Learning Center Wedding

Shooting a wedding is one of the most demanding photographic assignments imaginable. You’ve got to capture the essence of a pivotal event in a couple’s life and do it with style, grace, and tact. And you’ve got to get it right the first time—there are no do-overs! In a way, shooting a wedding is like covering hard news—it’s essential to show what actually happened and to tell a compelling story. But it’s also like sports photography because you’ve got to know the game—what happens when and where—so you can anticipate the action. And as any good wedding photographer knows, the ability to direct people discreetly without being either overbearing or under-assertive is essential in creating the professional quality formal and informal portraits that clients expect to include in their album.

Although I’ve been shooting weddings since I was a teenager (picture an awkward 18 year old lugging around a 17-1/2-pound Crown Graphic press camera and shooting on 4x5 sheet film!) and have over 120 weddings to my credit, I don’t advertise myself as a wedding photographer. However, when the opportunity presented itself to photograph an attractive young couple getting married in a Russian Orthodox Church in Brooklyn, New York, the idea intrigued me—because I had never done that before, and because I knew it was going to be something special. The clincher was that after the ceremony, the entire wedding party would drive to a park-like pier on the East River, literally under the Brooklyn Bridge, where there would be a fabulous view of the span arching over the lower Manhattan skyline. Then it was on to a lavish catering hall located in Brooklyn’s Coney Island section.

Usually when you’re shooting a wedding, you have an assistant to manage your shooting list, round up specific people, haul your equipment, stow your memory cards, and generally keep things on track, but I didn’t have that luxury. If I was going to do it, I had to do it as a one-man band. Technology came to the rescue in the form of a high quality digital SLR (my Canon EOS 30D) a 2GB memory card (so I could record all of the 629 hi-res images I shot without changing cards), and most of all, the amazing Tamron 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 lens, which I used for over 95% of the pictures I shot on that glorious day. Indeed, the only time I switched to my trusty Tamron 11-18mm f/4-5.6 was when I needed its ultra-wide coverage to capture the bridal couple in the limo, the bride being primped, and the bride and friends posing fetchingly on the narrow staircase leading to the groom’s apartment.

To keep things as simple as possible I decided not to use an auxiliary flash unit, but to rely on the camera’s built-in flash for all the indoor shots. Before the event, I took a series of test exposures to make sure the flash power, coverage, and recycling times were OK when using the Tamron 18-250 and they were—providing I shot at ISO 800. A brief comparison test of images taken at ISO 200, 400, and 800 confirmed that any loss of image quality at 800 setting was very minimal, and the benefits in terms of extending the flash range and enhancing operational flexibility were considerable.

Our wedding day began at the groom’s apartment in a brownstone in Park Slope, a vibrant, diverse, mostly middle class section of Brooklyn. I took some record shots of the assembling guests and their cars, and people congregating around the charming 19th century entrance to the building. When I moved inside to record the bride’s final preparations, I switched to the Tamron 11-18mm to give an expanded view of the interior, and kept this lens on the camera to shoot some intimate portraits of the smiling couple in the limo.

Once we arrived at the church, I switched back to the Tamron 18-250mm and kept it on the camera for the rest of the day. In other words the actual wedding, the riverside portraits, and feast that followed—the core of the wedding album—was shot with just one lens. In terms of capturing the grand and dignified but irrepressibly spirited nature of this unique celebration, it may well be the best wedding I ever shot.

While not overly impressive on the outside (to be fair, they’re in the midst of a major renovation project), the interior of the sanctuary is truly magnificent with an amazing array of traditional old world artifacts. The actual ceremony, which lasts close to 2 hours, is equally splendid, with golden crowns held over the head of the bride and groom, and the priest and other church officials resplendent in their traditional regalia. I was fortunate indeed that flash was permitted because the ambient light was fairly dim, and the fact that my in-camera flash did not create any distraction was a real plus. I was able to capture some spectacular details shooting at 200-250mm and apertures from f/5.6-6.3, and the Tamron 18-250mm lens delivered excellent sharpness and focusing accuracy even under these challenging conditions.

Close-up of crowns used in crown ceremony, at 200mm setting

Crown ceremony in Russian Orthodox Church, at 85mm setting

Priest conducting wedding ceremony

Crown ceremony in Russian Orthodox Church

Priestly invocation to couple, at 180mm setting

Once the entire wedding party drove to the lovely little park at the pier under the Brooklyn Bridge, flash was not necessary, but I did occasionally use my sturdy, lightweight Davis & Sanford CarbonliteX10 tripod to ensure maximum sharpness at extreme telephoto settings. This location—and the lighting—were superb, and I was able to get iconic images of the bride and groom kissing while standing against the Manhattan skyline, the bride joyously unfurling the colorful flag of the Republic of Georgia, and spontaneous groups of happy, smiling guests posing and horsing around.

Bride and groom at waterside park with Brooklyn Bridge and lower Manhattan skyline in background, at 18mm setting

Bride with Republic of Georgia flag, at 35mm setting

Then it was on to the feast and post-nuptial celebration, a sumptuous affair with long elaborately decorated tables (a suckling pig at each!) and a delectable array of Russian and Georgian delicacies. There was music and dancing aplenty and innumerable toasts and little speeches. A particularly poignant moment came when a video message from the bride’s mother and grandmother was projected on the screen—they were back in the old country and couldn’t attend. And then there was the “breaking of the plate” an Eastern European wedding custom that’s similar to the Jewish wedding custom of breaking the glass. I had to leave after the cake cutting, at about 9PM, but I’m sure the party lasted into the wee hours.

To say that I could not have covered this wedding single-handedly without the Tamron 18-250mm lens is probably a bit of a stretch, but I don’t think I could have covered it as effectively or created outstanding images over such an extensive range with any other lens out there (in fact, Tamron’s 18-250mm is the only 13.9X zoom made for DSLR cameras). Its performance in high-flare situations, and when shooting into the light source is remarkable, and its ability to capture detail and render color accurately marks it as a lens of truly professional caliber. If you ever have to shoot an entire wedding by yourself or any other event where you need wide to extreme telephoto (28-388mm equivalent) focal lengths along with macro capability, it’s a great choice. Just look at the pictures!