New Locations for Wedding Photography

"Where should we go for our wedding photos?" Sounds like an easy question for a wedding photographer, and in some ways it is, but if you want to keep you pictures fresh, you really need to tailor your locations to your couples. You need to get to know them first. Thing is, it's often one of the first things they want to know, almost a test question from one of those "what to ask your wedding vendor" booklets.

I usually name a couple of possible locations, then ask if they have looked at any they like or seen any pictures they can see themselves in and try to refine (or expand) the choices from there - 

Very often though, I need to go and see. What is in the local area, how do the travel times fit in with the venues for the ceremony and the reception, and are there any booking requirements or fees involved. It isn't unusual for me to have to do this while the client is still deciding between me and another photographer, which was the case this week. As I write this, I have traveled about 100 Km and made calls to four organisations (2 councils, a university and a private garden) to find out if their venues are available on the required date, and how much they charge.

I have passed the information on to the couple, although I don't know yet if I have the job - I may well be making life easier for the competition... but on the other hand, it builds my database and I have had a very enjoyable time photographing the best of those venues. It is an absolutely beautiful public park with ancient trees, memorial gardens, shaded walkways, a military section with canon, 25 pounders and mortar launchers (my potential groom is a part-time soldier). Great character and variety and with the right aspect re the sun for the time of the post-wedding shoot.

I never consider my unpaid time scouting for venues or negotiating with the people who manage venues wasted. I always learn something of value, often make good contacts, and come away a little better prepared for that inevitable question "Where should we go for our wedding photos".

Post Script - they went a competitor who also provides video.  That's OK - I win about 70% of the jobs I quote for, and I know the photographer they chose - she will do a wonderful job for them. Now I wonder where they will go for the location photos?

Saving Your Wedding Photos After the Floods

Just two years ago I posted this note to help victims of the devastating floods manage and salvage their precious photos. It makes me very sad to repost advice like this, but Australia is what it is, so...

Australia is in flood. Much of Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales are inundated, and while the clean up has started in many towns, in others the threat is still imminent. And as ever, faced with the potential loss of all their possessions, people escape clutching their precious photographs and wedding albums.

CDs and DVDs do not do well in a flood. Layers separate, and delaminate, surfaces are pitted by contaminants in the water, and they are scratched too easily... The readable surface of DVDs have to be kept clean and scratch free, but the most vulnerable side of a disk is the label side.

That’s right - it's because the label side is closest to the reflective layer underlying the recording layer, critical to the functioning of the disk. Only a thin lacquer coating protects it. The read side, on the other hand, is protected by a thick coat of plastic designed to resist scratching and finger marks.

If you have managed to salvage you photo disks from the flood, you can clean the read (shiny) side by wiping from the center outwards with a mild soap and water solution, or a cleaning solution made for the purpose;  a lint-free cloth will usually clean off any dirt. You have to wipe gently, and from the center outwards.  Don't scrub and don't work in circles; go from the middle all the way out to the edge.

Unlike prints, you should not immerse the disks in water. There are special kits available that will repair some scratches, especially on the read side. They cost from $10 to $30 dollars at record stores, video game stores, and computer stores. They usually include cleaning solutions and a mild abrasive for polishing out scratches on the read side. 


Unfortunately, none of these help with the label side, and may make matters worse if used on the label, which is where most of the flood damage is likely to have occured. 


Apart from the proximity to the read layer, any damage to the label side makes the disk unstable, unreadable and may damage your drive if you try to use it.


If you have cleaned your disks and still can’t see your pictures, contact a specialist, because some images may be salvageable. It isn't a DIY job, but professional file retreival can sometimes get back some of the files that represent your photos. 

  

If you have prints you are in a much more secure position, especially if you have them in a traditional photo album. No matter how much photo albums appear to be damaged by mud and water, don't throw away your memories... photos can be saved!

There are slightly different steps you need to take, depending on how your photos were stored:

Method 1 is for individual  loose prints in a drawer or in the traditional shoe box:

Fill the bath or sink and put them in fresh water; keep wet until you can rinse them off one by one. Change the water frequently to dilute any chemicals in the water.  Don’t be tempted to use hot water, or even warm water - it can soften the emulsion or separate the photo from its backing paper.

As soon as you can, rinse each photo separately, taking care not to rub - you can easily remove the softened image, or at least, scratch it badly - use a sponge and clean them under the water.

Lay the prints out to dry as you go, face up on sheets of kitchen towel or butcher’s paper and allow to air dry. If you can’t do this indoors, make rure you keep them out of the sun and preferably where the wind won’t get at them: you don’t need more dirt blowing onto the drying prints and you certainly don’t want them to blow away.

