Choosing your Kent wedding photographer

In the first part of How to choose your wedding photographer I discussed decisions about the style of your photographer, and the need to consider their personality and how it may impact on your day and that of your friends and family.

In Part 2 I want to give you some ideas about how to judge the quality of a wedding photographer’s work, and consider the things you might ask.

Quality of photography

While this may seem like the easiest or most obvious part of choosing your photographer, it can actually be the hardest for lost of couples. At first glance, the images on many photographers websites may appear perfect purely because they look way better than what most of us are used to posting on facebook straight from our mobile phones! But when you start taking a more considered look, and start comparing the work of different photographers more carefully, you may be surprised at the variation in quality of work that you will find.

Things to look for include:

• Are their images sharp and properly focussed, nicely composed and properly lit and exposed? As simple as it sounds, sadly, you would be surprised at how many ‘professional’ photographers cannot even achieve this.
• Do the colours appear natural, or do they have a strange colour cast to them? Now that the world of photography has gone digital, photographers can no longer rely on the photography lab to colour correct their images for them, but have to do this themselves as part of the post processing of the images. It is important that your photographer has an understanding of how to achieve this and that they are working on monitors which they have been correctly colour balanced with the specialist equipment required for the job. All monitors vary in the way that they portray colour, so when you are looking at wedding photographers websites it’s worth looking on a couple of different devices if you really like an individual photographer’s style but are concerned that the colours look a little strange, as it may be that the monitor you are looking at is also not accurately portraying their work! This is also a reason why I as a photographer am always so keen to be able to provide the final printed product for my customers, as I have access to professional labs and equipment which I know will do full justice to the colour of the  images that I captured. Unfortunately this is not always the case with the cheaper high street laboratories. It’s also worth noting that colour casts aren’t always wrong – they can be used creatively to give a nice warm glow to a cosy evening image, or a cold wintry bite to a winter wedding image for example.

Poor colour balance

Correct colour balance

• Has the photographer used the focus creatively to draw the eye into the photograph, and highlight one aspect of the image over the rest, or are their images uniformly in focus throughout? It’s true that this can be the chosen style for a handful of photographers, but more often it indicates that the photographer has a lack of understanding of how to use his camera in a creative manner, or lacks understanding of basic photographic techniques.

Creative use of focus

When you meet with a wedding photographer, don’t be afraid to ask to see a larger selection of photographs from one or two complete weddings, in order to satisfy yourself that they can maintain the standard of photography displayed on their website throughout a whole wedding.

In addition, think about any particular issues with regard to your wedding, and how they might impact on your wedding photography, and ask the photographer how they would handle those issues. For example, are you having a winter candle-lit ceremony, or is your church or venue particularly dark or poorly lit? You need to feel confident that your photographer knows how to manage these types of situations and that they have the professional level of camera and lenses to manage in these situations – of course no camera can take photos in the dark, but there is a huge difference between what a newer model professional specification camera can achieve compared to an older model or a hobby or entry level digital slr can achieve.

Next time, in Part 3 of Choosing a Wedding Photographer I will look at decisions and choices regarding the cost of your wedding photography and what you might expect to get for your money.

If you are still looking for a Kent wedding photographer for your wedding, why not give me a ring on 07500 149415 for a friendly chat about how I might help you, or alternatively why not drop me a line about what you are looking for here: Kent Wedding Photographer