(light upbeat music)
- I'm Robert Evans, Sony Artisan of Imagery.
In this video you will learn
about capturing great engagement shots.
So once my client has signed the contract,
the first thing I wanna do is the engagement shoot.
I personally love the engagement shoot
because I feel it's a really great way
for me to get to know my client,
even more than that first meeting.
I get to watch them interact together,
I get to see them as a couple.
I encourage my clients to do their engagement shoots
at least 90 days prior to the wedding,
because I don't want it to be something
that they feel like they have to do,
I feel like I want it to be something
that they want to do.
I encourage my clients to take me to a location
that's important to them,
it could be a place they got engaged,
or a first date, a first kiss, it doesn't have to be,
but I do that for a couple of reasons.
I do that so that I'm not taking my clients
to the same pretty park that I shoot at all the time.
And the other thing that that does,
is that it makes those engagement images
more important to them than if I were
to just to take them to a park down the street,
because we're doing them, and we're involving them
in something that's very significant to them in their life.
Clothing for the engagement session is very important.
First I suggest that they do not dress out of character,
based on the location.
Example, if we're going to the beach,
I don't want them in a suit and a very formal dress.
I usually encourage my clients to be themselves,
be comfortable, jeans is great, solid colors,
long sleeve, long pants, nothing with logo.
The importance of the clothing in an engagement shoot
is because you want the eyes to go to the faces
of your subjects,
and not subliminally get lost or caught up in patterns
and logos and other things, bright colors.
So they don't have to dress the same,
but I usually suggest they compliment each other,
especially with most engagement shoots being outside,
I suggest earth tones, your browns, your greens,
your rusts, you know, those type of things,
blacks and whites are okay.
I turn my engagement pictures usually within a week or two,
and usually within a week.
I think it's very important to get the images
to the couples as fast as I can,
because they're excited about them,
they wanna show their family and friends,
and sometimes I'll even pick one or two images
from that session and send them a low-res file
so that they can right away send something out
on social media.
There's a lot of things that people use the images for,
very popular now are save the date,
they use them on their wedding websites,
and for social media,
which is great for me as the photographer
because now they'll start putting out their images
and letting their friends and family see them.
I also use the engagement shoot as a time
to discuss more details about the wedding.
We've spent an hour or so together, we've had a good time,
most people say, "Well, that wasn't as hard
"as I thought it was gonna be".
On the flip side of that,
is they get to see how I'm going to be on the wedding day,
and it makes them feel even more comfortable.
And again, one of my goals with doing the engagement shoot
is I wanna walk in on the wedding day
and have them go, "Hi Robert", and give me a hug,
as opposed to, "Do you remember me?
"You hired me, I'm your photographer."
So when I'm dong engagement shoot,
the gear that I'm thinking about taking with me,
first of all, is light, you know,
I wanna be able to carry some stuff,
but I don't want it to be too heavy,
'cause sometimes we'll go on long walks
which is really why I love some of the Sony cameras
'cause the email bodies now are light.
I would take an a7R II,
I love the a7R II for many reasons,
it's high ISO capability,
the back-illuminated sensor is beautiful.
I really like to utilize the a7R II,
especially in those times where I'm not capturing
a lot of images, hundreds, and hundreds of images,
and I want the ability to have a high ISO,
I'll do engagement shoots at night sometimes,
and just use ambient lights.
The other camera that I would bring would be the 6300,
because of the high frame rate in that camera.
And the other camera that I would have with me,
that I always try to keep with me no matter where I go,
no matter what I'm doing, is the RX100 IV,
because that camera,
even though it's a very powerful little camera
and takes amazing, beautiful images,
looks like a point-and-shoot.
If I go some place where I know security's gonna walk
over to me the second they see my camera,
I just use the RX100 IV and I take pictures
of my couples that way,
and they don't say anything
because they think it's a point-and-shoot.
The lenses that I would choose to take with me,
probably three.
So definitely the G Master 85 1.4,
a 70-200 is a really great lens for an engagement shoot,
because you have a lot of versatility,
I'll take the new G Master 70-200 2.8,
and then my 35 millimeter 1.4 Zeiss.
So some of the features that I'll use
on a Sony camera during engagement shoot,
first is the articulating screen.
So I really love the ability to place the camera
on the ground, flip the screen up,
look down into that screen,
and then I focus and I shoot.
Another great feature, the focus peaking,
focus peaking for those of you who don't know what that is,
is wherever you focus,
the camera will highlight where the focus is
and you can choose the color that you want,
whether it's white, yellow or red.
And the other thing that focus peaking allows me to do,
is actually look, once I have it focused,
but like, look at my subjects,
and engage with them and watch for the expression
and then shoot when I want.
The other feature that I really love about my Sony cameras,
that Sony does so well, and when I first started shooting
them I was just amazed by, is the EVF,
the electronic view finder.
It's a little bit different looking
through an EFV viewfinder than a typical camera,
in that you're looking at live view all the time,
and the benefit of that is, is that one;
when I'm adjusting my exposures,
I see it change right in the viewfinder,
right in front of me,
so I don't have to take a picture, look down, adjust,
take a picture, look down, adjust,
I can do it in real time, right in front of me.
And I can take a picture of my couple,
I can see how they look and it pops up in my eye
and I can see the image that I just took
without my client knowing.
So it's a little more fluid in the photography,
so I can be making adjustments, and working,
and changing without them knowing it at all.
The other thing that I use almost all the time,
no matter what I'm shooting is the in camera wifi.
I can take an image off the card, or off the camera,
and via the PlayMemories app, I wifi it right to my phone,
and now I have it right there.
I can send it out to social media,
a lot of times during an engagement shoot
I'll just wifi an image to my phone
and then I show the couple,
but I'll pick a choice image, maybe two,
at the end of the day, or maybe if it's really that great,
in the middle of it,
send it to my camera and show it to them,
and right away, they're like, "How did you do that?"
Photographing a wedding
isn't like doing a shoot in the studio,
when you realize, oh my gosh, I've forgotten my media cards,
what are you gonna do?
You know, you're gonna be starting to shoot within minutes,
so it's very important to make yourself a checklist,
or a reminder list before you leave the house,
do I have all these things?
Do I have my media cards?
Do I have my batteries?
Do I have my battery chargers?
Do I have that tripod plate?
I think it's very important to establish a routine
so that every time you leave the house,
you have a checklist of everything that you need.
I was in Cancun recently,
we were shooting the rehearsal dinner which was on a boat,
so when I travel, I bring a camera bag,
I bring a computer bag,
all my media cards were in my computer bag,
and not in my camera bag,
so when I got on the boat
I did not have my card case with me.
So one of the things that I changed as a result of that
is I keep extra media cards in my car,
I keep extra media cards unopened in my bag,
so should I forget to grab my card case
that has all my media cards in it, I'm covered.
In this video you learned
about capturing great engagement shots.