Dallas Professional Photographers Association keynote speaker for June 13, 2013, was the award-winning wedding photographer Hiram Trillo.
A guest at a wedding I was shooting a couple of weekends ago I was invited to join a local PPA, meeting, (Dallas Professional Photographers of America). She invited me to attend as her guest.
The Dallas Professional Photographers Association keynote speaker was Hiram Trillo at this meeting. He’s an amazing and award-winning wedding photographer. The judges at WPPI voted one of his images as the best wedding photograph of 2013. As a result, I learned so much about wedding photography from his talk. Because of this, it really opened my eyes up to a lot of stuff I was missing in my work.
Notes From His Talk
I need to ask myself, what is my goal?
90/10 rule when it comes to weddings. 90% of photos are moments. 10% are posed.
The focus is on the couple.
The Mozart Effect: he deformed his fingers from playing so much. I need to practice constantly.
One thing I had not used much or thought about much off-camera lighting. He explained to us how we can use flashes to create much better wedding photos.
- Ceiling & walls can substitute as softboxes
- Carry a flash around to be ready for any moment
Ceremony - Sometimes flash in frame add flair
- Ask people to hold flashes if no flash is allowed
Accidents
This is my favorite tip he gave us, “include people in the detail shots, it adds emotion to the photo.” This made so much sense to me, I was never a huge fan of a bunch of detailed photos from weddings, I know people like them, but I care way more about the people and emotion of the event.
At the end of his talk, he invited everyone to join him in shooting a wedding. We just had to let him know afterward. After his talk, I approached him and introduced myself. I told him I wanted to join him. He told me to message him on Facebook later to let him know. I definitely plan on doing that, I’ve been wanting to shadow a professional wedding photographer for a long time.