him in, and then again we've got those

traditional portraits.

So let's go through it again.

Traditional full length portrait, then close up, then

bride, then groom, then girls, guys, bridal party.

Where you over deliver and which most people

don't expect is all the kids with the

bride and the groom.

While we're there, let's, like I said, add

the groom involved for a traditional portrait so

you don't waste that moment and so on.

Now let's see some various examples of all

those things to see if I, in fact,

practice what I preach.

So, there's the traditional full length portrait of

this couple.

As you can see, the environment wanted a

little bit more breathing space so I ended

up going a little bit wider on that

particular photograph.

Don't forget, guys, these are straight out of

camera, nothing done to them.

We've also got this one as a close

up and so on.

Now, of course, I've got the traditional full

length of the bride.

I also have the groom.

Now, at one point, we did the bridal

party and we didn't have enough time.

They wanted something traditional.

Now, we had a small amount of time

and I've got to tell you, I'm not

a big fan of this portrait because they're

all sitting down, it's like it's a soccer

photograph.

You know, what I prefer is this one.

For me, that's much more appealing.

So they're all family and they're all friends.

We're making little groupings out of all these

people and it's more of a story.

I usually would actually do a lineup, dare

I say it, almost like a firing squad

but this I wouldn't call traditional.

I'd call it casual because they're all linking

arms, having fun, all giggling away and all

that kind of stuff but I thought, well,

how do I, in case they want a

traditional photograph and I'm there, what do I

do?

Well, the quickest way to get that many

people in a shot is just to do

that and that's basically, although I don't really

like that photograph, I'll live with it.

Let's have a look at this particular wedding

and see if we did the same thing.

Again, traditional full length, then we've got close

-ups.

Okay, and then, let's see.

So now, because here I didn't have enough

time, I sacrificed the bride and groom, the

bridal party portrait so you will not see

groomsmen's portrait and bridesmaids but what I didn't

do is that one, the big bridal party

shot.

Actually, you've got the girls' ones there.

See the guys, I don't see the guys'

ones.

Again, if I'm running out of time or

one of the guys is going for a

drink or they're going to the bathroom, I'm

like, well, I've got plenty of them earlier

in the day so I'm totally fine with

that.

This particular wedding, you'll see how this is

just a very quick, easy way to do

a big bridal party on steps.

So there's my big bridal party portrait but

you can see that I want to leave

this location so I've done that bridal party

portrait.

I hadn't done the actual bridesmaids individually with

the bride earlier in the day, if you

remember, so we had no time.

We did the bridesmaids all together but there

was no individual portraits with the bride.

I'm like, well, I can't do that for

the groom all here and not do it

for the bride side.

Even though it's not my fault, it'll be

deemed as my fault after the fact.

So I do all of these portraits individually

with the bride and then as I was

photographing them individually, a few of them sat

down.

I'm like, I'm not going to waste that.

Let me actually get them all sitting down

and then you can sort of see that

they half sat down.

I'm like, all right, let's get together, look

at the camera.

So there's the, let's do what I have

to do even though this is over delivering

but then I get them mingling and you

will find that so much more appealing because

this tells you more about who they are

rather than just what they look like, right?

As you can see guys here and also

at home is I never waste an opportunity.

I'm always saying, well, how do I bridge

the gap between this portrait and the next

portrait to actually maximize the sale, maximize the

story?

So while they're sitting there, the bride's already

comfortable.

Well, let's get the groom in and then

we keep on going.

So classic portrait, hands looking a little bit

weird, need to put the hand down, a

little bit softer, change my angle and then

they go down and we'll talk about that

in a moment but you can see though,

let's go back now.

You see how we went from a traditional

portrait here, didn't waste that either.

To make that look different very quickly, all

I have to do is actually bring the

bride and groom in the foreground and again,

I'm maximizing the portrait and making it look

different.

Now, as far as the, actually let me

go file name for this one.

Let me have a look here.

So once we do all these kinds of

shots guys, it's important that we do them

again differently.

So let's describe them again.

Full length of the bride and the groom,

close up of the bride and the groom,

bride on her own, groom on his own,

girls on their own, guys on their own,

full bridal party.

Now it's our job, basically, if you look

at the location portraits here, just take one

from Melissa here, shoot at least one full

length of the bride and the groom at

every location, shoot a blend of contemporary, classical

and candid shots, shoot a few car shots,

full length and close ups using different parts

of the car if that's relevant and shoot

at least one series of intimate close up

shots of the bride and the groom.

So when I had many photographers work for

me, we had a company style and it

was important that we had a similar style

with every single wedding, although every photographer will

have a strength and a quirk and all

those different things.

So what I'm getting at is, as we

start looking at this in more detail, you

sort of understand that if we look at

this, what would you say this is?

This is a different close up.

The close up we had was this one,

more traditional.

A different full length.

Well, you'd say that one's a different full

length.

You would say that's a different three quarter.

That's a different full length of the bride.

That's a different close up.

So I keep on repeating this over and

over and over again until I have no

more time.

