We receive so many requests from our Brides and Grooms to see San Francisco city hall architecture pictures, I thought it would be a good idea to put together this gallery. Most of these pictures can be found spread throughout our website in the many City Hall galleries featured here. However, with over 800 Wedding Photography images and 25 separate gallery portfolios, they can get lost in the shuffle. This compilation gallery allows our potential wedding couples the opportunity to see all of our architectural images in one place. In addition, it also affords the chance for a bride or groom to let us know some of their favorite architecture pictures before the wedding. Obviously, we cannot capture them all at a given wedding, but we CAN offer our couples a choice of their most treasured backgrounds and poses.
This portfolio with give our clients an opportunity to help them choose their favorites. Multiple choice is always the easiest! Most SF city hall wedding photographers understand the importance of incorporating architecture into their final product. I have provided the above link to our home page for you to obtain additional information about our photography style. We feel that we emphasize City Hall Architecture even more than most. We are happy to allow our clients to look at our pictures and choose some favorites before the wedding. This is a great way to make sure you receive all of the styles and locations you are hoping for. We developed this particular page for the sole reason of sending our couples here when they ask about different places in San Francisco city hall for wedding photography. It has become very helpful by providing our brides and grooms "one-stop shopping" for their favorite San Francisco city hall images. This same architecture also works wonders when it comes to taking pictures of Quinceanera celebrations at city hall. There are so many amazing backgrounds to choose from. The colorful Quince dress really standout against the neutral colors at city hall.
This should be easy right? San Francisco city hall possesses amazing architecture that attracts tourists, events and weddings from all over the country and even the world. Since the bride and groom are usually the ones choosing city hall for their wedding, it makes sense to give them tons of photos that feature the beautiful backgrounds throughout the building. We mostly agree with this and you can certainly see evidence of this throughout this website. We are one of the few top SF City Hall photographers that really provide their couples with a multitude of architecture in their photos.
Can this be overdone? The answer is yes! We have to remember that a San Francisco City Hall wedding is not just about the building. Family and friends of the happy couple will want to see close up shots of the couple as well. They will want to see wedding pictures that show the emotion and drama that is present at any marriage. It is also important to make sure the family and friends are well represented in the final wedding pictures. When photographing family portraits, we mostly do close ups, but we are always sure to include a few wide angle shots to show off the beautiful architecture. Here is a nice helpful article that discusses many of these issues when it comes to architectural photography. Once it becomes time to focus on the newlyweds, there are a few ways to highlight them without ignoring the architecture. These ideas are listed below.
This seems obvious, but is often not done (even by me). If you place the San Francisco City Hall bride and groom IN the background they are going to be quite small in proportion. Move them closer to the camera and they become larger, but you still see the full background. There is a little bit of advanced technique in this to ensure that both the couple and the background are in focus. This involves using the right kind of wide angle lenses and settings. However, it is entirely possible and the results can be stunning. I learned this trick shooting pictures at Cupids Arrow in Downtown San Francisco. I kept trying to figure out how to show the entire bow and arrow without making the couple look tiny in the picture. The answer was to put the couple much closer to the camera and leave the arrow in the background.
This works well in most situations. This is also how we approach the Palace of Fine Arts pictures. There is so much background to show, but the couple can get lost if you do not move them close to the camera. There are also some instances where it may be more appropriate to blur the background a little. This works too and still let's you know that there beautiful architecture present. The main challenge with this is making sure both the background and subjects are in focus. It comes down to knowing your equipment and settings. The safe approach is to give your newlyweds a variety of both types images. Let them choose what they want when they receive their final SF City Hall Wedding images.
Sometimes when I have a great shot with the perfect background, I take a series of photos. The first one is a wide shot with the bride and groom smaller in the photo. Then we take a few more pictures with each photo being closer as we zoom into the main subjects. There are a number of places at San Francisco city hall where this is quite possible to do. It provides the couple with the best of both worlds. If I am unable to do this, I can also zoom in by cropping the final picture. You use a little resolution, but the results can be exceptional. We have found this particular wedding photography technique to be very well liked by our city hall brides and grooms. New Photoshop technology pretty much eliminates any problems related to losing resolution when zooming way in.
This is probably the most obvious solution to this problem, but it still bears mention. The way we usually approach San Francisco city hall wedding photography is to provide the client with both close ups and wide angle architecture shots. This gives the couple choices when they see their final images. THEY can decide whether they want more emphasis on architecture or close ups. Most couples choose a combination of both and that is great too! The important thing is to not limit the types of city hall wedding pictures we deliver to our newlyweds. The fact that I approach most of my weddings with a second shooter helping me out is a huge benefit. It allows us to provide our SF City Hall newlyweds with both types of images at the same time. I usually focus on the wider angle architecture pictures while my assistant takes close up shots at the same time. This speeds up the process while still providing our clients with the best of both worlds!