Remotes Spice Up Ceremony Coverage

In the South, churches take themselves very seriously. Church rules often mandate photographers working only in the balcony, and church wedding guild officials enforce the rules with such vigor that they often leave bruises.

Shooting from the balcony can be extremely limiting, as all of the ceremony photographs are taken from the same perspective.

One of my favorite techniques to unobtrusively capture images from a second (or third) perspective during a church wedding ceremony is to place a remote camera close to the bride and groom. This is also a great way for a photographer working solo to gain another perspective on the ceremony.

I will "shoot loose" with a lens that is wide enough to allow for some error in where the bride and groom may be positioned in the frame. I use a Canon EOS 5D as a remote camera because its 12.8-megapixel gives me plenty of pixels to crop out.

In this example, I positioned a camera behind a plant so it was invisible to the congregation. I used a Pocket Wizard with a Canon camera cable to trigger the exposure from the balcony. The kneeler allowed for a predictable place to aim the camera, and I selected a position that was slightly in front of the bride and groom so you could see their faces. Above, you'll see the shot cropped and digitally mastered as it appears in their album. You can see the image as it came out of the camera on the left.