This, before they come out of the car

in the next location, then I've got this

portrait and then I just change my angle.

A different portrait.

Different bridal party shot.

So it's those do or die shots that

you just gotta keep repeating.

But again, these shots aren't anything spectacular.

They're just solid bread and butter wedding images.

And every so often, if we can plug

in a wow somewhere there, whether it's a

meaningful wow or whether it's a wow as

in technique or a bit of both, but

that's your job to repeat that process.

Different close up.

A different close up.

A different close up of the groom.

A different girl shot.

A different close up.

Oh, cancel.

A different groom shot.

A different groomsman shot.

A different full length.

So I don't remember the last time anyone

has ever come up to me and said,

Jerry, where is that photograph of my dress?

Where is that photograph of the girls?

Where's that photograph of the guys?

So basically you take the ammunition away by

just doing the right thing.

What happens if the timeline totally falls apart

and you just can't get the photos?

Like you've tried as hard as you could

and like Steph said, maybe the coordinator has

come out and now it's just time and

you've had to go in for the reception

and you didn't get all of those photos.

Yeah, so, well here's the thing.

I just don't think, I don't take no

for an answer.

Those seven shots are a must.

You just have to do them.

No question.

Even if it's not your fault.

The only time that I would sacrifice a

couple of those shots, like I said, well

here's what you could sacrifice.

Let's just get right back to basics.

So let's go through them again.

Full length of the bride and the groom.

Close up of the bride and groom.

Bride on her own.

Groom on his own.

Girls on their own.

Guys on their own.

Bridal party.

Now what have we already done at that

point?

We've actually done, we've actually photographed the girls

earlier, hopefully.

Let's knock that off.

We've photographed the guys.

Let's knock that off.

We've photographed the bride.

We've photographed the groom.

Now what have we got left?

At the absolute minimum, you had one minute.

Full length of the bride and the groom.

Close up of the bride and the groom.

Bridal party.

If that's all you did, at least you've

got representation of all those shots.

And maybe not the variety that you're hoping

for.

But still, I sort of still take ownership

of it and I'll go to the reception.

They'll usher them in.

You know how the bride and groom normally

eat first?

Well they've got about at least 10 minutes

somewhere there after they've eaten and while everyone

else is getting fed, usually half an hour

before the dance bracket or whatever, I say,

hey guys, I see beautiful light in the

hallway there.

We missed a couple shots before because we

were running out of time.

Let's do it.

Grab them by the hand, go for a

walk, get those shots and I get the

variety.

Like I said, can you imagine the bride

and groom only getting, say, this shot.

That's the only shot represented in the actual

album of them as a couple.

Well, what a shame that they didn't get

this kind of shot.

What a shame that they didn't get something

a bit like this or this or this

and so on and so on and so

on.

It goes on and on and on and

on.

So those three shots are the absolute minimum

that I'd recommend.

But again, you will actually have to have

something to finish off with which we'll talk

about shortly.

Maybe another question?

I know you said if you run out

of time, that's the minimum that you would

try to get.

But if you aren't faced with those time

constraints, let's say everything is going the way

you planned on it, do you personally try

to get those seven do or die shots

in each location or is there a point

when it's just you?

Because the seven do or die shots include

the bridal party.

Are you taking them with you through every

single location?

You're trying to get those seven do or

die shots every single scene that you're in?

So it depends.

In Australia, it was quite customary that you

would take the bridal party in every location

right up until the end of it and

then you would drive to the reception.

It's often that the weddings are not all

in one location like here and perhaps Europe.

In Melbourne, you would go to the groom's

home like where he grew up, then go

to the bride's home where she grew up,

usually a church of some description, synagogue, whatever

the religion, then go for location portraits.

It could be a park, it could be

a beach, it could be a laneway and

then you drive to the reception.

Here in America, I'd say most weddings are

usually in one location.

The significance and the sentimentality of actually getting

ready at the homes is not that important.

In Melbourne, it's very important.

I think if people thought of it a

bit more, I think that they would realize,

hey, this is where you grew up.

How cool would it be to have some

final portraits of you as a single person

in this home?

But it actually makes it easy for me

anyway.

So in the end, I don't really care

that much from that perspective because it's nice

and easy.

Yes, let's say for example you had two

hours.

So you had two hours with the bride

and the groom and the bridal party and

you've taken all the family shots, you've taken

all the traditional shots and now you've got

two hours.

What I would do is I would take

shots of the bride and the groom now

for the next half hour, nail an incredible

story and beautiful portraits of them.

Then once you've got that in the bag,

then you get the girls in for a

shot.

Then you might go back to the bride.

Then you go to the groom.

Then you go to the boys.

Then the couple again.

Then you get the bridal party.

Then you go back to the bride and

the groom.

And then after that, there's half an hour

left.

You want more of the bride and the

groom and the bridal party twiddling their thumbs

saying, what the hell am I here for?

Say, hey guys, love you.

See you at the reception.

Driver, take him away.

Or if they're at the same location, guys

have a drink, have a good cocktail.

