When it comes to wedding photography and videography, many couples want to maximize locations and scenes to get a variety of looks and backgrounds in their photos. While this desire is understandable, traveling to too many locations in one day can often negatively affect the final set of images. In this article, we’ll explain why couples should limit the number of locations and the travel time for their wedding day.
Time spent traveling is time not taking photos or capturing video
The first and most obvious downside of multiple locations is that the travel time takes away from shooting time. With weekend traffic, a few miles can quickly turn into 20 minutes or more of wasted time. In addition, the photographers and videographers need time to park, unpack and find the ideal lighting and background in any scene. So what may seem like a quick stop can actually take much longer than expected.
Rushed Sessions Can Actually Decrease Variety and Creativity
While the motivation behind utilizing many locations is often to maximize variety and diversity in the images and video, these situations can actually have the opposite effect. When photographers and videographers have plenty of time in a single location, they have more time to explore different poses, compositions, angles, expressions and more. When they only have minimal time at each location, on the other hand, they might be forced to resort to more standard poses and compositions before needing to pack up and move again. Creativity takes time to develop, and when creatives are rushed, they may feel pressured to take fewer risks and default to what they know works well.
Example
If you look at the set of images below, you can see what can be done with just a simple white background. For this particular wedding, we were limited to their hotel room because of weather conditions. So while this was not planned, the results are a good illustration of utilizing a variety of poses, angles, crops and expressions to create a full set of images. If we can get this many different photos in a single corner of a hotel room, our creative possibilities only expand as we explore a full location, such as a park or hotel.
Fewer Locations Leaves More Time for Storytelling and better Photojournalism
Fewer locations give you more time to let natural interactions and moments develop. Some of the best wedding moments happen without being prompted. Hugs, laughs, funny moments, emotional moments, and more happen when you’re just hanging out with your loved ones. If you’re rushing around, these moments are less likely to happen because of the stress.
Examples:
Conclusion
With wedding photography and videography, professionals are seeking to create more than just “taking pretty pictures (and video) in front of pretty backgrounds.” We’re looking for emotion, creativity, storytelling, variety in poses, compositions and more. Be sure to let these things develop organically!
If you really want lots of locations, we would suggest doing a “day after” stylized shoot to take the pressure off the wedding day.