From the the Bush to the Stamford - A Wedding Photographer's Lot

Is it still called a "Busman's Holiday" when a photographer does it? As per a previous post, Jean and I have been living in a cabin in the State Forest 300 Kms north of Sydney. There isn't any TV coverage, no access to the Internet or e-mail, and no mobile phone carrier has penetrated into this region... So you will not be reading this "live" no matter how closely you follow the blog. What does work is our cameras. The cabins have electricity (though they are prone to blackouts), so keeping our camera batteries charged while we recharge our 'life batteries' is no hassle, which is a good thing given the rate at which we go through them; and the wildlife is a treat! Wallabies and roos abound (sorry about the pun) and the possums come up demanding a feed in the evening. Tiny forest birds tease us and challenge our reflexes and the speed of our autofocus lenses (manual focus wins out most of the time), and the lyre birds enchant us with their mimicry and song. Only a week, and then it's back to Sydney and the bridal scene, starting off with a ceremony and reception at the Stamford Grand in North Ryde, which should be beautiful. Locations like the Stamford offer advantages for wedding photography with their well designed function centres, but they present some challenges, too. With everything taking place in the same building, falling behind schedule is seldom a problem, but finding the principals can sometimes be tricky: the bride and groom will be getting ready in separate rooms, but it may not be their own rooms, and they aren't sure which ones they will be in yet - that is to say, they didn't know when I left Sydney two days ago. Kylie could be "getting done" in her own suite or in her mum's room. Peter might be in his room, but perhaps he'll be with the Best Man, or even in his Mum and Dad's room getting ready... Someone suggested I should check the bar first, but we'll take that with a grain of salt! Hopefully the Stamford's wedding organiser will have a handle on where to find them all, but in any case, I will have to be there pretty early to ensure things go smoothly! It is also the first wedding for my new assistant, Daniel. Daniel showed me a nice portfolio when he asked if he could assist, and he has been nothing short of professional leading up to the day ~ I'm sure he'll do well! Hotel rooms tend to be light with relatively low-ceilings, so bounced flash works a treat even if the window light isn't adequate for good photography- the room lights are always a disaster! The rather tight spaces bring wide-angle lenses into their own, too, and the busy melee of hairdressers, make-up artists, parents, bridesmaids and attendants can yield a rich harvest of memorable images for the photographer who can get the shot without getting underfoot. Sadly, lighting for the rest of the day will be more difficult: Wedding Venues like to mix their light sources: natural window light, candle-light, incandescent bulbs and even neon - often coloured for "effect". Flash here is not usually a suitable light source because it is distracting to the bridal couple and to the celebrant; using it is just bad manners. Establishing accurate white balance in advance of the ceremony is not always possible - the lights at other times may be quite different to those during the wedding- so working in RAW and dealing with the colour balance later is usually the best option. The Reception will present similar lighting problems, but this is more like a party, and flash is acceptable at a party. Anyway, odd casts from coloured lights and strobes, even lasers, can add to the party feel . Between the Ceremony and the Party, the more personal Couples Photographs will be taken in an area which the Stamford has designed for the purpose, with tired levels and an indoor/outdoor waterfall. With only about 80 guests, we should have space enough for the group photos in this area, but providing more individuality and intimacy for the Newlyweds will be a challenge: I don't want these photos to look like an advertisement for the hotel's waterfall to prospective wedding parties!

