So my little sis just got engaged. Her fiancee is a really great guy. He's from this island in the north Atlantic, the name of which escapes me right now. They're trying to save some money on the wedding planning so my sister asked me if I would do their engagement photos. Of course I was honored, but she also correctly pointed out: "I know you only do landscapes, but we think you can figure it out." Right, so I have 10 days to figure it out. It'll be outdoors and I'm looking for good resources on lighting, how to pose a couple and anything else important I may not have thought of. Candid advice and reading recommendations are much appreciated. Thanks!
If you don't know him already Dom Bower has a great channel on youtube, he has hundreds of videos up with advice and things. Worth checking out
Not sure what you are looking for, but here is a set of a engagement shoot I did last summer: set 1 set 2 My tips: - prime lenses - make sure they feel comfortable - get them to kiss often, it will lighten the mood and you'll probably get some good shots in as well - try different shooting position (low, high, ..) and all the poses you can think off - take a lot of sneaky shots inbetween poses as well, when they are just being themselves, most likely this will turn out the most natural and with the most feeling
This... + check out Bert Stephani + Limephotography channels on Youtube (they should be on the suggestions). Great stuff on both off-camera flash and natural light.
Good resources on lighting: if daylight is available, use it. Too many people get hung up on artificial lighting and off-camera flash setups, but the golden rule (endorsed by Neil van Niekerk) is don't use a flash if you don't need to! You're not shooting the next cover of Vogue, after all. It's very hard to condense the learning experience into just a few days, but you need to learn the fundamentals without hampering your creativity - make sure the composition is good; make sure you are taking control of the available light and using it to your advantage; and (as Lovah suggested) use fast lenses for sumptuous narrow depth of field. Apart from that, be yourself - put as much of your own creativity into the photos as you possibly can. It's worth adding that posing is extremely important. Rather than look at how to do it, simply look at examples of work from good photographers and keep a note of what the poses are and why they work well, taking into account the orientation of the camera (is it level? pointing up or down? etc) and the framing of the image (up close and personal? far from subject? etc).
So I just got done with the shoot. It went off without a hitch and we got tons of great shots. It was definitely a learning experience, but the advice and youtube links that you guys provided were very helpful. I used my 5D Mark II and two lenses - 24-70mm f2.8 and an 85mm f1.2 (my only prime). It was my first time using the 85mm during a fast-paced photo shoot and I found it hard to hit focus at wide apertures. With time and more practice it'll come easier I'm sure. I also tried some Brenizer style shots (seems to be popular right now in engagement/wedding photography). The execution was more complicated than they make it look on youtube (hard to keep track 30+ overlapping exposures on the fly). After a few unsuccessful tries I finally nailed one. Besides the ultra shallow DOF, I was also impressed with the range of tones it provides. Almost has an HDR-like appearance albeit much more realistic. My sister and her fiancé are very pleased with the results, which is a huge relief for me. Thanks to all who provided great advice!
Good news And hitting focus with f/1.2 is not easy at all, especially with the 5D Mark II - try it with a 1 series body Hopefully you'll share some of the pictures!
What I had to do was turn off all AF points but the center, lock focus on their faces, then recompose with focus locked. This worked about 50% of the time. I'd love to post pictures but unfortunately I must preserve their anonymity.
