Helpful Critiques #6

Fearless Photographers founder Huy Nguyen and Tyler Wirken share their thoughts on anonymous work submitted by photographers in the Fearless community.

[ Tyler ] First off, to use your words, I appreciate the photographer's ability to get in close. Being able to get into this moment and get close to what's happening is absolutely what needs to be done because it brings you into that bride's emotion which you can see in the way her jaw is clenched.

I don't know exactly what's going on here. I don't know if this a church ceremony where you have the gifts to Mary or is this honoring somebody like their grave. The moment is super strong, which is great.

If you go back to Light, Moment, Composition, there's really no light to worry about because it's not coming from any direction. You can't really do much with the light. Now it all boils down to composition. I'm questioning if we need that dad in the background? Maybe it's a grave. Maybe that's mom's bouquet? Who knows what the story is behind it? I'm thinking of going in tighter on this so I can get more into that bride's emotion and moment in her face. That's what I want to see the most.

[ Huy ] I want to second the part about getting close. The photographer did a great job of being close and shooting this from a close place rather than from a long lens from way back. That's good. And I recognize this moment as an important moment in the wedding that we, we should capture for the clients. It's really important for the clients to have this photo.

Including the dad is fine. It's good. It's just information. It's an important moment to shoot. And sometimes we get lucky - not lucky - but sometimes we are given emotional moments and we can just shoot it. Sometimes things don't come together and there's not much we can do.

[ Tyler ] I think for this picture, it is what it is. It's something they did. The photographer did a good job of capturing the intensity of a face. I can see and feel the way that she's placing that on. She's really intense and she's really into it.

If we crop the, the dad out, now we would lose the dad which is probably really important in the photo. But if we don't have the dad here, we can see the bride bigger. And then now we can see the face bigger and we can feel what she's feeling more.

[ Huy ] You do a crop here and you leave him out. I've got a version of the photo for the clients. So the clients will have both versions. But if you crop it into just the bride doing her thing, you can see the bride's face more. It's my only suggestion for this photo.

[ Tyler ] Because we don't know the actual story here, we're assuming that it has something to do with mom because dad is there. But having dad in the picture makes us start to try and figure this story out. If we take dad out of the picture, it changes things. Now it's just all about the bride's emotion and we're going to potentially interpret this story differently. And that's when you have to be thinking about, you know?

If we're going to have dad in there, my one suggestion for this picture would be to include all of dad, not just a little bit more. We can call out the fact that he is an important element to the story. We need him to be in there.

[ Huy ] Okay. There's one more thing I want to say. You don't need the whole black area on the right. You don't need to see the backside of the shrine or the wall here. You don't need to see the side of things or the back of things. All the action is in the front. So if the photographer is just over and eliminate the black on the right and shoot backward. Then we can see more bride and more dad. Hopefully we're going to see more face that that shows her intensity.

[ Tyler ] A hundred percent. You don't have to move. You can just turn the camera left and just micro composes. Fine tune that stuff. It happens pretty quick.

[ Huy ] What are the main lessons here? Don't include the stuff on the right because that's not important. My other point is you want to include dad for the photo you give to the family because it's meaningful for them to have dad there. But for a photo that shows the bride's emotion, you may have to crop in more to get the face bigger. And that means that you may have to crop dad off just to show the bride bigger in the frame. Good job for getting close and shooting from a close angle. That makes us really feel it. We feel with her.

[ Tyler ] It's easy to stand far away with a long lens and not have to go there to get into the moment. So that was a good move on this one.

Watch the original unedited session:

Photo Critiques - June 5, 2020 from Fearless Photographers on Vimeo.

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