A Little R and R

Specialising in any one area of photography means you accumulate specific gear for the job. That's great. But it also means that a range of other tools tends to be set aside. Working as a Wedding Photographer pushes fast lenses and highly portable, flexible gear to the top of my gadget bag, and other interesting things get left out... But never forgotten. This week I have taken a break from my regular schedule, and pulled some of my more neglected equipment out of mothballs. I am in the temperate rainforests 300Kms north of home photographing birds, wildlife, fungi and native flora. Here, my principal tools are my 500mm IS lens (800mm in 35mm terms), my 90mm macro and a new "O-Flash" which converts my hot-shoe flash into a ring-flash. I'm using this opportunity to get familiar with it before using it in earnest, and I have to say it's performing very well so far, adding great, shadowless light to macros and head shots. Very impressive given that it costs only about a tenth the price of a dedicated portable ring-flash. It's winter, and the rainforests have not been rainy... The days have been sunny and bright around our cabin, but cold under the shelter of the trees. There are only two cabins here, and many, many kilometres of rough, steep pathways through the woods. The managers have mapped out and named many paths, grading them for difficulty and marking their routes with little bits of pink plastic tape, so there is little chance of wandering too far off the beaten track, yet the solitude and sense of wilderness rests on everything. Many streams and small rivers penetrate the dim woods and the forest is full of sound: the streams, unseen animals and barely glimpsed birds and insects are a constant companion to our footsteps, but beyond this....silence. Outside the woods, the gravel roads are little trafficked; just the occasional farmer on his way too or from town, and twice a day, the school bus. For the rest of the day, the roads are ours. We walk them, or dive slowly down the middle of the road. Wildlife spotting. In the last few days we have seen endangered Palmers Wallabies, Black Faced Wallabies, Pademelons and Eastern Kangaroos; there are numerous wrens and thrushes of many varieties and the common currawongs, kookaburras, magpies and ibis. Every days we see white-faced and grey heron, magpie larks, superb flycatchers, and around the cabins, beautiful brown and yellow thornbills entertain us. The possums come around at night, and yesterday morning we were visited by a Satin Bowerbird. Most of our sightings have eventually been recorded, but not all as well as we might like. Those creatures not so shy that they vanish at the whirr of an autofocus motor are still hard to catch in the viewfinder, especially at dusk and near dawn, or in the dim of the forest. At the far stretch of an 800mm lens at an ISO of 1600, images of small, moving animals are sometimes less than crisp! Nevertheless, we are gaining ever greater respect for our Canon and Olympus cameras and their optics. Just by way of comparison, we have virtually abandoned the superzoom compact that came along as an alternative to the DSLRs. On paper, and under more "normal" conditions, it is a respectable camera: 20x zoom f/4 lens, 4 FPS burst rate and full manual control: it has yet to produce one acceptable image. I strongly suspect it will be finding a new home on eBay next week! Just two more days to go, and sad we will be to leave: but, on the other hand, how miserable would we be to miss Peter's and Kylie's wedding!

How Much Are You Going to Pay Your Wedding Photographer?

Writing this without it sounding like self-promotion: that's the trick!

In other blogs, I have ranted a bit about people who charge too little for their wedding photography services, and I have equated cheap prices with the the kind of photographer most likely to fail to turn up, or to cancel at the last minute. But to be fair, everyone starts somewhere, and many absolutely reputable people are willing to accept less money while they establish their businesses... even if they operate at a loss.

I don't think it's a great idea: it is very much harder to raise your prices once you have established a base-line. Most photographers get the bulk of their new business from satisfied customers, but they don't just tell their friends your name: they tell them how much it cost, too. The next person on your referral list will naturally expect a similar deal.

But how much should you expect to pay as a client? Realistically? The simplest answer is probably about 20% of your overall wedding budget. If that's all you need to know, read no further.

Of course, if you haven't got a detailed budget, or if that seems too much, think about what some recently-weds have been telling me about their experiences with photographers. Most of these comments haven't come from my own clients: friends in OZ and overseas, my own children and other photographers...we all love to talk photography, and it's all grist for the mill.

It comes down to this:

1. nobody who has been disappointed by their wedding photography ever brags about how much money they saved.
2. when the photography was cheap but poor, the person who hired the photographer is just as likely to get the blame as the photographer - and a lot of self-blaming goes on, too
3. Saving a lot of money on photos you are embarrassed to share with your friends isn't good economy: better to save the lot and hoped a guest at the wedding will take a nice photo

Whoever pretends money is not an important consideration has a lot more of it than I do, that's for sure! But paying a lot of money does not guarantees you will be happy with your photos, and doing it "on the cheap" isn't wise, either. So how do you get the balance right?

