Maybe I’m the only photographer who thinks like this…. but I get a LITTLE nervous about big city weddings. When I’m shooting in the heart of a downtown area it can be HARD to find locations that I love. You’re dodging pedestrians, road work, weird reflections, cars, stop lights, etc! The list goes on and on! If you’ve ever photographed a wedding in a city location without a park across the street, you understand what I’m talking about! It can be stressful!!!
So what do you do? How do you create a gallery of images and gorgeous portraits that you love when you don’t have ANY space to create them?!
Recently, I shot a wedding in the heart of DC at the Mayflower Hotel! It’s a gorgeous hotel and I love it, but talk about limited portrait locations! Vendors and hotel staff said that I should just take their portraits in some of the ballrooms and in the foyer (with no windows). Well, I wish that was an option, but if my clients want images like what they’ve seen on my website, they are going to need to have some portraits with natural light!
If you’ve struggled with this before, you’re not alone. Here’s some advice that will put your mind at ease…..
YOU DON’T NEED A LOT OF SPACE!
However, what you do need is the ability to take ONE TINY LOCATION and create a A LOT OF VARIETY!!!
We recently photographed Nick and Rebecca’s wedding and had to put this idea into practice. We took ALL of their portraits (including bridal party) in one small corner of the hotel that was off of the main street, and it worked out just fine!!
So the next time that you are worried because you can’t find multiple locations, just remember that you only need ONE. Here are some tips for shooting in ONE location and creating tons of variety!!! :
- Shoot verticals and tight horizontals!
- Use a wide lens for a WIDE vertical and a LONGER lens for a tighter vertical with a more compressed background!
- Use the veil to create variety!
- Create a foreground by using a high compression lens!
- Alternate portrait images on your blog post to make it look like more variety than it really is!!
This is an iPhone photo of the location where we shot EVERY portrait!!! You can view the full wedding post HERE!
Thanks for reading!
— Katelyn
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