We'll see you at the reception and then

we spend the rest of the time with

the bride and the groom.

I guess if I'm running out of time,

I at least like to do one different

series of portraits with the bridal party, at

least if I have time.

This particular wedding, you'll notice that I have

done many, many girl shots and guy shots.

So for example, if you look at these

guy shots, there's the traditional one.

You've got different angles.

You've got this different shot.

You've got this one.

You've got that one, the walking one.

You've got girls.

There's like plenty of different shots here.

Actually, there's only one series here.

And then we went back and did those.

So then afterwards, what I ended up doing

was, let me come back here.

You know, photojournalistic shots of the girls playing.

I did those traditional ones.

And then the couple just wanted photographs on

their own and the bridal party were happy

just to relax.

So I just went with it.

And that was it.

I just spent my whole time photographing the

groom, the bride, and the couple in different

ways, in a way that shows off the

dress, the location, what's meaningful to them, important

to them, and all that kind of stuff.

So there is a bit of a balance,

but I think that after a while, you'll

learn what couples usually want.

And the common denominator is they want variety.

They want wide.

They want three-quarter.

They want close-up.

And for me, I'll always make sure that

there's always a couple of, like I said,

intimate portraits.

Where are they?

So intimate, we have them do it in

the car.

Foreground background.

We've got traditional ones, as we discussed.

This is a different full-length, somewhat close

-up of him, but mainly her.

And like I said, we're using the environment.

They've got this beautiful location, so we should

really use it.

These are pretty boring to me because it's

nice and I know a lot of people

love that big landscape, little people.

I just think it's boring.

I find that much more exciting because you're

seeing faces and expressions and all that stuff.

But I know that if I, well, I'm

a purist.

I like emotion.

Screw this shot.

Well, they're gonna get upset, so I do

it.

And then I walked in.

The coordinator was hurrying me up, and I'm

like, one more shot, one more shot.

So I squeezed these in, and I wouldn't

have got them unless I fought for it.

And then while I was there, I took

a few little detail shots.

Then I'm like, screw detail shots.

Where are the bride and the groom?

They were getting ready in this room, and

I had been to this location so many

years, never knew this existed because the location

would be used for portraits, but I've never

shot a reception there, so I didn't realize

this room existed.

So I'm like, oh my God, I've got

to take this shot.

I've got to take that one.

I've got to take all of these ones.

And then I had more time, so they

didn't even walk in yet, but it started

raining, and they'd seen this backlit shot with

rain, which I just hate now because I've

done it so many times.

Everyone does it now, and it's lost its

flavor, but whatever, I did it.

But we did some rain shots.

We did that, and I think this was

the beautiful one that shows the scene.

And again, finally, we did a few more

detail shots, as you can see, which we'll

come to in a minute.

So Melissa will talk about the reception photographs.

If you are at a location, sometimes the

bride and grooms will say, oh my God,

I've got an amazing location for the portraits,

and then I go to it.

There's no trees.

It's a park, and everyone's playing Frisbee and

picnicking, and we're already there now.

We've gone outside.

I'm there, and I'm waiting for the penny

to drop.

Nothing.

It's just the sun is like at one

o'clock, and what the hell do I

do?

So I knelt down, sat on the ground.

If they stood straight, even if it was

backlit, the sun would hit here and here.

So what I ended up doing is they

leant forward, I lay on the ground, shot

up, cropped people out, and just focused on

intimacy and negative space, and that's it, because

when you look at it, this, like ignore

the background.

It's still a beautiful shot, and you might

say, well, there wouldn't be a pillar there.

Well, a guy could squat down, put one

knee up, one knee down.

All of a sudden, you've got a lap

to sit on, and so on.

The foreground background, this could be anywhere.

Yes, the environment makes it pretty and all

that kind of stuff, but I think sometimes

we get too, I guess, intimidated by location,

whereas if you're photographing people, you're photographing people.

The wall or the tree or the waterfall

or whatever the hell that is, it's just,

it's fluff.

It doesn't mean much, unless they met there,

they proposed there, and it's meaningful.

Other than that, I think we just need

to slow down and say, well, how would

I, like even this, if there was crap

in the way here, I've just put a

little tree in the foreground, and if there

was no tree, but there was a little

bush, I'd just rip out a freaking piece

of the bush and just put it in

the foreground, and then all of a sudden,

I'm adding texture in a white overcast sky

where there was nothing.

So there's always an answer.

There's always an answer to the case.

The problem with couples who want photo journalistic

photographs and they insist on it, which is

very, you would say, that's the genre or

the style that people like in Europe, and

I never believe them because the twice in

my career that I did, and I didn't

hardly pose a single thing, they would come

back and say, where's this photograph with my

mom?

Well, did you stand with your mom on

the wedding day naturally, normally?

Well, I didn't take it then.

So I'm not going to document history because

history, that didn't happen.

So at the very least, on a photo

journalistic wedding, if they want that, do those

seven, do or die.

Then you've got everything.