The Internet is still a good starting point but after a you have seen dozen or so they tend to blur into one another,

Look, but ignore what the owners claim about their skills, dedication, awards. Skip the "about us" pages for now (their passion and commitment and experience: it is all just words) : and don't worry about the prices just yet, unless they don't reveal their prices at all... that's a warning sign that you may finish up dealing with a salesman instead of a photographer.

Don't let yourself be influenced by a beautiful web design, either: that isn't what you are going to be paying for, and it was probably done by a professional web designer, not by the photographer.

No, just look at a few gallery pictures and at the photos scattered around the site. If they appeal to you, bookmark the site; if not, move on.

Bridal Sites and Wedding Directories are places where people like me place paid advertisments and pay extra to be featured. We are paying to catch your eye and to look good (which doesn't mean we aren't!), so be cynical! Have a look at our own sites, and do not rely too much on our ads.

To a degree, that is true of web searches: like others, I pay to be found in Google and Yahoo and Bing and Ask. Photographers with a big advertising budget are ranked higher in the searches, and of course, all those fees have to be paid by someone....

Get your short list down to about 5, then stop looking. In the meantime, whenever you talk to anyone about your wedding plans, ask them if they have heard any stories about photographers; you are sure to get a few scary stories (we humans like to tell tales of horror), but you will get some good recommendations, too. Ask to see friends' wedding albums and when you see pictures you like, get the photographer's details and follow them up. Add them to your short list.

When I was talking about this with friends, my suggestion was that you should find out how much the people whose photos you liked paid their photographers, but you know what? No-one could remember! Oh, folk remembered how much the cowboys cost, but not the good photographers.

Now you have a list of maybe 7 potential photographers and soon we can start thinking about the cost: but not just yet. Yes, you like some of the work you have seen on line, in an ad, or in someone's album; but whose work was it?

There are basically two groups of Wedding Photographers out there: freelance/sole traders and studios. If you deal with a sole trader, family business or freelancer, it is clear who took the pictures. But a studio is typically an employer or an agent for a number of photographers.

So let's say you decide to go with Fred-down-the-road Photography. You like Fred's style, you meet Fred and you trust him; he understands what you want and you come to an arrangement re fees and what he will deliver and when. Problem: if Fred is a small business, he works pretty much alone. If Fred is taken ill, who will stand in for him? We'll come to that later.

But what if you go to Grande-us-Studio? A Studio or Wedding Photography business will represent or employ a number of photographers, and the person you speak with may be one of the photographers, a receptionist or salesperson (often on commission). You need to go to some trouble to ensure that the work that attracted you to this business was the work of the photographer you meet; and that that photographer will be available and be YOUR photographer on your wedding day. A replacement photographer is usually no problem for the Studio, but who it will be is down to chance (although they should have been vetted for competence).

Sole traders may have colleagues and associates who can fill in for them at short notice if necessary, but don't take it for granted. Ask, and ask to see examples of their work. Small businesses tend to strictly limit the number of weddings they handle, so their contingency plans are simple and should be effective...but DO ask, and make sure it is spelled out in the Contract.

Studios, on the other hand, have a vested interest in multiple bookings to keep their stable of photographers working and to meet overheads. Be prepared to accept that people who have booked a popular date before you will get their more popular photographers, and later bookings will be assigned to their back-up photographers; the back-up pool is usually made up of freelancers who are also more likely to be engaged independently on popular dates, so be quite sure who will be your photographer if you go down this route. You don't want a stranger to turn up on the day!

All this supposes any (good) photographer will do. They may not. Personality, relationship, attitude... they are as important as technical ability.

