Video captures emotions in a more engaging way

I personally believe that video is the better way to capture the emotions of a wedding day. What I typically capture is your family and friends having a good time together, laughing, smiling. It just looks better on video. I started capturing highlight videos like the two below at weddings and during engagement sessions besides taking pictures. I probably dedicate about 20 percent of the day towards video and deliver a 1 minute engagement video and around 3-5 minutes of wedding video.

The photo gallery combined with those videos gives you a way richer experience of what it was like on the day. To give you a different example, I also love watching my travel videos. I might hang a few photos of my vacation on my wall but what I mostly look at is usually the video I make. It is so much easier to relive the vacation through a video. Just watch the first couple of minutes of my road trip video from last year and you well get an idea of what I am talking about.

I'm not saying the photos are not important. A photo captures one moment in time. It will make you able to relive a wedding day as well. But video is becoming more and more important and showing let's say your kids a wedding video might be a better way for them to get an idea what your wedding day was like.

A lot of my couples like the idea of practicing their couple shoot. So they hire me for their engagement session. This blog post explains what to expect from an engagement shoot and how those typically work.

First of all, we need to find one or two locations. In a separate blog post, I’ve already explained how to find those. I typically recommend starting about two hours before sunset. That way we have enough time to explore the first location together, go to the next location about half an hour before sunset and use the different light conditions that the different sun positions create.

The goal of the shoot is always to create photos that look like I am spending time with you on a date. A walk through the city, a park, sitting on a bench, eating ice cream, whatever you would like to do. So for most photos I will ask you to interact with each other. Just talking, looking at each other, walking hand in hand just looks a lot more natural than staring at the camera.

For most couples that hire me for video as well, I create a 1-minute video that you can share on Instagram. That way you experience how being filmed and photographed at the same time feels like. Spoiler alert, it feels the exact same. Here is an example.

I also try do implement some fun games to make the session more relaxed. Be it whispering into each others ears, pretending to see each other after being separated by a zombie apocalypse, there are plenty of fun things to do, to make the shoot more fun and the photos more unique.

The sunset can be anything from super boring on a very cloudy day to a sky that looks like it is on fire. No worries, each lighting scenario gives us interesting options. Your skin usually looks much better in the shade, so cloudy is totally fine. Also, typically scattered clouds make the best sunsets.

So basically it is all about getting to know each other better, getting used to work together and take away any kind of fear from having my camera pointed at you constantly.