Fine Art Wedding Photography: How to Capture Images with Style for the Modern Bride

I fell in love with Jose's work when I was planning my own wedding. There was just something so undeniably gorgeous about his work that just didn't compare to anyone else's. It was dreamy, romantic, and timeless. The colors to. die. for. We ended up booking him for our wedding and couldn't be happier with our wedding collection.I started off in the wedding photography industry shooting digital. It wasn't until a year ago that I had a bit of an epiphany. All of my favorite photographers shoot film, so why was I shooting digital? Truth be told, I was scared. I was really used to checking my LCD for the exposure. There were so many unknowns and what ifs with shooting film, but the best advice I received was to just do it. I bought myself a Contax outfit and started shooting personal stuff only in film. And was I hooked!! I made plenty of mistakes back then and wish I had this book as a guide to help me out. But I still have so much to learn about shooting film in different lighting situations and this book is filling in those spots and giving me the information I need so I can try them out. With Jose's book I feel less blind and much more confident.I'm now shooting film at most of my sessions, but have yet to shoot an entire wedding 100% film. What I love about this book is that it takes a lot of the fear away from shooting film. Where before, I was making educated guesses and trying things out, I now have a guide on how it's done by someone whose work I've admired for years. I found the section on his gear very useful as well as the information he gives on shooting low light with flash. That's something I have yet to try because I just wasn't sure how to do it, but now I have a good starting point and am really excited to try it out. I also like the sections telling us how he works his typical wedding. What's loaded in which camera, what he uses each camera for, what's being done when another camera is being loaded with film, etc. It's little things like that that I know will help me become a confident film shooter at actual events.All in all I highly recommend this book. It's filled with gorgeous pictures and tons of useful information. It's easy to read (trust me, when books get to technical for me, I tune out) and will be helpful to anyone regardless of whether you shoot film or digital. But if you are wanting to shoot film, you should get yourself this book! Quell some of that fear and go for it.

I have worked in the photography field since I graduated from college in 2007. I have two years of experience assisting and doing post production for a variety of photographers, and two years of experience working as a university photographer. My goal is to become a fine art wedding and portrait photographer, but I have a long way to go technically and professionally to get there.To start building wedding experience and a portfolio, I have photographed a couple of family and friends' weddings. For the first wedding, I used the book of a very experienced but traditional wedding photographer to make my plan and get my head in the game for the wedding day. The photos came out just OK in my opinion...they were not consistent and I ended up spending too much time in post production trying to give them the look I wanted.For the second wedding, I pre-ordered Jose's book, studied his images (and their exposure notes) and his approach, and tried to heed his advice when I photographed wedding. I do not and will not be shooting film like Jose does, and I do not have a video light, but otherwise, I tried to follow his advice. I am extremely pleased with the consistency, quality, and style in the results of this second wedding. Jose's advice helped me see and approach situations differently. I tried to keep a wide aperture, overexpose/expose for shadow (the opposite of what I've done in the past - expose for the highlights!), and did not use flash until the reception. The ceremony was extremely backlit...normally I would have tried to expose for the scene behind the couple and fill them in with flash, but instead I followed Jose's advice and let the backlit scene behind them blow out, and in the photos the bride, groom, officiant, and wedding party look beautifully embraced by light. Jose also offers great advice for capturing genuine emotion, which is so critical to achieving a "successful" wedding shoot. Jose's advice also was pleasantly simple...in each stage of the day, I had just a few things to think about, so my head wasn't buzzing with a complicated list of things to remember to get the job done right. I interjected just enough during the day to get the subjects into the right light or situation, and otherwise let them be themselves. It was a great day!Thank you Jose for sharing your wisdom! I am grateful!