The photographer will be involved with more aspects of your wedding on the day than you are: really. He will have spent time before the wedding with the bride and the groom, helped and supported the Best Man and the Bridesmaid, organised details with the Hairdresser and Make-up artist, dealt with the wedding cars and their drivers and sorted out various arrangements with the Celebrant, the Wedding Organiser and the Reception Centre. He will have travelled further on the day than most guests, travelling between the bride's the groom's the Church, the photo locations... he will have started several hours earlier than the Mother of The Bride and will still be working after the Newlyweds leave on their honeymoon.

You really want someone who wants to be there, not someone who is just going through the motions!

I seem to have drifted away from the question of price: planning for a wedding takes, what? A year, maybe? Then comes the Day: 12 hours of joy and madness and solemnity and the next day, what is left?

Memories, a ring, some gifts... the ring will endure, perhaps even be passed down to one of your children or grandchildren. But only your photographs will last as long as your marriage and continue to have meaning to your children, their grandchildren and to generations to follow.

What is that worth? In dollars and cents? Perhaps more than you budgeted for, but not by a lot. I was just looking over the caterer's account from a recent wedding: the difference between a buffet and a served meal would have fully paid for my services on the day; and the cost of the desert course would have paid for a substantial upgrade from basic photography a Black Label package: and there was wedding cake after the desert, anyway.

This particular client didn't need to upgrade (their package was quite comprehensive anyway), but if someone had to choose between great photography and giving their guests a bowl of strawberries - who would remember what they had for desert in a years time...or even care.

Why Do You Want a Hi-Res CD?

Where once a wedding photographer would take photos and deliver prints to the couple, their family and guests, the process was lengthy and sometimes frustrating. Lots of proof sheets had to be printed and circulated by hand or mail to all the interested parties.

Sometimes just one set of proofs had to be forwarded from one set of guests yto the next, along with their selection, and they all had to be returned to the studio along with payment, before the photographer would take out his precious set of negatives, print the enlargements, and forward them to everyone. Rarely did those negatives ever leave his careful storage and file system.

Would he give them away? No fear! His livlihood depended on them. Could he be persuaded to sell them to the clients? Perhaps, once the orders had all been filled. But they were the only copies, and if they were lost or damaged....

Hi-res files are not the same as negatives; they are not the only copies and once they have been burned to disk, they can be copied again and again; and unlike negatives, they require little skill and no knowledge of chemistry to produce adequate quality prints. The images can be displayed for all to see and copy through the internet, by e-mail, even over the phone.

But they are still valuable to the photographer, and many are loathe to give them away, or even sell them to their clients.

There are plenty of photographers who take the opposite position, and include Hi-Res files in their wedding packages (me included) but most clients simply do not have the technical know-how to understand what they are getting or to make better use of these files than files of a lower resolution.

But Hi-res files are not what people seem to think they are: digital negatives. Instead couples can finish up with minimally processed jpeg files that may technically be hi-res, but are not necessarily high-quality. So just what are these precious Hi-res files?

A hi-res file is a "high resolution" version of the file which represents your wedding photographs. You can't tellif they are hi-res files by looking at them on a TV or computer screen - they look pretty much the same as any other file/image. The same is true for the usual post card type prints and even enlargements until you try to print them bigger than A4: then, hi-res files should print better.

What is "resolution" and when is it "high" rather than low or medium? And how much resolution do you need to print pictures at different sizes?

Resolution is the ability of the picture to show fine detail (to "resolve" the difference between similar, adjacent points on the image). It is often expressed as dots per inch (DPI) and if you look at the picture on a computer or TV screen, 72 DPI looks great and in high definition, 96 DPI is wonderful. But great as they look, they are low-res images.

But a hi-res image will not look any better, because it is the screen's resolution that governs how the picture looks! If you get close to the screen, you'll see the dots (pixels) that make up the picture, and if you try to print a 96DPI photo bigger than a postcard size, that is what it will look like...all squares and jaggies: "pixelated". But if you use too many hi-res images, you could slow your system down to the point where it hangs.