And then, of course, the traditional family portraits.

At the very least, you do those combination

of family portraits and those seven, do or

die.

Then they can just do what they want.

I would suggest, though, couples would benefit from

a little bit of direction.

It doesn't have to be as precise as

what I do.

It could be, hey, talk shit, but do

it in that light.

Go.

You know what I mean?

Have some fun in that light.

Can you turn around?

Okay, I'll let you be.

So couples don't really care.

Posing is a dirty word in our industry,

and certainly dirtier in different countries per se,

but never underestimate the power of saying to

a bride, as beautiful as you are, I

can make you shine brighter than ever before

with a simple direction.

Would you like that?

In other words, you're going to look awesome.

Let me do my thing.

Otherwise, you'll get pissed off and not like

the photographs.

You know what I mean?

Because naturally, we don't look good.

Ironically, this is funny.

Ironically, a bride will insist on not being

posed to be natural, and she'll spend two

hours in a hair and makeup chair.

Like, think about that for a second.

Well, you don't get your hair and makeup

every day.

You don't buy this dress every day.

How would you not want someone to bring

out the best in you?

So I would say these kinds of things

not in a wry, bitchy kind of a

way.

I would say it in a way where

I'm painting her into a corner where she'll

tell me, I think we should have some

shots that are quite directed and stuff.

And you know, loose direction, I think I'd

really appreciate, you know, and so on.

And don't underestimate the power of educating them.

Hey, if you just stand here naturally, and

you shrug your shoulders down, you'll have little

pinches of skin hanging over your dress.

If you bob your head too far down,

you might get a bit of a double

chin.

If you have bad light on you, let

me show you what bad looks like.

Bad light looks like on a beautiful girl.

Blah, blah, blah.

So we need a little bit of direction

to understand where the light's coming from, maybe

what angle it is, what mood we're going

for, and so on, and so on.

So I find that when I have had,

and I still have couples that, see, some

couples book me for my photojournalism, and yes,

I do that at ceremonies and receptions, but

a lot of my shots look like I

happen to be at the right place at

the right time, but in fact, 90%

of it's actually directed.

So, and most couples love that finesse of

a pose, but the natural nature of something

candid.

So if you can combine that, and with

portraiture, it's not always looking at the camera

smiling.

You sort of want moments between moments, and

if, whether we're inexperienced or experienced, or whether

we lack confidence or have a lot of

confidence, my suggestion for you, or for anyone

here watching at home as well, is to

have like a repertoire, a base to work

from.

So you might say, all right, I've got

the seven do or dies, what do I

do now?

All right, if there's a pillar, let me,

something for the bride to sit on, she

can sit on it.

And then all of a sudden, the groom

is standing and she's sitting on the pillar,

or a staircase, or whatever it might be.

Great, there's a foundation portrait.

If there's a hierarchy of whether, of this

kind of location, well then you know that's

a base to stand from.

Here's another one, front to front, hands over,

and then holding the waist.

There's another one, another foundation pose, as I

call it.

Then straight away, we can crop closer on

a different angle, and again, we've got a

different look.

We've got walking away, maybe the bride looking

back, walking away, groom looking back, or looking

at each other.

Groom looking at bride, bride looking away.

Great, escort arm, perfect.

Voyeuristic shots.

These kinds of things should trigger you on

every single wedding, if I can do a

series of close-ups, a series of voyeuristic

shots, of walking shots, foreground, background, all that

stuff, you'll never be in trouble because that's

what you show on your website, that's what

you show on your blog, or your Instagram,

or whatever it might be, and they're always

there, rain, hail, or shine.

Yes, baby.

Just a quick question, what happens if you're

dealing with a couple, and probably this would

happen more with the bride, or sometimes, I've

seen it happen with the maid of honor,

too, where they're not going along with your

program, with what you're saying, and they want

to dictate where to do these photos, and

how to do them, and what order to

do them in, and all of that.

How would you deal in that situation, where

you're maybe losing control a little bit?

I think that that comes with inexperience, and

perhaps lack of education of the photographer being

educated, and or not educating the clients as

to what you do.

Every time there has been a problem with

a couple, it's usually my fault, and as

you get more experience, there's just less of

that.

I'm not saying I'm flawless.

No, no, no.

We all make mistakes.

We're never perfect.

It's purely we want to minimize things, so

I ask myself, if the bride's pissed off,

is she being a bitch, or did I

just not educate myself or her as to

what I'm doing, and if it's right or

not.

It's usually, you know what, never really experienced

that before.

I never experienced an alpha dog, you know,

a bride coming up to me and saying,

hey, I want to shoot there.

Can we shoot there?

Can we do the girl shot now?

Can we do the photograph of me now?

You would say before the wedding, just so

you know, there is a series of shots

that are do or die that I do

at every single wedding.

Straight after the family portraits, I will do

these series of shots, and I tell them

this, and I say, they're not that terribly

exciting.

They're looking in the camera smiling.

This is important for history.

This is what you look like.

It's not who you are.

