How To Learn Wedding Photography
You’ll never find a single blog post that will teach you everything you need to know about wedding photography, although some seem to claim to try. Beyond just being a good photographer, being a good wedding photographer requires substantial amounts of niche knowledge. From knowing where to stand during the ceremony to the key shots that you can’t miss to knowing how to support your couple through what is often a very stressful day, there’s a lot to learn and know. My purpose here isn’t to teach you all of this myself – that will come over the next few years of blog posts and videos. Rather, I wanted to compile links to all of the resources that helped me learn how to be a wedding photographer.
Learning Photography
Some of you will be coming to this with a lot of experience in photography and wanting to make the transition to weddings. You’ll probably want to skip to the next section. But for those of you that are new or still somewhat new to the craft, here are some resources that have been very helpful to me:
Stunning Digital Photography by Tony and Chelsea Northrup: this has very quickly become a best selling photography book, and for good reason. This is by far the best introduction to the essentials of photography that I’ve found anywhere. You can get a copy here:
Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson: this is a classic in building your understanding of the exposure triangle, and after reading it and practicing the skills in it, you will be well on your way to capturing the correct creative exposure in any situation. You can get a copy here:
The Photographer’s Eye by Michael Freeman: this is another classic in photography and I think an essential pairing to the books above. Understanding Exposure is largely focussed on the exposure triangle. Stunning Digital Photography contains some basics of composition, but it’s just enough to get your started. This is a full book on the essentials of photographic composition and it will change the way that you see photographs around you. You can find a copy here:
Tony and Chelsea Northrup’s YouTube channel: I love learning by reading, but at some point video instruction is a necessity in learning photography. The Northrup’s channel is by far the best single resource that I’ve found. Their tutorials are both in-depth and understandable and the breadth of topics that they’ve taught about is astounding. You can find their channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/VistaClues
Instagram: There’s no link for this one, but one thing that you need to do when learning photography is look at a lot of photographs. One of the best things you can do early on is to find a diverse set of photographers whose style you like and follow them on instagram. As you look at their photos, don’t just look for ways to imitate them. Take some time with each one and think through why you like it or why you don’t like it. Try to do that in the context of what you’re learning from the resources from above. Doing this will train your eye to see the concepts that you’re learning about elsewhere, which will allow you to see them when you’re holding your own camera.
Learning to Edit
Editing is an absolutely essential skill, and you certainly shouldn’t shoot your first wedding until you are reasonably confident in your editing skills. Here are a couple of resources that helped me learn to edit in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop:
The Adobe Classroom in a Book series can be quite helpful. I started out with the then current version of Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom Classroom in a Book. Because it’s covering both Lightroom and Photoshop, it won’t teach you everything you need to know, but it’s a fantastic and gentle introduction to editing software that can seem overwhelming. My recommendation is to start by working through the exercises in the book and then branch out to the resources below. You can find a copy here:
Signature Edits: Ryan’s videos are phenomenal, and I have yet to find anyone better and teaching about any concept in Lightroom. I will say that it’s probably best to approach his channel after being reasonably confident with the basics of Lightroom – otherwise it will be hard to even sift through the wealth of tutorials he has to find what you need to learn. Hence why I think it’s best to start with the classroom in a book. Here’s a link to the Signature Edits YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUEdBZq4oC7wUZHz22_-UMQ.
Learning Wedding Photography
Now we’re moving into ways to learn all of the niche knowledge that is essential to being a good wedding photographer. You should never go into your first wedding (or any wedding for that matter) without a plan, no matter how good of a photographer you already are. Here are some resources that will help you feel ready to walk into your first wedding knowing what to expect.
The Basics of Wedding Photography by J. Cantwell: this is a short e-book that you can find for just a few dollars on Kindle. It’s a great introduction to the essentials that you need to know for your first wedding.
John Branch’s full wedding day videos: this is probably the best resource that you’ll find to feel ready for your first wedding, especially if you haven’t had the opportunity to second shoot. John Branch has filmed a number of his wedding photography days and posts long, detailed, and phenomenally helpful videos that walk you through every part of the day and what you should be doing. Here’s a link to one of my favorites: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyEOKMQ7p74. You can find others of his from there.
Street Photography Resources: I certainly wouldn’t be the first to acknowledge that street photography and wedding photography involve very similar skillsets. Things move very quickly at weddings, meaning that you need to be able to get the correct exposure and composition in a very short amount of time. The same thing is true on the streets. Lighting changes quickly as do subjects and events, and many of the moments can’t be planned and if you miss them they are gone forever. I’d recommend starting with The Street Photographer’s Manual by David Gibson (link below) and then going out and practicing it. You’ll want to do all of it in manual (which many street photographers don’t do, but you’re going to need to at weddings) as a way to get really fast at getting your camera settings to the right place.
Instagram: one of the best things you can do to improve your wedding photography is to find wedding photographers whose styles you love on Instagram and follow them. As they post photos, take some time with each one to think through why you like it or what you don’t like about it. That will give you the kind of intuition that will allow you to quickly get beautiful shots in the fast changing environment of a wedding.
Learning the Business of Wedding Photography
You can’t be a wedding photographer if you’re not finding clients. There are many resources that have helped me learn the business side of wedding photography. Here are a few of my favorites:
Joy Michelle’s YouTube Channel: Joy posts incredibly helpful videos covering topics all across the business of wedding photography. Generally I find her advice to be very good. Here’s a link to her channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-Ou6jRKxcjMrVMxWxLO_fQ
Samantha Grant’s FaceBook Group: Samantha Grant’s group is entirely focused on the science of Facebook Ads, and her videos and the group in general are extremely helpful resources. I’ve also heard good things about her paid courses, but I haven’t taken one myself.
Taylor Jackson’s YouTube Channel: Taylor Jackson posts a lot of great YouTube videos with fantastic business advice. Here’s a link to his channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/TaylorJacksonPhoto
Getting Help: As a final note about learning the business of wedding photography, it’s important to know when to invest in getting help from professionals in any given area. You shouldn’t expect yourself to be an expert in everything, and if you try you’ll end up spending a ton of time that you could be investing into growing your business in other ways. There are a few areas in particular that I think most people will want to think about hiring someone to help:
- Attorney: this one is really quite critical. It’s easy to think of this as an expense that isn’t quite worthwhile and to just depend on either free contract templates or to buy some online, but if those contracts aren’t enforceable in your state, they’re worthless. I would especially caution against buying contracts from websites online. Doing so has been my most regretted purchase. You’re better off creating a draft using a free online contract (like the ones from SLR Lounge) and then sending them to a local attorney to review. It costs more upfront, but you’ll save money in the long run and if you ever do get taken to court, you’ll have a contract that will actually protect you.
- Accountant: tax law is incredibly complex, particularly for businesses, and it’s probably worthwhile for most people to hire a tax professional to handle them for them.
- Website Design: there are a lot of nice templates out there, but if you want a really impressive website, hiring someone may be the way to go.
- SEO: Building your website’s SEO takes a lot of work and specialized knowledge. It may be worthwhile thinking about hiring someone who already has the expertise to get your site to rank on Google to take over for a few months.