In a marriage site I was browsing recently, I came across a piece of advice that I found rather clever - if a bit cynical. The author suggested that the best gift might be a gold-framed gift certificate for a marriage class (read it yourself at http://www.smartmarriages.com/giftcertificates.html#weddings ). Now, Marriage Guidance is usually something I associate with a marriage going badly, but this is the kind of guidance offered, usually by a minister, priest or pastor in the hope you will never need the other kind. Good idea, although it seems education, rather than counseling is the key.
Is it a good gift, though? Perhaps, but it could be taken in the wrong spirit; and your choice of guidance school or counselor might not be the same as the bridal couples. Still, the idea of a Certificate is not a bad one. I recently had an inquiry for my services as a wedding photographer from the mother of the groom. However, with all the expenses that had fallen to her, she was looking for ways cut costs, and even my budget pack was looking a bit steep to her... the free gift didn't really help, because she didn't need free extras so much as help to meet the basic costs.
I told them how to go about seeking out a Photography Student who might do the wedding free to build their portfolio and crossed the family off my wait list: then last week, they contacted me again... by doing their own flowers and making the bouquet , they had freed up enough to pay for their photos!
That story marries (forgive the pun) with the Gift Certificate idea. It occurred to me that if my family had been able to suggest a Photography Gift Certificate to their guests, they could have offset the price of their wedding photography enough to get the package they wanted without having to pick all those flowers.
It seems like a useful proposition, and I will almost certainly instigate a Certificate for Practicaps Weddings in the new financial year.
Sydney Weddings from the Other Side of the Lens.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Get Me To The Church in (Old) Time
Cars are a Blokes' thing, right? Not if it's the Bridal Car! There is no way that even the finest vehicle should be allowed to upstage the Bride and her entourage, and wedding car companies know it. They go out of their way to make sure the Bride is the centre of attention. Which doesn't mean they aren't proud of their cars.
There are probably two groups of Wedding Car companies: those with a fleet of cars and Limousines for hire for a whole range of functions, including weddings; and small businesses that grew out of an owner's love for their special cars who want a chance to drive them and show them off. Many of these are small businesses, family affairs; which doesn't mean they are less professional or that they stint on service. Quite the opposite.
Take Buicks 4 Brides for instance: Tony and Kym have a fleet of just 2 cars; but what cars they are!
An American 1948 Buick Super Series Convertible and a matching 1948 Buick Super Series Sedan. The convertible is probably the only one of its kind ever to have been brought into the country, and as a pair, they make a stunning complement to the Bridal Party.
Old cars like these have some real advantages for a wedding: they come from an era when men routinely wore hats, so even if the convertible has its roof up, it isn't going to interfere with the most elaborate hairdo or veil. They predate seatbelts, too, so no crush marks or stains on the wedding dress; and they are a wedding photographer's dream, with their wide opening doors, spacious interiors and easy access.
The Bridal Car is often low on the list of priorities - a last minute choice, and often cut out of the planning if money is tight; but if you do want that special car for your very special occasion, don't leave the booking too late, and don't overlook the smaller operators. Buicks4brides is a great example of what the car lover can offer - if you look around you are likely to find at least one near you. What these independents offer in terms of personalized service and truly unique vehicles should put them at the top of your list.
There are probably two groups of Wedding Car companies: those with a fleet of cars and Limousines for hire for a whole range of functions, including weddings; and small businesses that grew out of an owner's love for their special cars who want a chance to drive them and show them off. Many of these are small businesses, family affairs; which doesn't mean they are less professional or that they stint on service. Quite the opposite.
Take Buicks 4 Brides for instance: Tony and Kym have a fleet of just 2 cars; but what cars they are!
An American 1948 Buick Super Series Convertible and a matching 1948 Buick Super Series Sedan. The convertible is probably the only one of its kind ever to have been brought into the country, and as a pair, they make a stunning complement to the Bridal Party.
Old cars like these have some real advantages for a wedding: they come from an era when men routinely wore hats, so even if the convertible has its roof up, it isn't going to interfere with the most elaborate hairdo or veil. They predate seatbelts, too, so no crush marks or stains on the wedding dress; and they are a wedding photographer's dream, with their wide opening doors, spacious interiors and easy access.