Once we do these shots, then we're going

to play.

Do those seven do or die shots, but

differently.

If the bridal party, do you want your

bridal party to come for those extra hour

of portraits that we're doing?

They might say.

I couldn't quite hear you.

Great, Jerry.

Siri's happy to help.

I've got it on do not disturb, but

Siri's ready to rock.

So anyway, what was I saying?

So I will educate them as to exactly

what I'm doing and why I'm doing it,

and before I leave a location, say, hey,

guys, I feel with your dress, with your

hair, and this light, I think if we

go to the beach down the road, it's

going to be amazing.

What do you think?

I'm excited about it, and then we keep

on going.

So there's always a reason for everything, but

never underestimate the power of educating anyone that

you're photographing and doing what you're doing and

why you're doing it.

No different than buying a TV and you're

going to Best Buy or a shop in

your part of the world, and you're like,

well, what TV do I buy?

Well, what do you watch?

Are you a gamer?

Do you like sports?

Do you like cinema?

Well, this TV will be better for you

for this reason, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

and then you're educated, and now you might

spend more money on that TV because you're

educated about it.

So in other words, cover every ground and

there'll be things that you just miss because

of inexperience.

When I say inexperience, I haven't shot every

type of wedding in the history of the

world, so if there'll be weddings that I

approach, I'm like, you know what?

I could have brought the breast out of

the couple a bit more or myself if

I asked these questions.

So that's why we talk about relationships.

We talk about any, are there any problems

in your, any things going on in the

family dynamics that are an issue that might

affect my performance or yours, and so on.

So I also go through timelines very, very

methodically.

Before people book me, I will tell them,

not can you give me this, not will

you give me this, you need to be

ready two hours before you have to leave

for the ceremony.

You need to be ready an hour and

a half before I leave for the groom,

so I'm going to go to the bride's

home, blah, blah, blah.

It's not a conversation, and then the timeline

comes back from the coordinator, and I'm like,

this is not right, and Melissa will get

on the phone.

I'm like, hey, arrange a call.

I get on the call.

I say, you are the bosses.

The coordinator is just getting paid.

She is not the boss or he is

not the boss.

You are the boss.

You are paying them.

I'm telling you, this timeline is challenging.

I can work with it, but if you're

booking me for what you've seen in my

albums and my website, I need the time

that I need to bring out the best

in you and me.

I'm not in the habit of only meeting

your expectations.

I want to exceed them.

To do that, I need this amount of

time, and I peg them back.

That happened twice last week, twice, and it

is what it is.

Just remember, what questions can I ask before

the wedding that will minimize these kind of

problems?

What problems have I had in the past

that I can prevent by simply asking or

educating the particular couple that we're dealing with?

I say, are mom and dad still with

us?

Hashtag, are they alive?

Then I'm like, are they together?

Then if not, I'll say, are they remarried?

Have they got a new partner?

Then I might say, have they got a

boyfriend?

Do we treat him or her as a

dad or as a father figure?

No, just a boyfriend.

Oh, no, they remarried a long time ago.

We've got kids together, blah, blah, blah.

There's all these relationships, and I always, are

they on speaking terms?

There's a little checkbox, yes or no.

Now I know who to put where and

why, and there's never an issue.

If you look at these kinds of weddings,

I think there was some dynamics here that

I had to, yeah, I think they were

divorced, but I'm like, are they on speaking

terms?

Yes, but we've got mom on one side,

dad on the other, but I would never

put them together.

We have a product called The Wedding Works,

which is an administrative workflow for professional wedding

photographers, or you can create your own.

It's basically just a form with fields, and

often I just hand write it.

I'm like, hey, let me find out about

your parents.

Are they alive?

Are they divorced?

Have they got a new partner?

Are they on speaking terms?

Do you have grandparents still with us?

Blah, blah, blah.

Do you have siblings?

Do they have spouses?

Do they have kids?

All of a sudden, I'm like, is there

any dynamics in your family or friends that

are problematic that you need to tell me

now?

Otherwise, it would be a problem for both

of us on the wedding day.

Yeah, you know what?

My brother has this girlfriend.

She's a little bit of a bitch, and

she was the best man's girlfriend, and there's

a bit of funny things going on.

Just be careful on how you handle that

thing.

I'm like, take all these notes down, and

then as you're photographing the wedding, you keep

it in your mind, and you make sure

that you keep yourself honest if you're shooting

on your own, or if you have an

assistant, better them to help you than second

shoot and say, hey, make sure we don't

get these people in the same shot or

together or whatever it may be.

All of us learn that way.

We make the mistake or we get confronted

with something that we've never confronted before, and

like, oh, you know what?

Yes.

Just to go further, ask deeper questions.

Are they on speaking terms?

Are they still with us?

Are the grandparents still with us?

Put all the spouses and kids, are they

going to be present and so on and

so forth, and that'll be it.

Again, looking at these shots, you'll see the

different full length.

She's a plus size bride, so we softened

her.