What you intend to do with the photos determines how high the resolution should be: on your home inkjet printer, you will get a nice print from just about any .jpeg that comes off any camera up to 5x7 inches: about 1/2 an A4 sheet. Any photo taken on a digital camera with more than 6 megapixels will produce a perfectly acceptable A4 or larger image: you don't need an epecially "high resolution" to achieve nice prints at home, but take the same file to a gallery or offer it to a stock photo company to sell and they will turn up their noses at it.

For commercial printing, the standard is 300 DPI, although the kind of printer makes a difference, and so does the size you are going to print at and the surface of the print (canvas is rough and hides imperfection, gloss shows up faults more easily). You can readily save your photos at this kind of resolution (it will still be just 72 dpi on screen), and then it is the file size that determines how large you can print, not just the camera resolution (more on this later).

Resolution on the screen or the printer is not the same as your camera's resolution, expressed in Megapixels. That is the number of light sensitive cells on the sensor. All else being equal, the more cells capturing light, the greater the detail the image will have. But all things are not equal.

A cell phone with an 8 megapixel sensor is not the same as an 8 megapixel camera of any kind, let alone a pro-specication SLR!

The size of the sensor counts more than how many pixels are bonded to it and phone cameras have tiny sensors. That means they also have tiny sensors sites, crammed very close together: large pixels, spread well apart, produce cleaner, more detailed pictures.

The same thing affects cameras at each level of photography. point-and-shoot cameras are better than phone cams, 4/3 cameras are better again, DSLRs are better still, full frame DSLRs trump them, and medium format cameras leave them all in the shade. This is mainly about progressively bigger sensors.

The size of the file each camera type produces is also important. A 14 megapixel image from a compact camera like one of the "superzoom" or "bridge" camera produces a file that is much smaller and much less capable of enlargement than the image produced by an 8 megapixel DSLR, because the SLR has a physically larger sensor with larger individual pixels and more space between them (resulting in less heat and cosequently, less "noise") allowing it to capture and process more information, but also because the larger camera has more computing power on board. And a "full frame" SLR is better again. Would you want hi-res images from a compact camera or medium res images from an SLR? No contest: take the SLR!

The sensitivity setting, light levels, sharpening, kind of sensor, and the type and quality of the lens all have their influence, too, so that a high quality 10 megapixel camera with a profesional lens (think Leica, for instance) will deliver far greater image detail than a 14 megapixel consumer level camera.

I have a 4 megapixel camera which prints beautiful, detailed A3 sized prints, and a 12 megapixel camera which struggles to make an acceptable A4 print - 3x the megapixels, 1/2 the print size. When I save the files, the better image registers as a lower-res file.

There is more to it than megapixels and resolving power.

The photographer who offers a cheap Wedding Package in which all images are delivered as "Hi-res images on CD" is either giving you very few pictures (say 150 or so) or his definition of Hi-res is misleading. Why? Because hi-res images of real quality are very large. Typically, I need 2 DVDs (not CDs) to deliver the files from a wedding shoot.

There are more important questions to ask about the photos delivered on disk than the resolution. How much editing will the photographer do, and will all the files be fully edited and prepared for printing, or only a selection?

Many photographers have embraced the low-cost "Shoot and Burn" approach because it saves them time and effort. They take the photos, do a quick review to eliminate any obviously poor pictures, and burn everything to disk. They have already been paid, and met their contract obligations to supply everything on disk, so they have no further interest in the job.

If you take the pics off to a mini-lab and get back prints you are unhappy with, or buy a budget department store or on-line photobook and and disappointed with the pictures, that's not his concern. Not in the way it would have been if he had to ensure that the finished product was of professional standard. That relies on the original images being professionally prepared.

It is worthwhile asking if the images will shot as jpeg or RAW files. Both can produce nice results, but in shooting RAW the photographer has committed to work with the highest quality images their equipment can produce: it is an investment in time and a promise to only deliver a top quality product to you at the end of the day.