Method 2 is for Matted and Dry-Mount Albums:

Fill a large container like a bath with fresh water - the more space your albums and prints have to swim, the better. Put the saturated albums or bundles of waterlogged photos into water as soon as possible. Don't let them dry out or they will stick together, which will make life harder for you.

Your pages and individual photos will gradually separate in the water over the next few hours. Don't rush it. Be patient and let the mud and rubbish float out. Resist the urge to force them apart.

Even if you have to leave them overnight, the soaking won't harm pictures printed on photographic paper, and although ink jet prints may be a bit more vulnerable, digital photo papers can also withstand prolonged soaking. Remember that "real" photos are soaked for hours in chemical baths and washed in water as part of the developmental process - all you are doing is giving them an extra bath to remove impurities added by the flood waters.

Once the photos have separated and look clean, gently wipe them with a sponge to remove any remaining grit. Do it without removing them from the water, and do it gently.

As you remove each photo from its bath, wash it again in a separate bowl of clean water. Rinse it off, then place it on folded clean paper towels or butcher’s paper (face up) and leave them to dry in a shady spot, not in direct sunlight.

In an hour or two your photos should have dried out. They will soon be ready to remount into new albums or photo frames.

Method 3 is for Slip-in Albums, “Magnetic” albums and Photo Frames:

While these albums and glass fronted frames may seem to offer more protection, the photos in them cannot dry out adequately and they will soon succumb to rot and mould; they will then be almost impossible to save.

Open the frames and remove the prints. If the frame includes a mat (the cardboard inner frame) it will probably have prevented the print from sticking to the glass - it is supposed to be attached to the print by one edge only, and should be very easy to remove; if not, leave it attached - in fact, if anything is adhering to the photo, especially the glass, place it in a bath of water along with the photo as in Method 2.

Plastic sleeves and magnetic albums (where the photo sticks to the paper and is covered by a sheet of plastic) are the most difficult to deal with. 
For the sleeves, you will need a razor blade to carefully cut away the edges of the plastic pocket. If you can’t slip the photo from the sleeve, try to remove the plastic from the back of the picture so that the clean water can penetrate and eventually loosen it from the front of the sleeve.

A magnetic album has strips of prepositionable adhesive on the page, but over time it tends to become permanent, and the plastic cover bonds with the print. It may be possible to partially lift the plastic to let the water begin to soak into the paper, but be careful not to damage the photos when you do this. If the page is thick enough, a very fine knife can be used to split the page at least part way to facilitate clean water getting into the paper.

General

While it is fine to let prints soak in clean water, the longer it takes to start the process, the less chance there is to save your photos. Placing them in large paper bags in a refrigerator can help to slow down the growth of moulds and preserve the photos until you can get to work on saving them. 

Never blow dry wedding or other precious photos, and don’t be tempted to put them in the microwave!

There are a number of generous photo labs who are offering to repair wedding, anniversary and other precious photos damaged in the Australian floods free of cost. If you need to contact one, send me an e-mail.

Giving Away the Farm

If you don't like moaners, don't read today's post, because I am going to have a whinge!


Many wedding photographers provide their clients DVDs with the image files from their wedding day - many do not, and some will supply them for a fee.


Photographers who never offer files on a disk, or who charge for the files, tend to be highly respected professionals. Men and women with really impressive reputations, amazing talent and great skill. They know something that you may not have realised - they know that you do not really care much about their skill, talent or experience  - you just want some photos!  But still, their Names - and ultimately, your satisfaction - depends on you receiving photographs prepared, printed and presented with the individual care that their reputation is built on.


They also know that it doesn't matter how hard they worked for you or good their photography is,  the photos people see on Facebook or in a packet of prints that you hand around to your friends is their best advertisement.  They don't want  a stack of 20cent prints in a department store photo album to be the measure of their skill and efforts!


A photographer whose only commitment is to provide a set of files on a disk has a different mind set. How the pictures turn out is not their concern. It is your responsibility and and they don't much care where you get them done. They work cheap, and count on low price and ignorance to keep them in business.


Of course, they will do their best to ensure you have good pictures... the trouble is, good pictures are pictures taken with an understanding of how the photos will eventually be used. The file burnt to a disk may print well for a small book, but be useless as an enlargement - good for Internet viewing but poor in a flushmount album, acceptable in a digital album, but not work in a traditional album and so on. 


Specifying "high Resolution" files doesn't actually mean anything - or rather, it means different things to different people, and I'll talk about that a bit later.


