• Get to the location early - If you haven’t already scouted the wedding location, the dressing and the reception areas, this is a must. Coming in cold a short while before the ceremony is a recipe for disaster.
• Get to know the wedding party as much as you can beforehand - The more your know the wedding party, the more at ease they will be with you and the closer and more comfortable you’ll be with them. Great photos will have a lot to do with how at ease they are with you. It’s nice to be called by your name, instead of “the photographer”.
• You are the photographer - Don’t forget this important fact. Your job is paramount. The ceremony and the reception is for the moment, the images you provide may have to last for more than a lifetime. You are not only creating nice “works of art” for the bride, you are also documenting history for the family. Do your dead level best job at carrying out this important project. You don’t have to be pushy or bossy. Everyone already knows that your job is critical and they want you to succeed.  Your aittitude and demeanor has a directr impact on the subjects of your photos. 
• You must have a flash - Churches can be well lighted and churches can be almost dark. Most of them are relatively dark.  You need a flash and it should be off-camera. 
• You need a powerful flash with a great refresh rate - The majority of church sanctuaries are large. This necessitates a powerful flash. Shooting in RAW may allow you to increase the exposure. However, there is a point of diminishing returns where noise creeps into the image and lots of it. Increasing the ISO helps some; however, the noise factor again becomes apparent.  The refresh rate of the flash has a large bearing on whether you get all of the shots you want or one of the shots that you want. It is difficult to get the exact one you want unless you have lightning reflexes and that is not always as easy as it sounds.
• A tripod is nice and even necessary, but don’t depend on it as a way to overcome darkness in a dimly lit church - Several factors work against the use of a tripod to take sharp shots. Young children are constantly on the move. People blink, move their hands, etc.  A flash and a tripod make a good combination.
• Take plenty of the same posed shot of groups - Eyes close, hands raise to swipe hair or scratch an itch. People are distracted. Make sure you get their attention once you have them in position for the shot. Taking these extra shots of the same pose will increase the odds of having one very good shot of the group. The larger the group, the greater the odds that something will be out of kilter.
• Pay attention to details - Half open zippers, flipped collars, hair out of place, and a thousand other little details can detract from the finished photo. Take the time to notice each individual.  Learn about posing and balance the group. Turn some people, have some stand on the next highest step, and so on. As you pose them, look for that special balance that is needed for a pleasing picture.
• Look for the emotional outbreaks (the good kind) - they only last a few seconds - A hug, a smile, a kiss, a pat on the back can all add human interest to an otherwise hum-drum image. Engage your subjects. Use humor to get them going, even being a little silly can get them rolling. After all, most of the time, your subjects are nervous, tense, or stiff.  They are so absorbed in the moment that they are having difficulty relaxing. A relaxed person makes a much better subject than a stiff or nervous one. I use things like “You’re all movie stars…smiles all around” (and I wave my hand like and Italian chef) or “OK…more fake grins everybody, act like you really care about all of this” (and then I look up and cross my eyes at them or make a funny face).  Anything that is somewhat goofy seems to lighten up an otherwise self-conscious group. Tell them how wonderful they look and the smiles will surface.  Don’t forget that these are people too and they like and dislike many of the same things that you do.

• Keep a mental list of locations that you can use for candid shots  - This comes in  handy once the groom and the bride are available for those special shots of just the two of them.  Find out all you can about how the ceremony is going to process and proceed. This is vital as you have to be where the action is. If you are using limited flash power, find out ahead of time where the subject need to be in the center aisle before you shoot. Also, if your flash has to take a second or two to refresh, make sure you get an idea on timing your shots. You may only get one or two shots of each group that processes down the aisle. You might even start a “clip” book or folder that contains photos that you particularly like. You can attempt to use the same style or even embellish it with your own version to create interesting images. Remember, there is nothing new under the sun. Most of the fantastic photo that you see today were inspired by other great photos.

• Ignore anyone taking snapshots and/or video - Again, you are the photographer.  If someone is holding a video camera and you attempt to avoud their line of sight, your will lose some of your flexibility when it comes to moving around the altar area. - I strongly suggest that you stay on the groom’s side of the  sanctuary so the lion’s share of shots are of the bride. If you are on the groom’s side you will have the bride’s face in view. After all, she is the one that wants the pictures. You can always move over and get shots of the groom. The bride comes first.

• Don’t be afraid to move into the middle of the aisle at important portions of the ceremony to get a shot of both the bride and groom in a more centered, symetrical shot. Even though many of your shots will be from one side of the altar or the other, you still need some of those head on altar shots.

• You’ll need to move in as close as you can when the ring exchange occurs - The suggested minimum distance from the couple is ten feet. Even that may seem a bit close. However, if you want to actually get the rings in a photo, you’ll need to move in fairly close.

• Keep a loose eye on the family members during the ceremony - At important points along the ceremony many of the family members will beam and maybe even tear up during these times. When the minister pronounces the bride and groom as man and wife, when they are called Mr. and Mrs., and so on, these are the times when the family lights up with emotion. It may be big smiles, it may be tears. Regardless of what the emotion brings, it is usually a great shot for you to capture. Don’t forget kids the whole time, they seem to be doing all kinds of funny things that you can get shots of.

It’s amazing how one day can make a difference.  My wife Cathy and I photographed a wedding during the day. It was an exciting time as most weddings are.  The ceremony and reception went off without a hitch and I was able to get a lot of nice shots. The most memorable part was the groom’s shower of tears as the bride approached the altar.  This was especially touching to me as he didn’t show a great deal of emotion, at least when I was around him.  The entire wedding party was a loving bunch of people and I never noticed one cross encounter.  When we returned home late in the afternoon, Cathy and I both reviewed the wedding party shots and headed out for supper.

When we arrived back home, we got a call from Mary Catherine, our daughter, from Knoxville, asking if we had received the news that a UGA professor had shot 3 people dead. We had no idea that the violence had occurred.  Cathy began to research the web, I turned on the national news on the tube.  Sure enough, the incident happened only miles from where we lived and it was a bit shocking. Cathy began to search for the shooter’s name, she found out the that the killer lived only 11 houses down from us.  As a matter of fact, a SWAT team had visited the neighborhood earlier and the shooter was on the loose. He remains a fugitive as I write this.  The incident made national news.

 This Sunday morning after a great night’s sleep, I ground some coffee beans and brewed a fresh pot of coffee. When it was finished brewing, I poured a cup and let Gory, our dog out into the back yard and I sipped my coffee on the deck.  I soon noticed a woodpecker sticking it’s head out of a hole in a partially dead tree nearby.  It was watching us intently, looking for any possible threat.  I then realized that life goes on no matter what.  The woodpecker sticking its head out of the hole in the tree was not reflecting on how horrible and close to its home the shooting yesterday was, it was only relieved that the dog and I headed back into the house, so that it could continue making its home ready for the young ones that would soon be hatching out into the world.  We humans are almost too complex in some ways and not complex enough in others. As my father once told me, “It will be a wonderful world in the future if we humans don’t kill each other off in the meantime.”  Which is closely followed by what my mother told me, “It’s the little things in life that make it worth living.”

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
Without ever having felt sorry for itself.

– D.H. Lawrence

Located in Savannah, Georgia the Bonaventure cemetery is a seriously interesting place. This particular time was special as the azaleas and dogwood trees were at peak bloom and blossom. The cemetery made famous by the movie “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”,  is completed with Spanish moss and massive oaks, along with beautiful shrubs and grasses make this a very quiet, peaceful place that death becomes. The lichen and other fungus have rendered the gravestones a greenish patina and give the impression that the stones have been there for many centuries.