The bride and groom have invested thousands of dollars to make sure their wedding venues and details are gorgeous; and it's our job as photographers to make sure we capture it with the same attention to detail that the coordinators and bride had when setting it up. Among other tasks, we need to maintain the natural ambiance with the right lighting techniques. We need to capture each item, from the place settings to the centerpieces, with techniques that show the beauty of the entire scene in some images and show the small detail in others. Here are 10 ways to improve your wedding venue and detail shots.

The start of a New Year for the wedding photographer means many things. It's usually downtime certainly for this Scottish wedding photographer! It's time for a breather, time to review the last year, and renew for the upcoming season. It's also time to remember that there has been many a lucky lady who found an engagement ring in her stocking from Santa, and is now looking for a photographer for her big day. Therefore it's best to take stock of where your business is, where it is going and what it can do for those newly engaged couples.

As a wedding and portrait photographer I am constantly faced with shooting in difficult or challenging locations. We've all been there, I know. I rock up at a bride's home to find the entire bridal party getting ready, clothes everywhere, bags, cases, the makeup artist, the hairdresser, all squeezed into a few small rooms, while Dad watched sports on TV and keeps out of the way. Personally, I don't want my brides remembering chaos, I want them to remember looking and feeling fabulous in the morning, surrounded by their girls and their family. Now cut to the reception, it's a beautiful hotel surrounded by a car park and a couple of grassy areas. In many cases there is another wedding at the other end of the venue, you're restricted to one spot. Cut to a portrait session indoors, happens so often here, because let's face it, it rains so much ! So how can we, as professionals, stand out from the amateur with a point and shoot, how can we make our clients feel and look as though they were somewhere truly special. It really isn't that difficult. All it takes is a little imagination, a keen eye and an alternative viewpoint.

Any of us who shoot weddings know that brides spend a lot of time choosing their themes, colours, flowers, jewelry, dress, shoes and on and on ... as far as a wedding is concerned, it's all about those little touches, the details that make their wedding day different from any other, that makes it "theirs". It is up to us, as professionals, to ensure their memories are captured forever. The cake gets eaten, the shoes worn (in my case, mine were trashed !), the dress gets packed up and popped in the attic, the flowers die

With the coming wedding season I’m looking forward to trying a few new lighting tools and I wanted to share these with you.  In order to keep things fresh, I’ll often try new tools or even impose restrictions (like using a single lens, for exmaple)

I was in the Bahamas shooting a wedding with my buddy Kevin Kramer. We both like to shoot as much as possible with the bride and groom, so we set up a "Day After" shoot. They get all dressed up in their wedding attire and run around going any place we feel like: Really! I have been doing this for a long time on my destination weddings.

Shooting winter weddings requires specific techniques, a creative approach, a technical skill-set and a desire to push the boundaries of your photography. For me, in addition to all this, using suitable equipment to the best of its abilities.

I have had the opportunity to critique thousands of images and compositions. One in-camera effect I see used very often is tilting the camera plain. This effect is well-meaning and meant to enhance the composition, but is it an effective composition tool? Many photographers instinctively use tilt, but when asked, find it hard to explain why they used it on each shot. There are great compositional reasons to use tilt. There are also many more reasons to avoid tilting. Ultimately, the effect of tilting is at its strongest when used to create a more powerful frame and used with absolute intent.

By Chris and Katie Humphreys As many of us stay busy with numerous shoots each week, it's important to use techniques to keep our shots interesting and to find new ways to frame our subjects.  Especially when many of us are shooting similar events (whether weddings or portraits) week after week, keeping our compositions fresh and interesting is so critical.

This shot is one of my favorite images I have ever taken at a wedding. It taught me a lot about how I love the mechanics of shooting loosely with little regard for technicality. Of course I had a general idea of exposure and a very lose concept for composition. I keep my camera on aperture priority mode mainly for the very quick access to the back exposure dial.

With the Fall season around the corner, many of us are beginning to enter booking season and it’s a great time to re-evaluate our current marketing materials, pricing and packages, and our studio experience - all those things that will make a difference to our potential clients.  Especially in an economic year that has many photographers a little nervous, it’s important to be proactive about our strategy for getting new clients and evaluating if what we’re currently doing is putting us on our desired trajectory for our business.

This past weekend's wedding of Natalie and George took place at her parent's lovely and historic home in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.  The weather early in the day was a bit warm, but by late afternoon and the nighttime reception, it could not have been more perfect.