We hid one arm with the veil, one

arm right behind her and so on and

so forth, so I didn't have much time

with these guys because I had the time

before the wedding, after the reveal and before

the ceremony.

This is my different full length.

This is my different groom shot.

Does that make sense?

Different close up.

Just a shadow.

Again, you can sort of see how I'm

always maximizing.

Bring the guy in, take the guy.

Bring the bride, take the couple.

Take the first person out.

Keep on taking that shot.

Maybe keep them there.

Bring the bridal party in.

In other words, there's always this symphony and

we're always bridging the gap between all these

little different things.

All right, baby.

Can we talk about reception coverages and talk

about it in its entirety?

Yeah, yeah.

We've actually broken it down into whether you're

doing the full reception or you're just doing

the shorter coverage.

It depends on how you have your collections

based out.

Some of us will only do the entire

reception or it may be that you have

several different options where you do just the

formalities kind of thing.

Anyways, let's talk about it as if we

were going to be doing the whole reception.

Of course, the very first thing that you

want to do is you want to get

details from the reception.

The key here is trying to get those

done as early as you possibly can because

once everyone gets in the room and sits

down, we all know that those details can

just all get messed up and then you

don't really see them in their pristine form.

As much as Jerry hates doing the detail

shots because he thinks there's no meaning to

them, we still have to do them because

we all know our clients will absolutely want

them.

Do the detail shots, the centerpieces, everything that

they've spent money on basically at the reception.

Then, of course, you get the cake that

you want to make sure that you get

and then the formalities.

As the bride and groom walks into the

room, you want to get that.

If the wedding party is walking in with

them, make sure you want to get them

as well.

Then all the normal formalities.

You have the bride and groom toasting, doing

their toast, the bride and groom doing their

first dance.

You want to make sure that you get

a variety of those shots during the first

dance, whether it's a full length, it's a

wide shot with all the guests in the

background, close up of them so you can

get the emotions.

You want to get a variety and typically

you'll have a little bit of time to

get all of those shots.

Then if they have to do the parent

dances, you want to make sure you get

the parent dances, of course.

Sometimes you'll get the moment when the bride

and groom will open the dance floor but

they'll ask their bridal party to come in

so that's when you want to get each

couple that's dancing on the dance floor.

You want to capture that as well.

Then, of course, just general candids throughout the

night.

After that, we have later in the evening

if they're doing a garter toss, bouquet toss,

you want to make sure you get that.

If you're staying until the very end, then

you want to make sure that you get

them walking out.

The most important thing here to forget, which

many of us don't do, is you want

to have a way to finish off the

album.

Remember, we're always shooting for the album so

you have that opening spread, which is usually

something really beautiful and that's what their name

and the date might be but then you

also need to finish with a wow.

You need to start with a wow and

finish with a wow.

You can't really finish with a shot that

was taken on locations when it was in

the middle of a sunny day in the

middle of the afternoon because it doesn't really

go with the flow of the timeline.

You want something that's maybe a little bit

more dramatic that could have been taken later

in the day, at night, or that kind

of thing.

Even if you have to pull them out

of the reception for just five minutes to

get one or two shots that you can

just use as that final spread, you want

to make sure that you do that.

As Melissa was talking, of course, I was

showing the photographs that sort of relate to

it.

At the end of the day, guys, with

receptions, it's not rocket science.

If there's a story, a moment, if it

moves, shoot it.

Do you know what I mean?

Shoot every action.

When in doubt, just photograph it.

Every person walking in the reception venue, them

cutting the cake, maybe just not the one

cutting the cake from the front, go from

behind them and show what they're seeing.

With speeches, it's not just the person doing

the speech.

It's basically maybe the person doing the speech

with them in the background, who they're speaking

to, the bride and groom, whatever it may

be.

It could be also the reactions to the

speeches.

If we go here, this is just a

bread and butter, like you would say, wedding

in a sense, that there's a different kind

of cake shot.

Normally, we'd just go close, but I thought

this guy looks really creepy.

Candles looking really good.

I like to have detailed shots with a

bit of emotion and feeling, but I like

to do it.

These mean nothing to me.

I would rather see them in the environment

that they're in.

In other words, as we start, he's doing

a speech, the best man.

I'm just using ambient light here, then ushering

everyone in.

By the way, that's the ice light, but

I did not set that up.

That was the filmmaker.

It's always fun to have a filmmaker who's

using an ice light and they have no

idea who I am.

It's awesome.

Then I changed my angle because that was

distracting, and then I got all the broader

party.

You see how it's not just the broadened

room.

You're getting everyone walking in.

Then again, you can get some great reactions.

I love that one.

Isn't that beautiful?

You can sort of see how this is

all photojournalistic, so cutting the cake.

It's a different action, but you would see

why would you put the cake on its

own in the album where you could put

the album with a couple laughing and giggling

with it.

The reason why Melissa was alluding to the

fact that I don't like doing detail shots

is because I'd rather photograph the family even

if they're waiting in the back room.

You might say, we'll have a second shooter.

I'm like, yeah, we can do that too.