The Bridal Car is often low on the list of priorities - a last minute choice, and often cut out of the planning if money is tight; but if you do want that special car for your very special occasion, don't leave the booking too late, and don't overlook the smaller operators. Buicks4brides is a great example of what the car lover can offer - if you look around you are likely to find at least one near you. What these independents offer in terms of personalized service and truly unique vehicles should put them at the top of your list.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Making Brides Even More Beautiful
The two pics with this post have nothing to do with the people mentioned in the blog - actually, it is a before-and-after snapshot of one of my daughters. and I've posted it as an example of retouching. The second version is the photo as it came from the camera while the top one has been has been "enhanced". Is one better or more honest than the other? Her face is a litle fuller, her skin slightly tanned, her eyes a bit brighter and clearer, her hair a touch darker and glossier... If you hadn't been shown the original, would you have known the version you did see had been airbrushed? Does it matter???
You get some interesting requests from people coming up to their wedding day. I recall a truly lovely bride who had just one wish: please, I don't want any double chins in my photos. Well it was her Wedding Day, so naturally, her wish was granted!
There are a limited range of options for a problem like this: in a controlled environment like the portrait studio, skillful posing and control of the lighting might do the trick. But weddings aren't like that, at least not for the most part. You can't manage the lighting in a church or out on the beach during the vows...and you cannot afford not take those photos. There are dozens of situations that are going to highlight your subjects less photogenic attributes, and most of them are unavoidable.
You might resort to Photoshopping the images (up to a couple of thousand!) but apart from the time involved, and the skill required to make the photos look natural, is it appropriate? Is it ethical?
For me, the answer has to come from the bride herself; what she wants is what I want - within limits.
Portraitists have always tried to show their subjects in the best light. Airbrushing, removing blemishes, ensuring the ideal lighting to blush the skin and put a catchlight in her eyes. Film photographers did / do it, painters do it and wedding photographers should do whatever they can to show the bride at her glowing best. But it has to be her. Not someone so "enhanced" that people look and say "doesn't that look like Lucy? They must be related."
The camera might be able to lie, yet the photograph has to be honest! Think of in the same light as the make-up artist getting the bride ready for the Ceremony: you want the make-up to emphasize her best features, minimize any flaws, and never call attention to itself.
Honest is easy to define at one level: it is fine to hide that mole by having the model turn her head slightly; at another level it is a bit tricky: should you clone it out of the picture digitally? Personally, I don't think so, but if the bride asks me to do so, I will.
So much is a matter of judgment: in most cases, taking off a little weight digitally (or reducing a double chin) is OK ... if you can think that a couple of weeks more would have given her time to lose that weight, then why not?
It is simplistic just to say it isn't 'the truth'. My own test is simple, too: if someone who knows the subject would say "What a lovely picture; you really caught her at her best" then I'm happy; Subtle enhancements of the qualities that make a person who they are are perfectly acceptable. But when the "improvements" are obvious to people who know the person, you have failed your subject; if your photo looks fake, so does our subject. That is not acceptable. And when you fail your subject, then you have failed yourself, too.
And our bride with the double chins? Her father, mother and her new husband all said the same thing when they viewed the photos, "wasn't she the loveliest bride? And so natural".
If your are asked to photograph a friend's wedding
Month after month I see this question on various social networks: "Help: I have been asked to take the pictures for my (friend, relative etc)'s wedding. Please give me some advice."
My immediate reaction is to advise them don't do it! Not if need to get this sort of help on Facebook or MyLot, or even on betterphoto.com.
Of course, that's not what I do say; I just offer some tips about wedding photography and a list of essential shots. I often suggest they read extensively on the subject and include my Intel at Qassia.com in the reading list - if you really want to do the job, there is good advice there, and in lots of other blogs around the web.
The thing is, weddings are not something you can go back and reshoot if you get it wrong: while it might be a great learning experience for you, it isn't one that you friends can really afford for you to mess up on.
It is easy to say ‘yes’, but if you don't have a clear idea of what you are doing, and a great deal of self-confidence, then as the wedding day approaches you may start to wish you hadn’t!
Lack of experience as a wedding photographer is not a reason to say "no" of course: everyone starts out without experience and there was a first time for every Wedding Master. So my advice for those willing to have a go, but NOT willing to risk losing the couple as friends, is:
- Read all you can, starting with the Qassia link above
- Practice! There is usually plenty of time between being asked and the wedding day; use it to shoot lots of portrait and journalistic-style photos
- Do what any wedding photographer would do: sit down with your clients and plan the shoot with them
- Go to the rehearsal and use it for what it is: a practice session. Not just for the Bridal Party, but for you.
