It is funny how things have a way of unraveling and coming together.

Like how a few weeks ago, I finally met my new friend Catherine from Calima Portraits at the WPPI Roadshow in Seattle. And how we got to talking about conventions and workshops. ImagingUSA was happening in January. WPPI in April. So and so were having this and that here and there. Since we weren’t made of money, we had to decide which ones would benefit us professionally, the most.

We went home, our heads full of ways to market our business and improve our techniques (some more useful than others) and back to our lives. My head was spinning mostly with whether or not to go for WPPI. Or to save up for Jose Villa’s Mexico workshop, which seemed more fun to me, even more fun than Vegas yes. Or to go to Texas for ImagingUSA, and I’ve never been to Texas (while I’ve been to Vegas). How much did all this cost? Does my angel aka husband have anymore Frequent Flyer points? Will my kids be okay without me for a week? Decisions, decisions.

A few days go by and through a couple of Facebook mails, Catherine drops me a line to say Jonathan Canlas was coming to Seattle.

Film is Not Dead, is coming to Seattle.

Holy shit.

And just like that, I decided. I emailed Canlas, he emailed back, I paypaled a deposit and all of it was over in virtually minutes. I was going to Film is Not Dead because it was in Seattle. No hotels. No flights. And I could be home for dinner with my fam.

But wait. I did not own a film camera. Even though the workshop said being a 100% digital photographer was okay (nobody’s perfect), I wanted to at least dust off some of my film knowledge. I mean, come on. Am I going to be the only idiot who really thought I could saunter in with my 5DMarkii?

And so, I sent another email to Canlas, asking if he knew if anyone was selling a medium format film camera. I had my heart set on either a Hassy 500 or a Contax 645. The latter would be what I’d like, depending on how much.

Lo behold, he did. And it was none other than one Kristopher Orr of Rexburg Idaho. Emails were exchanged, again paypal was summoned.

I was happy. Broke, but happy.

And when my Contax 645 finally arrived on a gloomy Thursday afternoon last week, I sat grinning as I fished from its styrofoam nest, wrapped in bubblewrap as only a boy would wrap it, scotch tape every which way (thank you Kris!) and held it up to the light as though it was the ultimate Nephilim Skull.

I have never shot medium format ever, and I’ve not shot 35mm film since I left PC World Malaysia in 2000. Ten years. And so with trepidation, literally shrieking with excitement, I took these first two frames with a Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm f2 that very night (prints scanned on my Epson Artisan 710, no edits except for cropping):

Not very exciting but I couldn’t wait.

The next day, I decided to bring the 645 out on the field. I was shooting a wedding of the breathtakingly beautiful Beth Niemi and her handsome then-fiance and now-husband, Corey Henkelman. These were four frames I took at the wedding:

That weekend, I took it out on two more assignments and shot these using the Kodak Portra 400VC 120 film:

I must say, I was a ball of nervous anticipation when I waited for these prints to return from the lab. And when I laid eyes on them, right there in the parking lot outside Kenmore Camera, I was just awashed with…relief. And pride. These turned out great, I’d thought. And to think, with each frame, I would catch myself chimping, only to find a black back staring back at me as if going, “What?”

I think I am beginning to finally get what Henri Cartier Bresson talked about, that decisive moment, which I must admit was lost on me with digital photography. What did it matter when you could shoot callously and mistakes were cheaply rectified. Every moment was decisive. Including all the wrong decisive moments. But now, I had to align geometry and watch and wait for that moment. Just like all those decisive moments that led to this very one.

Enjoy the pics, my friends. More to come soon!

Yesterday, I shot one of my most casual weddings at the Salish Lodge and Spa at Snoqualmie Falls. Picking Seattle as their wedding destination, Cindy and Seth brought about three luggage bags, about 40 families and friends and threw one heck of a party.

Driving home, as usual, I got to thinking about my day and what I liked and disliked about some of the decisions I made. Should I have gone to the park instead of the observation deck? Should I have used a softbox at the reception instead of sticking with my Neutral Density gel? Should I have used my softbox instead of the LED earlier for fill?