Again, I'd rather...

There's the detail.

I can see it.

No shit.

It's already there.

There's the father.

Back to the couple.

Back to the father.

Back to the couple.

Back to the father.

I show more ambience.

I'm actually showing a bit more atmosphere.

I'm showing context.

Then going back to the couple.

I'm showing you this as individual images rather

than the thumbnails to actually give you a

vision of what I'm doing.

I'm not a lazy shooter.

I've done so many shots of the father,

but isn't this a better shot showing off

the whole reception venue?

Again, why would I show an empty version

of it when you can show something like

this?

Then I go around the couple, and now

I'm shooting what they're seeing.

You get the story.

There's the wife.

A different angle of the bride.

This is still the father's speech.

Then, because I know he was quite fun,

I knew that he would give them a

big sloppy kiss at the end as well.

Again, every action warrants another photograph.

Now this father.

Now, even though this speech was longer, I

have to give him the similar respect.

First, I nail the shot on his own.

Then I get the reaction.

Maybe I go wider like I did before

with the other father.

Then I'm getting other reactions.

Then I'm doing a similar shot of the

father that I did with the other father.

Then I'm getting his wife.

Then their reactions.

You see how it's a back and forth.

I've got boys.

I've got girls.

No one can say, where is this shot?

Where is the atmosphere?

Where is this moment?

Well, it's all there.

How do I know this?

Because I did enough weddings where I didn't

get this right.

This is a lower angle and so on.

That's just the thing.

See, you can...

I'm teaching you just facts and knowledge.

But wisdom, you just have to live.

That's by getting it wrong and getting your

ass kicked by a couple and saying, where's

this shot?

You're right.

It's my fault.

I just wasn't there or I didn't know

about it or I didn't understand that tradition

or I wasn't quick enough to do that.

I know some speeches last for about five

seconds.

Take the speech.

Go get the reaction.

Go wider.

And then I've covered myself.

So, see how I've taken all these different

angles and now I'm actually shooting from a

different perspective.

But I'm getting all the detail in different

ways.

Coming back to the girl.

Then I just stand up, take a shot,

come back, come back again.

And now I'm like, you know what?

I haven't done a shot from the person

with the speeches angle.

So, you open yourself up to a whole

new way of shooting if you start looking

for those moments.

And it goes on and on and on.

And then I'm like, all right.

They held hands.

Beautiful.

Wait a second.

I can shoot through the flowers and get

the holding of the hands.

I can get their faces in their hands

and so on.

So, it's just constantly looking for different things.

You know what?

I quite like the little speckle and that

little bokeh effect of the dress and all

that kind of stuff.

So, I just kept on shooting.

And then it was like, all right.

They've done the speeches.

Let's get them out.

Now, I think I yeah, we grabbed her

out really quickly.

But then we have to go back in

again.

All right.

At least I nailed three shots of the

bride.

Come back in again.

Then the groom does his speech and so

on.

And then we do the dancing and all

those different things.

Now, he requested a cigar shot because people

know me for these shots.

And even though I'm getting a bit tired

of them, but the guys love them.

So, there's a couple of ice lights.

We take the shots.

And now, we've added extra value.

Perhaps, we've got another spread in the wedding

album.

But you see, though, that there are plenty

of shots that represent the reception.

This one is probably more of a traditional

one in a sense that it's a big,

wide location.

There was lots of detail shots.

So, we went from there to there.

You know, all that stuff.

This is all obvious stuff to shoot.

And if someone asked for a photograph, you

take it.

No question.

And this was basically like a pre-Schmorgasbord

before the dinner.

So, I'm like, wow.

I, that's really fun.

Then, they all walk in.

So, I take these shots.

And by the way, these were all taken

with one on camera flash.

No.

Many people that will just bring external lighting

and all that kind of stuff.

And I'm like, well, why when you can

get that result in camera with one on

camera flash.

And sometimes, we don't use any flash at

all because we're using the ambience that's already

there.

So, dancing shots, speech shots, there's a jazz

drinking, of course.

You know, the priest, it's the sister, the

reactions.

But you can sort of see how I'm

constantly moving, getting all those reactions and obviously,

working with the existing light sometimes, adding a

bit of flash sometimes, getting the reactions of

everybody.

So, you just have to be observant.

With all these photographs, it's just a different

action.

With dancing shots, you run in, you jump

in the crowd and you just fire away.

And after a while, you'll sort of, you'll

do so many of them as you can

see here that you've nailed everything.

And of course, the cake cutting happens.

And why the sword?

I have no idea.

But it is what it is.

And every so often, always be available for

any shots that people want from you.

That's the golden rule.

If anyone wants anything, nothing is a problem.

And then, you just keep on playing.

So, again, if it moves, shoot it.

And of course, this one, I think, for

the album, we trimmed away the hairs.

Well, actually, I think we cropped in just

here, actually.

This is just too much.

I normally take the veil off, but it

was like, but that's something that was all

dead and all that kind of thing.

But, we just have to consistently be looking

out for shots.