- If you are not already comfortable with PhotoShop or PaintShopPro, learn to use the program properly; take lessons or at least buy a book or DVD course and practice
- Go to a few presentation nights and parties: the lighting at most Receptions is dreadful, so taking photographs in similar conditions is good preparation
- If you don't have a Digital SLR or a film based camera, look into hiring one; and if you decide to do that, hire it for another day so you are really familiar with it before the day: but do not shoot the wedding on a digital compact camera unless it is a top model! Only one or two can handle the lighting range and produce files big enough for wedding enlargements. Maybe a Canon G10 or similar, but otherwise, low light conditions are beyond them. (that reception again, and the church)
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Weddings: A Place to Begin
I've been married 20 odd years, and at the beginning, Jean and I weren't all that financially secure. We started out with 6 kids between us, and two of those were handicapped. Then there was the mortgage, and all the usual costs of setting up a new home amidst the wreckage of the failed ones we had left behind. We may not have been in poverty, but the wiff of it was in the air...
And what has this to do with photography? A little: with not much cash in the household, we had to make a few ... call them "compromises"... with our wedding day.
Some things that you might expect to "have done" we simply did ourselves: Jean baked and decorated the cake; we catered the wedding ourselves, with great help from the local Salvation Army; I was still up on a ladder decorating the reception hall at 5 am on the Big Day. Couldn't afford a wedding dress or fancy suit (we married in Salvation Army Uniform "under the Flag" as Sallies like to say); and our children provided the music, songs and readings and acted as ushers.....
But one thing we could not do for ourselves was take the Wedding Photos and we sure couldn't afford a photographer.
What did we do? We told every guest who owned a camera to bring it along! Those were the days of film, of course, and it was an agonizing wait to see what - if anything - came back. We couldn't really chase people up and ask "what about our wedding photos?"
Well, we did get back some quite nice photos. We treasure them! They may be really simple pictures of family and friends standing a bit awkwardly and grinning at the camera, but they are OUR wedding pictures and they mean the world to us.
Does that mean that I would recommend the "d0-it-yourself" approach to wedding photography? Of course not; it can be done, but it is chancy and stressful.
What it does mean is that I am very conscious of two things when I photograph a wedding: the obvious one is the cost. Weddings have become very expensive undertakings, and a big part of the cost is the photography.
O.K., so it isn't a large expense compared with the catering or the hall or even the dress/shoes/car hire and so on. But how does a photographer justify up to $5000 for one day's work? Except it isn't one day's work to them.
For every hour taking photographs, there is another 3 hours editing, classifying, sorting, selecting, uploading to websites, building albums... it is worse for film photographers!
It isn't all profit, either: the taxes, maintenance costs, travel and insurance (I carry about $6,000 worth of cameras, lenses and other equipment on a wedding shoot - you bet it's insured; and so is the computer I store and edit it on) - they all eat into that fee. J
Just about every wedding happens on a Saturday, so there are only about 50 jobs per year maximum from which to earn a living. At $2500, a photographer with one assistant to pay will just about break even.
So how come there are people out there offering to do the job for under $1000? Often they are offered by part-time photographers who are not relying on their photography to earn a living: they have a "real" job. But yes, full-time pros have budget packages too.
I certainly have packages for under $1000, partly because I remember what it was like when I got married, and I don't ever want to price my services out of the reach of any couple. But I can only afford it because most people want more than the budget package, and it is the average return that determines whether I go broke or not, and besides, it generates good word-of-mouth referrals
Weddings also generate alternative income steams which let's us run "break-even" packages - for instance, when I contract a $950 wedding, my I know I can count on extra income from sales to guests; and then there are relatives who couldn't get to the wedding. Even though I give all of the opictures to the bride and groom on DVD, a lot people prefer to buy prints direct from my website - it's cheap and the couple don't have to part with their precious CDs.
The other thing I an very conscious of is that leaving the photos to the goodwill of friends might get you a record of the bits of the wedding as they went to - the service and the reception- but that is only a tiny part of your experience as a Bride or Groom. That is where the real value of a professional photography shines out.