These questions are easily tackled. Just figure it out when you look at your pictures and go the other way if you’d dislike the results, or stick with it if you do.

The harder questions to answer are things like were my clients comfortable with my style of working? Did they receive sufficient coaching on how to pose and be relaxed and natural in front of my camera? In short, was their experience pleasant or even fabulous?

These things are based largely on, of course, the personalities of our clients. I’ve worked with individuals who are very comfortable in front of my camera and even if they aren’t experienced models who know how to “shapeshift” and produce different looks each time I click, they aren’t afraid to “perform”. These clients, naturally, are easiest to work with.

However, the majority of my clients require coaching and coaxing every step of the way. Constantly self-aware and conscious of the camera, these subjects require conversation to draw them out. You ask questions about their work, how they met, their hobbies – make small talk, basically, constantly snapping away and keeping the individual from staring at the camera.

It all boils down to communication
Being able to articulate what you need is key to both making your client feel comfortable and getting the shot. With time, I’ve learnt to mince my poses into chunks of detailed instructions involving angle, tilt of head, face here, look there, hands must be visible and so on.

Showing is also a great way to demo a pose but learning to deliver verbal cues makes getting your shots faster. The good thing about your clients is that they learn pretty quickly too. Just a few times of doing the same pose, they know what you look for. You’ll discover that all they really needed were good, precise instructions. They trust you completely to know what looks good and when you successfully communicate to them what you want in precise, easy to understand terms, they immediately begin to loosen up and may even learn to “play” with the camera.

Working with kids
In this way, children are much easier to work with. They may be conscious but they are not conscious about the camera. They are conscious about you, who you are, this strange person with a box constantly hiding his/her face. This is what Mommy or Daddy does all the time, so why is this guy here?

This in itself is a fantastic opportunity to get kids to cooperate, when they are feeling curious about you. This is when I seize the opportunity to quickly get the group shots done. Without having sussed me out, kids listen and stare most of the time at the camera or actually, at you. Five, ten minutes tops and they lose interest and may have even tuned you out. After that, you fall back on your bag of tricks.

Learning to see
As photographers, we are trained to see light. Some of us are so focused on the technical aspects of making a good picture that we forget that we also need to “see” our clients.

Far from being professional models, our clients may have very different expectations of how they want their pictures to turn out – and may not have the words to articulate that expectation. While they trust that your pictures will turn out fine in the end (which sometimes is all that matters), how you get them might not be expected.

Within the 1.5 years I’ve been doing this professionally, I’ve learnt the dynamic of working with people you pay and people who pay you, is very different. This is not something immediately obvious until you discover that what you’ve envisioned in your mind for a great picture, isn’t necessarily something your clients want to do. And as your clients, your deal is to give them what they want – despite what they might’ve seen on your portfolio. Each couple is unique and expect their pictures to turn out a little different even if the style remains.

So how do you make sure that your style is in synch with your clients’ personalities? How do you marry the two to bring out the best in your subjects?

For one, meeting with your client prior to a shoot to suss out their personalities ALWAYS helps, and being interested in their lives. Ask what kind of magazines they read or books. Shows they watch. What they like doing together in their free time. Where they grew up. Are they city or more country people.

While most people are okay sharing with you their lives, some may be more reserved, and that tells you a lot that helps you on the day of your shoot. For one, use a long lens so as not to be in their faces all the time .

Being a great experience is important to me. I know I am a competent photographer and have learnt pretty much to do a lot of things on the fly with my camera so as not to disrupt this experience. What I want my clients to feel is a sense of lightness in my sessions, so it feels more like play than a service.

Ultimately, comfortable clients yield the expressions and lightness of mood in your pictures that makes wedding, maternity and family photos emit that glow that makes you – and your clients – want to return to them time and again. Understanding that is a crucial step towards becoming a great professional people photographer.

An oft-neglected area of portrait photography – not just wedding photography – is public relations and the management of client’s expectations. But in no other niche is this more important than when you are engaged to shoot a wedding. One day, one chance. that’s all you get.