So, this couple, for example, we had done

those location portraits.

We kept on going, you know, different full

length.

You know, different full length.

I love this one.

Just, you know, a different full length.

We did that in black and white.

It looked incredible, actually.

And then, when it comes to the reception,

same stuff.

Let me come back.

So, this was more outdoors.

So, we basically got them walking in individually.

Then, they had their first dance.

And again, every different perspective.

And I'm like, I need a shot to

finish off this album.

Let me, wait, the sunset's going.

Let me quickly take this shot.

So, we did that.

I'm like, all right, I've nailed another hero

shot.

Fantastic.

And then, we ended up doing all of

these photographs.

Again, with one on camera flash.

And I'm like, guys, the location's amazing.

I know you want to go back to

the hotel and do whatever.

But, it's important that how about we finish

up with another couple of spreads.

And, that's it.

It works out really well.

So, ultimately, for reception, night shots, this is

what I call night shots after the reception.

It's not always applicable to do it because

they're tired or they're hungry or they're thirsty

or they just want to go and, you

know, do their thing.

What I have on this particular list, I

might go through it, if that's cool with

you.

Save some time.

Reminders, if you're shooting with two or more

cameras, sync the time and date before the

wedding.

That's pretty obvious.

But, some people just don't think of that.

And, if you don't do it, you can

put it in a program like Photo Mechanic

and actually reset every photograph.

You just find one photograph that's actually a

similar time zone of where you took the

other angle and then you can redo the

time and date rather than trying to frigging

put it in manually.

So, obviously, that's sort of quite obvious stuff.

Charge plenty of batteries the night before, we

know that.

Look for detail shots, still life, even though

I don't like them, go for it.

Shoot any requests, happily.

Take two shots of anything important.

Okay, so, in terms of blinks.

Take at least two shots when the subjects

are looking in the camera, four people or

less.

Take at least three shots when subjects are

looking in the camera, five people or more.

Make sense?

So, you know, don't overshoot.

It's a big one.

Too many people just overshoot.

I take my time, I slow down.

Look for panoramic opportunities.

So, in other words, look for shots that,

you know, like that can be cropped and

that can go across two spreads.

Even this one's a bit wider that can

go across two spreads and so on and

so forth and you'll sort of see that

from time to time where actually, in fact,

that sunset shot's a perfect example of that

notion.

You see how that's my original vision for

that photograph but I'm like, well, let me

go a little bit further if in case

I need more width and more span.

Focus, focus.

I think it's a big problem for most

photographers.

Some people, they don't know their handheld safe

speed.

Textbooks will tell you 125 or whatever.

I'm usually, these days in my career, 200,

250.

I just find with the big lenses that

we're all using and all that kind of

stuff and also, if you're animated when you

shoot and you giggle and you laugh, like

you do that at 60th of a second,

yeah, you'll get them out of focus.

Either get a tripod or a monopod or

hold your breath, breathe in, bring your shoulders

in, your elbows in and then photograph.

If you don't have a tripod and you're

photographing, you need to photograph a shot at

half a second or quarter of a second

or eighth of a second, 30th of a

second, then, again, lean up against the tree,

breathe in, put your elbows in and take

three, four shots in a row, continuous high.

The shot in the middle will be pretty

good.

If you have a tripod you have to

do that.

Of course, now, with most camera systems, you

can crank it up to like 10,000

ISO and you're still doing really well.

Shoot for the wedding album, design the pages

as you shoot.

We've talked about that in many other episodes.

Tell the story, explore relationships, what's meaningful.

Don't leave the wedding until you have a

well-rounded album and at least a couple

of wow shots.

Slow down, take your time.

These reminders I would give to my photographers

when I had a very large studio and

I would contract my weddings out.

They're my star wedding photographers.

If you're going out, a lot of what

I'm saying here is quite elementary, but for

those who haven't been taught or haven't actually

learned what those do or die shots, you

may actually not know.

To be honest, your couples might be unsophisticated

and they don't know to expect them.

If you approach a couple or a family

that actually expects what they should expect, which

is a well-rounded story and all these

obvious things, maybe this is just a bit

of a reminder for you, keeping you honest

and making sure Don't be lazy and take

responsibility even if it's actually not your fault.

Ultimately, guys, for me, if I was the

governor of wedding photography and you had to

come through my desk before you became a

wedding photographer, I would get you to pass

a series of tests of what those do

or die shots are and before you got

a license to photograph a wedding.

If it was me, you'd have to have

a license to photograph a wedding.

You know, certain events and stories and things

like that.

When all else fails, as I taught you,

my very first boss, I think one of

the biggest lessons he gave me was a

crappy shot is better than no shot, so

just get it done.

We have to shoot for flattery, make people

look and feel good, story, obviously story-driven,

things that people have spent money on, what's

meaningful, we're shooting to sell, and if you

take all that into account, you shouldn't miss

a thing and if you don't understand the

culture, like I said, if it moves, shoot

it.

Thank you so much guys and we'll see

you next time.

Thank you.