Wedding ring photography
The beginning of my day covering a wedding as a wedding photographer usually sees me at the location where the groom and his grooms men are being prepared and getting dressed in order to get the wedding ceremony. As a result I’m usually asking for the wedding ring to do a bit of wedding ring photography. Doing the wedding ring photography and other product shots affects such as the shoes, or any jewellery like cuff links, and wearables like ties and suit jackets I like to treat as a bit of a warm up for the day for both myself and for the boys, who may not be overly comfortable with a photographer constantly taking photos of them during the day.
It’s usually the case that this sort of photogrpahy requires specialised lenses and photographic equipment that may or may not be common place in a wedding photographer’s kit – but to do the best work, you need the best camera and lenses for product photography.
Wedding ring photography
The goal is really to show any details of the ring or rings while having some sort of a background that speaks to the type of person the groom is. It’s traditional at a wedding for the groom and his best man to look after the rings so I feel having something like his tie, or cuff links, even the flowers he’s wearing on the day as a background really helps portray this personal aspect of the wedding rings.
It is however coming more and more popular for the bride and her entourage to look after the rings, I’m thinking trust is the defining factor here? 🙂 When this is the case, the rings are often placed nearby flowers, or clothing such as the wedding dress. This is again to show a bit of personality behind the photograph. It’s also quite common to find them tied onto the page boy’s cushion, ready to be presented during the wedding ceremony.
This being said however, wedding rings are usually very personal items to begin with, so there is a certain charm to wedding ring photography where the background is as plain as possible. I usually try to find a nice clean hardwood surface to produce these types of photos, as the grain fades away in the natural bokeh of my lens in a very satisfying way.
Over the years of covering weddings as a wedding photographer, I’ve discovered a certain number of photo compositions I tend to take at pretty much every wedding I cover. one of my favourite shots to get during preparation is a top-down perspective of the bride’s engagement ring floating amongst the flowers of her bouquet. I’ve put together a collection of quite a few such photos in this post just for the fun of seeing the style and colours of each bride’s ring and flower arrangement to hopefully provide a bit of inspiration for your own ring (if you have a choice :P) and flower arrangement.
Wedding ring photography, I feel is one of the important photographs I must capture on a wedding day as they signify the never ending union of the wedded couple, and as I’m there to capture all the emotion and joy on this most special of days, I figure the wedding rings should also play a major role in those memories! 🙂