What should your clients expect from their wedding photographer on this day? What can they do to help you make sure they get the shots they want? What can they expect to encounter from “outside forces” that may influence their picture taking experience (i.e. mothers-in-law who want pictures of all her relatives)? What is a reasonable expectation? What isn’t?

This is why weddings are pretty stressful not just for the bride and groom, but for the wedding vendors. Nothing is as lasting as a badly taken picture. Or a bad experience for 100-200 people because the wedding photographer was a little too eager or too slow in posing groups.

I’ve only been doing this a year, but already I’ve worked three weddings where a groom or a bride either doesn’t like to have his or her pictures taken, or prefers to spend the day enjoying their party, and as such would keep the portraits to a minimum. Who can blame them? Modeling isn’t easy and when it’s your wedding day, you don’t want to just have memories of posing all day long (although I have a few friends who would gladly differ!).

My wedding photography strategy is to keep the majority of my pictures candid. That said, I try to make the process as painless as possible to transition from candid to posed and back again.

Out of, say, eight or ten hours of shooting, I try to keep the portraits under 1.5 hours (collectively, not at one go). This includes group shots and formals. If you have done this, you know this is a challenge with big weddings. How do I do it?

1) Managing expectations: I have a handy list of tips I give to my clients on the day they sign with me on how to work a photographer into their wedding planning. It includes scheduling a walkthrough and what we would be discussing at the venue a week before the wedding. This lets them know that they’re expected to have these things finalized (where they’re walking in from, where the toasts will be held etc).

2) Right when I arrive, I meet with the day planner or coordinator and go through the final plans one more time so I can make sure to be where I need to be and not to be bugging the bride or groom. If the B&G are doing First Look, I discuss this with the planner and coordinate the time and place for it while I grab the get ready shots.

3) While shooting, do not be afraid of stopping or slowing down the bride or groom. This is where the 20% portraiture comes in too. You can grab some portraits even when they’re transitioning from one place to another.

4) If there is no planner, I send a sample time line to my clients. More often than not, they start to plan around my timeline.

5) I also ask for pockets of 5-10 mins during dinner to give a chance for my B&G to sneak away for a breather. Usually two is sufficient.

6) If I see signs of anxiousness or irritation from either the B&G, I will stick to candids. This is why First Look is so nice to get all those squared away before the day begins. If there is no First Look, the only time left for B&G pics will be right after the ceremony, before the reception.

7) If your client is interested in framed pictures, albums or photo books at ANY point in the future (even if they make it themselves), they need to know from the get-go that they will need posed shots no matter how silly they think those are. Because even if you end up paying just $50 for a small photo book, you don’t want to be searching for one artistic pose out of 500 pictures. Photojournalistic, storytelling, candid shots are nice to look at on a slideshow or even in a family album of 4x6s but at the end of the day, it’s those portraits that make great displays and albums.

PLAN AHEAD AND SHOOT THROUGH! Poses, shots, sites to do First Look, group shots, couple shots, bridal party shots and what have you. The worst thing to happen is not knowing how to direct your subjects and what more on a day where time is a big factor. And whatever you do, do NOT say, “That did not work, let’s try something else.” Shoot through every single pose and reserve your judgments until you see it on your computer screen. Indecisiveness comes across as not professional.

The most important thing is to be alert and observant, to master the skill of listening. And to always touch base with your B&G on how they’re doing. As a photographer, making sure your subjects are taken care of and happy is crucial to producing great pictures. After all, your clients are taking mental pictures too. And you don’t want a bad mental picture of their wedding photographer!

I’ve been wanting to get this lens for a while but have been unsure. I’ve read mixed reviews on the sharpness of the lens beyond f1.2 and 1.4. Sure, the bokeh is nice and the fall-off seems very creamy but I reframe a lot and it does seem to be true that the point of focus runs a little when you recompose (meaning the part where it’s focused shifts and when you have so little DoF, this is risky).

I am going to use this lens for four shoots this week. We’ll see how it goes compared to my cheap f1.8 which produced this picture (1/1000s at ISO 100):

Closer up:

You can see every hair and lash. Not bad for a US$90 lens