Tips and advice on taking Engagment photos . . .

[Kathy O]

I am hoping I can get as many tips and advice on this topic as possible. Thanks for your help!

My brother-in-law is getting married, this will be a second marriage for both of them so they do not want to spend alot of money on a photographer for their engagemnt pictures, I told them I would TRY to get some nice photo's of them. They would like to take the photos outside, they are both very much nature people.

I will be shooting with My Nikon Coolpix L120 point and shoot camera (it's the only camera I own) and I ordered some reflectors to help out with the lighting. can you please give me some tips on how to make this as successful as possible. I would really appreciate any advice you can share.

Thanks
Kathy

[Loose Canon]

If you have checked out The School of Portraiture, Kathy, it tells you some good stuff regarding backgrounds and use of reflectors. You'll probably need someone to handle the reflectors for you.

Dark/muted clothing so as not to compete with the faces, easy on the makeup.

But what always seems to make the most difference is if everyone (including and especially the photographer) is having fun and relaxed. If you are having fun and can get them relaxed, laughing, and having a ball together with you it makes all the difference in the world in the photographs.

And sometimes that can be the hardest part!

Good luck to you, Kathy! Go get 'em!

[Kathy O]

If you have checked out The School of Portraiture, Kathy, it tells you some good stuff regarding backgrounds and use of reflectors. You'll probably need someone to handle the reflectors for you.

Dark/muted clothing so as not to compete with the faces, easy on the makeup.

But what always seems to make the most difference is if everyone (including and especially the photographer) is having fun and relaxed. If you are having fun and can get them relaxed, laughing, and having a ball together with you it makes all the difference in the world in the photographs.

And sometimes that can be the hardest part!

Good luck to you, Kathy! Go get 'em!

I have read The School of Portraiture and did get alot of great advice and tips from it, the only thing I am nervous about is some of the photos will be full body portraits and will not be up against a background such as a wall of any kind, they will out in the open for example in a park, by a body of water ect. (hope that makes sense). Is there anything I should know or do different?? Thanks for your advice!

Kathy

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Kathy,

Terry has covered most things, all I can add is;

Your camera (with its small sensor) will have too much DoF and you may struggle to get backgrounds nicely out of focus, this makes getting the background as distant and plain as possible, even more important. SO what your second post suggests sounds good to me.

If your camera has a portrait mode, use that.

If you have some control; shoot at the widest aperture possible (e.g. f/2), which will help get shutter speed higher. However, when you zoom in, I suspect it will appear to use a narrower aperture (e.g. f/4 to f/5.6), but don't be tempted to move in too close to your subjects by using a wider angle to in order to get the wider aperture, because this will probably give distortions of any limbs or features that get close to the camera.

I won't give focal length suggestions as what's right depends on how much of the couple you are trying to capture in any given shot but I'd expect you to be shooting no wider angle than say 50mm even for the pair of them.

Good luck and as Terry says, enjoy yourselves.

[Kathy O]

Hi Kathy,

Terry has covered most things, all I can add is;

Your camera (with its small sensor) will have too much DoF and you may struggle to get backgrounds nicely out of focus, this makes getting the background as distant and plain as possible, even more important. SO what your second post suggests sounds good to me.

If your camera has a portrait mode, use that.

If you have some control; shoot at the widest aperture possible (e.g. f/2), which will help get shutter speed higher. However, when you zoom in, I suspect it will appear to use a narrower aperture (e.g. f/4 to f/5.6), but don't be tempted to move in too close to your subjects by using a wider angle to in order to get the wider aperture, because this will probably give distortions of any limbs or features that get close to the camera.

I won't give focal length suggestions as what's right depends on how much of the couple you are trying to capture in any given shot but I'd expect you to be shooting no wider angle than say 50mm even for the pair of them.

Good luck and as Terry says, enjoy yourselves.

Thank you for your suggestions!! ONe more question . . . what time of the day would be the best for shooting??

Kathy