When I know that I will be managing prints, albums and so on, I have a vested interest in ensuring that the files are not only of the highest quality, but that they are in an appropriate format for the various uses to which they are going to be put. 


What is more, knowing in advance how they will be used, I can photograph each wedding with those uses in mind; I need to be sure that,  in addition to the "standard" photos that make up most wedding collections,  there will be images in the portfolio that will be ideal for each planned use.


Why isn't it enough to just be sure that all the images are high resolution (HiRes)?  Can't HIRes files be enlarged for any anticipated use... unfortunately not:  HiRes is not a meaningful term. When you ask most  burn-and-shoot photographers what they mean by HiRes, they tend to talk about how many megapixels their camera captures- but the little toy cameras in cell phones have more megapixels than some professional SLR cameras. You would never think of them as HiRes! These photographers are mixing up pixel counts with resolution and digital capture with output. It is the output resolution that counts! Without going into technical detail, it is all about the final image, not the file it came from. 


Printing presses (used for digital photo books)  and inkjet printers used for most quality prints and albums, have different requirement, but basically you need a file that can provide 300 dots of ink(dpi) for every linear inch (25mm). of your print. If your photographer has supplied you with typical jpeg files direct from the camera to the disk, they will not manage this. If he shot in RAW, and then used default settings from most conversion software, it will still not be set up for enlargements  - but pictures up to A4 will be fine - usually - and other uses will be "good enough, but a long way short of what they should be. 

I was interested to read an ad from a "professional photographer" which offered hi-resolution files for purchased on disk: up to 250 files, edited and able to be printed as large as 5"x7". To me, that does not suggest a high resolution;  a 300 dpi file could be produced easily from a 2 megapixel camera; I suspect those files have been intentionally reduced to prevent enlarging, but they are still High Resolution.

The standard printer used for pro quality albums prints at 600 dpi. I work with a company that has a one-of-a-kind 3600 dpi printer; try uploading your typical shoot-and-burn files to that and then tell me about hi-res files.


You get what you pay for - so if you pay for a disk, that is what you get; the photos on it are often just an excuse to collect a fee for the disk. . So you say "I want hi-res images on a disk and the right to print them later"  and that's what you will get, too. But since you have taken on the responsibility of preparing the files for  printing you really have no comeback when the results are second class.


I'm sorry this has turned into such a diatribe, but I was just shown a set of files on a CD and asked if I could print an album from them. Of the 350 or so files, about 150 are suitable. Isn't 150 enough for an album? A small one, anyway?  Maybe, but all the "good" slides are from the garden part of the wedding ceremony, and most of these are so similar that you couldn't use more than half of them - 19 shots of the first kiss is all very well, but it doesn't tell very much of the story of the wedding day. Add 10 quite acceptable photos of the family groups, one of the bride walking up the aisle and that's about the sum of it. Very few of the indoor shots are any better than the guests took.  I could make some nice Canvas prints and some reasonable enlargements... and they will look good on Facebook, but for an album...


I will try to restore enough of the preparation  photos and the reception shots to make an album, but it won't be quick and it won't be easy. I can't help thinking that, if the photographer had known she was going to make the album, she would have made a very different set of pictures! 

Things Every Bride Should Know

There has been a discussion running on Linkedin over several months that I'd like to share, in outline at least. HR Manager Chastity asked the Wedding Industry Professionals group members to share the one piece of advice they give a bride that no one tells them about their wedding day. 


Some of the answers were trite, some were humorous (usually intentionally) and some answers were longer than I intend this whole blog to be. But there was a lot of common sense and even wisdom in the answers, which I have tried to distill into a list that you might find useful, especially if your own Planners, DJs, Celebrants, Caterers, Photographers and others don't offer you similar little gems.


If I haven't given anyone credit for a particular piece of advice, it is because it is mine; or it is my distillation of several contributions without quite being what any one person said....


I have to add, that if some of these thoughts seem a little eccentric or even foolish, remember where they come from: people who attend maybe 50 weddings every year, year after year. Great as your mum is at planning, as organised and assured as you are about the way things will be, and as experienced as your dad, fiance and matron of honour are, even their combined experience is unlikely to come close to what any one of these people see every day: they know what mistakes to avoid, where the pitfalls are and how to avoid them. So here goes (in no particular order):

