170 Better Available Light Digital Photography
churches. Beautiful storytelling images are now being captured
without interrupting the fl ow of the day. We doubt that it’s elimi-
nated the “leaping the rail” problem, however.
Camera advancements and improved technology have certainly
made wedding photography easier from a technical point of view,
but wedding coverage itself in general has seen major changes.
The shift from traditional staged photographs has moved to docu-
mentary coverage, fashion-oriented portrait sessions with couples,
fi ne-art style of coverage, and “trashing the dress,” to name a few.
This wide range of accepted wedding photography styles has
opened the specialty to photographers who once shunned these
events. The traditional photographer used two or three rolls of
120 mm fi lm, taking at best 100 images. It’s not uncommon today
for a photographer to capture thousands of digital images at one
wedding. Two or more photographers working on a multiday
event can put 10,000 clicks or more on their cameras. The biggest
hurdle for this new style of shooting is on the postproduction end.
It’s very time-consuming to download and back up large numbers
of fi les; do the editing, sorting, enhancements of color, and
density correction; rename and renumber; convert from RAW;
and then upload to gallery sites. Making fi nal selections for
album design and the design work itself takes more time, and the
fulfi llment of print orders, if done in-house, continues to use up
the clock. At photography conferences, seminar rooms are packed
with photographers eager to learn one another’s workfl ow solu-
tions and the trade shows sport new companies and products
being sold to address these issues.
Adobe’s newest software, Photoshop Lightroom, is perhaps one
of the best workfl ow solutions for the high-capture-rate photog-
raphers. It works as a database, building thumbnails, allowing
many Photoshop and Bridge functions to be performed without
opening individual fi les. Everything from color, density correc-
tion, cropping, highlight recovery, shadow opening, red-eye
reduction, sharpening, and noise reduction can be accomplished.
Once all the changes are in place, the Export command allows
new fi les to be output with many Save options. The initial editing
is a breeze, with multiple ways to fi lter images. Slide shows and
Web pages can be created. The Print function will send data to
your printer or make really slick PDF proof sheets.Wedding-day coverage
Let’s walk through a wedding as Barry might cover it. “Storytell-
ing with a camera” is his tagline, as his lifelong style of
photojournalism suggests. Keep in mind that the actual photo-
graphy will be equaled or overshadowed by several other impor-
tant components. The use of good people skills is necessary to