Wedding Photography

Every wedding photographer plans for the church exit. The doors open, the couple comes out, petals start flying, and for about a minute nobody is in charge. It's also where most of the dull pictures of the day come from, because everyone shoots it the same way. Long lens, tight on the couple, background melted to a blur.

This frame goes the other way. It's wide, it's taken from the foot of the steps, and the bride is barely the subject. She's mid-turn and laughing while a bridesmaid in a coral gown throws both arms out to catch her. A man in a brown suit steps across in front of them with his head down. You get the veil, the lace along its edge, half a face. That's plenty.

The rest of the frame is guests. Close to a hundred of them.

Let the steps do the work

Church steps are a riser. People stack up in rows without being told to, all the way back to the doors, and every face lands in its own slot. From street level you get something close to a class photo, only nobody's posing for it.

So look at what they're actually doing. A woman near the back has a hand over her eyes. A girl on the left presses a palm to her ear and winces. An older woman on the right is laughing so hard her eyes have shut. A handful of umbrellas are up in full sun (black ones, a red-and-white stripe, a clear dome with a blue rim) and the picture won't tell you if they're for the heat or for whatever's being thrown.

Down at the front the flower girl is having a better day than anyone. Flower crown, white dress, a little white birdcage full of petals, grinning at the grown-ups. Kids are the most reliable faces at any wedding. They have no idea where the camera is and they couldn't care less.

The hired crew is in the shot

At the far left edge there's a Canon with a big zoom on a stabiliser rig, and not much of the person holding it. That's the videographer, standing where the paid team always stands: square to the couple, close in, waiting for the kiss. They'll get the clean version. Nobody on the crew is positioned for the wide from down low and off to one side, because it's never on the shot list.

If there's a second shooter, give them this job. Send them down the steps and off axis the second the doors open, with a wide lens and one instruction. Ignore the couple.

Hard light, loud colour

This is harsh midday sun. Squints and black shadows under every brow; the doorway has gone completely dark. The usual answer at an event is to convert to black and white and let the contrast carry it. Here that would throw out the best thing in the picture. Pink and coral dresses turn up again and again across the frame, there's a teal sequin gown, a burgundy satin skirt, cobalt blue a few rows back, and that red umbrella over the lot. The clothes are doing the job the light won't.

A few practical things

Stop down. A crowd spread over ten metres of steps at f/2.8 gives you one sharp bridesmaid and a wall of mush. In this much sun, f/8 costs you nothing on shutter speed.

Expose for the faces in the light and let the doorway drop to black. It closes off the top of the crowd like a curtain.

Keep some architecture. The granite columns and the statue in its niche are enough. Nobody needs a caption to know it's a church.

Let the edges fill up. The dark suits cutting in at the right are guests' backs, and plenty of people would crop them out. Leave them. They put you in the crowd, standing where a guest would stand.

Shoot a burst. At this density somebody always blinks or turns away. Out of twenty frames you might get one where the flung arms and the flinching back row line up.

The couple gets their portraits later, in better light. The guests only get this one.