• Take a few moments between the ceremony and reception for JUST YOU TWO. Perhaps get a few pics then, but be alone for 5-10 minutes as newlyweds! (Rev. Carleen Burns)
• Practice walking wearing your dress. I have seen many brides almost fall over when stepping onto their dress (Bernd Kestler)
• It won't be perfect, but the imperfections are what makes your wedding memorable (Stephanie Thompson)
• Take a pair of comfortable shoes to the reception! (Me)
• Don't go cheap, don't be last minute. Don't have huge expectations and you will have a great day. Remember it's going to go by pretty fast...enjoy it while it lasts (Jeff Donovan)
• After the wedding, couples have bills to pay, lives to lead, and often little expendable income for wedding pictures, so photos are really not something that can easily come "after" the wedding. Also, if you've cut corners on things like time, then you may not have professional photos of some key moments because you've sent your photographers home (Dana Gieringer)
• Prioritize what you really want out of the wedding- and that includes allocating your budget. I am often faced with brides who hired me to photograph their wedding, but then afterwards could not afford the album they really wanted - after spending an equal amount (if not more) on chair covers and napkins! (David Briggs)
• Plan the wedding for you and not for what everyone else thinks you should have! (Rob Stratford)
• If you go cheap, you'll probably get cheap, and maybe even cheated (Dana Gieringer)
• Stop and live the moment - many times we are all caught up in what is next or what else wiIl have to get done. Each time you find yourself in all caught up in a moment, take a deep breath and as you let out that air smile and enjoy the moment (liza atwood)
•  Decide what's most important to you and be realistic about what that is going to cost. And for goodness sake, get a contract that spells out what you get for your money (Dana Gieringer)
• Take 5 minutes to yourselves...even if it means locking yourselves away in a toilet between the day and the evening!  (Kirsty Chesterman)
• Be sure to hire a car that will fit you AND your dress and, if possible, practice getting in and out of the car with your wedding dress (or similar) on so that you can achieve it without an embarrassing moment! Hoops are worst and most likely to put you on display in a way you never intended (Simon Ross)
• Be yourself. Don't feel like a stranger at your own wedding (Lillian Lyon).

This isn't the sum of all wisdom, not even the sum of the ideas in the discussion; but every bit of advice in this blog is something I wish I had said to at least one bride this year - 
because I have seen the results of brides "going cheap" and being let down (or worse, stood up); 
brides and grooms who couldn't fit into their vintage sports hire-cars; 
people who didn't have a written agreement and needed one; young couples starting married life in debt to pay for wedding extravagances that they said afterwards didn't add anything to their day but cost; 
lots of falls and trips on the dress - brides and bridesmaids both. 


And most of all, couple's who put so much effort into making the day meet somebody's standard of "perfection" that they never got to savor and enjoy what should have been their day. 

Have a Happy New Year, a Happy Wedding Day and a wonderful marriage!

Photo Shows of the Wedding Day

I have been corresponding with colleagues about photo slide shows, and some that I have posted elsewhere seem to have been taken down. I'll look into that later, but for those interested, there is a 30 second example posted on my Kiss the Bride page and I have added a longer one to this blog.


Feedback is great - positive or otherwise!The short video was created online with the free version of Animoto: the longer one is a ProShowGold production. Proshow is my usual editor.


How much is this like the slide shows I design for my clients? It is a simplified version, without dtp graphics and captions I usually include, and it doesn't place the photos into context like a "real" show would. What I mean by that is that, although the pictures are in chronological order, they don't link together to tell the story of the day as a full set of photos would.

The Wedding Photographer Wedding

If you were a wedding photographer, how would you feel about being approached by a wedding photographer to do their wedding? Maybe we'd have a nervous photographer instead of a nervous bride!

It's an experience I had recently, and it was fantastic. The preliminary interview and planning were constructive and fruitful: the bride knew exactly what she wanted, of course; even if she was now on the other side of the lens, Jennie was still a wedding professional, and even more so, because being confident that I understood her wishes, she was able to relax, forget about photography and just be a bride... almost: I was quite amused when she told me she would be watching how I went about the task to see what she could adapt to her wedding photography. Naturally, I told her that if she noticed me at all, her mind was in the wong place!

We had a great day, a wonderful ceremony and a great shoot at the resort near Luddenham (NSW Australia). Jennie and Ben were such a pleasure to work with, and the photographs are magical... which is just as well, because her dad is a prize-winning photographer, and her mum a very acomplished camera-woman too; people who know the difference between style and substance! Sometimes you can't afford to get it wrong.

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:

1. Read all you can, starting with the Qassia link above
2. 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
   
3. Do what any wedding photographer would do: sit down with your clients and plan the shoot with them
4. Go to the rehearsal and use it for what it is: a practice session. Not just for the Bridal Party, but for you.
5. 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
6. Go to a few presentation nights and parties: the lighting at most Receptions is dreadful, so taking photographs in similar conditions is good preparation
7. 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)

And finally, remember that it is light that makes the picture: use it to best advantage.

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.