My friends took pictures of us standing with family or friends, but there is no record of the day as a whole, and while the photos stir our memories, they can't convey our emotions and our love and sense of the day to anyone else, not even to the other participants.
When you place yourself in the hands of a Wedding Photographer they will meet with you, discuss your plans, come to understand how you see this day, and work with you to create something very special that encapsulates all that this means to you. And they will have the skill, experience, technical ability and the equipment to ensure you wedding memories last a lifetime.
When the wedding cake has been eaten, the guests have gone home, and the Gown has been put in mothballs it will be your Rings and your Photographs that stay fresh through all the years of your marriage.
And what has this to do with photography? A little: with not much cash in the household, we had to make a few ... call them "compromises"... with our wedding day.
Some things that you might expect to "have done" we simply did ourselves: Jean baked and decorated the cake; we catered the wedding ourselves, with great help from the local Salvation Army; I was still up on a ladder decorating the reception hall at 5 am on the Big Day. Couldn't afford a wedding dress or fancy suit (we married in Salvation Army Uniform "under the Flag" as Sallies like to say); and our children provided the music, songs and readings and acted as ushers.....
But one thing we could not do for ourselves was take the Wedding Photos and we sure couldn't afford a photographer.
What did we do? We told every guest who owned a camera to bring it along! Those were the days of film, of course, and it was an agonizing wait to see what - if anything - came back. We couldn't really chase people up and ask "what about our wedding photos?"
Well, we did get back some quite nice photos. We treasure them! They may be really simple pictures of family and friends standing a bit awkwardly and grinning at the camera, but they are OUR wedding pictures and they mean the world to us.
Does that mean that I would recommend the "d0-it-yourself" approach to wedding photography? Of course not; it can be done, but it is chancy and stressful.
What it does mean is that I am very conscious of two things when I photograph a wedding: the obvious one is the cost. Weddings have become very expensive undertakings, and a big part of the cost is the photography.
O.K., so it isn't a large expense compared with the catering or the hall or even the dress/shoes/car hire and so on. But how does a photographer justify up to $5000 for one day's work? Except it isn't one day's work to them.
For every hour taking photographs, there is another 3 hours editing, classifying, sorting, selecting, uploading to websites, building albums... it is worse for film photographers!
It isn't all profit, either: the taxes, maintenance costs, travel and insurance (I carry about $6,000 worth of cameras, lenses and other equipment on a wedding shoot - you bet it's insured; and so is the computer I store and edit it on) - they all eat into that fee. J
Just about every wedding happens on a Saturday, so there are only about 50 jobs per year maximum from which to earn a living. At $2500, a photographer with one assistant to pay will just about break even.
So how come there are people out there offering to do the job for under $1000? Often they are offered by part-time photographers who are not relying on their photography to earn a living: they have a "real" job. But yes, full-time pros have budget packages too.
I certainly have packages for under $1000, partly because I remember what it was like when I got married, and I don't ever want to price my services out of the reach of any couple. But I can only afford it because most people want more than the budget package, and it is the average return that determines whether I go broke or not, and besides, it generates good word-of-mouth referrals
Weddings also generate alternative income steams which let's us run "break-even" packages - for instance, when I contract a $950 wedding, my I know I can count on extra income from sales to guests; and then there are relatives who couldn't get to the wedding. Even though I give all of the opictures to the bride and groom on DVD, a lot people prefer to buy prints direct from my website - it's cheap and the couple don't have to part with their precious CDs.
The other thing I an very conscious of is that leaving the photos to the goodwill of friends might get you a record of the bits of the wedding as they went to - the service and the reception- but that is only a tiny part of your experience as a Bride or Groom. That is where the real value of a professional photography shines out.
My friends took pictures of us standing with family or friends, but there is no record of the day as a whole, and while the photos stir our memories, they can't convey our emotions and our love and sense of the day to anyone else, not even to the other participants.
When you place yourself in the hands of a Wedding Photographer they will meet with you, discuss your plans, come to understand how you see this day, and work with you to create something very special that encapsulates all that this means to you. And they will have the skill, experience, technical ability and the equipment to ensure you wedding memories last a lifetime.
When the wedding cake has been eaten, the guests have gone home, and the Gown has been put in mothballs it will be your Rings and your Photographs that stay fresh through all the years of your marriage.
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