We love to take our newlyweds to the 4th floor of San Francisco city hall. It's a great place to take candid photos and let the couple enjoy each other. We will frequently just do some very simple poses and let the couple interact to create more natural images. This allows us to capture the couple as they really are. The above photo very well represented the couple. They were laughing and kidding each other the entire shoot so we knew it was important that we record that for their future memories of their city hall wedding celebration. The important thing is to have fun at your San Francisco city hall wedding and your photographer needs to show the good times.
Challenges of Capturing Candid Moments at SF City Hall
Capturing these types of images is the key to successful San Francisco city hall wedding photography. Especially in light of the fact that typical City Hall weddings do not present as many options for true candid photos. This is because there are no wedding receptions at a city hall wedding. Receptions usually occur later that day at a different location. Since wedding receptions include lots of events, there are many opportunities to show the couple in a candid way. This includes the first dance, the toasts and cake cutting. However it is possible to create candid moments at San Francisco city hall. With some couples a little bit of light encouragement is needed. The overall mood should be kept positive and fun and that hopefully leads to the couple creating their own memories to be captured on camera. If they are a little shy, we have some easy techniques that help lighten the mood. The main thing is to keep the photo shoot upbeat and fun. Even more important is to make sure we capture the moments as they occur.
Catching Moments in Wedding Photography at SF City Hall
Obviously, the is the whole key to great candid city hall wedding photography. I hate to admit it, but sometimes there is some luck involved at truly catching a great moment. The photo above actually occurred in between poses. So now we have started to pay more attention to what happens after we make the pose. I have learned to keep looking through the viewfinder for a few moments even after I tell the couple we are done with a particular location or pose. There will be some shoots where nothing exciting is captured, but we still make sure that the couple ends up with candid like images. We do this by putting them into situations where they can interact naturally and have fun with each other. There are many ways to obtain these types of wedding photography images. San Francisco city hall definitely is a great place to do it! Keeping it fun is what makes all of this work. We hope that we create this type of atmosphere at all of our SF City Hall photo shoots!
Shown above, a memorable moment, but one that we created for the couple as a starting point. We keep shooting after this moment to hopefully capture something more real and authentic. It's all about being ready!