Why is this? Because you cannot display or print RAW files directly; they have to be processed first, and that means every image will occupy the photographer's attention after the shoot.

The technical bit: RAW files preserve all of the colours, tones and shades originally captured by the camera ~ A 12 bit RAW file gives 4096 levels of information for every pixel; an 8 bit JPEG has 256. Think 16,000,000 colours vs 64,000.

Working in RAW lets you adjust and balance and compensate for the conditions and effects you want so much more - at the end of the day, the photographer will have to convert to jpegs for the client, but those jpeg files will be as close to perfect as they can be. And no matter what else happens, the RAW images will still be there, unchanged.

One final point about Hi-res files: I mentioned already that high quality files are BIG. One reason for using .jpeg files is that they take up less space than other image files. They do this by compressing the data that represents your photographs. That's good; but the method they use to compress the files discards some information, which is bad. Starting when you press the shutter button, and every time the file is saved from then on, the jpeg system compresses the file again, discarding more information each time, and that is bad, too: eventually, the file can become visibly corrupted.

There are various levels of compression possible with jpegs, which allows you to do things like put them on line or send them in an e-mail without using up all your drive space or band-width, which is good, but every time you resend, you compress more, which is.... well, you get it.

My point is, forget worrying about getting hi-res images: if you are going to get your photos on a disk from a competent wedding photographer, they will be of sufficiently quality for the purposes you discuss with him; but it is worthwhile to ask him to give you files that have been processed from RAW and have minimal compression applied; and ask whether she will keep back-up files for you; and if so for how long, and if there will be a charge for a new set of images on disk.

Just What Does a Wedding Photographer Do?

Well, obviously, we take photos at weddings! But recently I have commented that you can't do this as a business for less than about $1000 per wedding, and that has led people to ask.... Why not? Once you own a camera, what does it cost to press the shutter button? Digital cameras don't use film, and if the newlyweds are satisfied to get their photos on a disk, there isn't any cost involved in printing and a CD costs just a few cents. Surely it is all profit! Well, not quite. Without thinking about the cost of the equipment and the insurance, there is the cost of getting to and from the wedding, travelling to meet the bride and groom prior to the wedding and getting back to the studio afterwards... On average I will travel 300K for a wedding... Not to get there mind, but to and from my office to the couples' home, to and from the Church or other venue, and between the venue, the location for the personal photos, and on to the reception. That's fuel and wear and tear on the cars and all the other costs no-one generally associates with photography. Taxation has to be paid, and so does the cost of advertising and promoting in a very competitive market and it all adds to the cost of the photographs. But that doesn't answer the question, "what do you actually do?" So here is a rundown of an actual wedding shoot, a fairly typical one: After several phone conversations with a prospective client, a meeting is arranged at the home of the Mother of the Bride, about 45 minutes from my home. The Bride, Groom and Bride's mother are present. It is 8:00 PM. We spend an hour talking about their plans, getting some insight into the kind of wedding they are planning , what it means to them, and learning about the bridal party and the part they will play on the day. We talk about where and how they will get ready and the kind of pictures they want: Julie has seen some pictures in a bridal magazine that she likes - can we do some like that? After looking at the photos with her and finding out a bit about what she and her bridesmaids are going to wear, it becomes obvious that those photos are just not going to be possible if she gets ready at home (no space, and problems with light); but if she were to get dressed at her mum’s place, it would be a lot easier, and we decide to do that. We talk about their wedding cars, flowers and the Reception centre and make sure about times, addresses and so on. We look through some albums on my laptop, and use them as a starting point for working out the style and locations for Julie and Bob’s private session; it can't take place after the Ceremony because of the way the Reception Hall has been booked, so we organise to take their private photos while their guests are finishing their meals, just before the speeches, and I undertake to scout appropriate locations for them in advance. Bob decides that a traditional album is never going to survive in the house with their two rowdy kids (from a previous marriage) but he likes the modern Photobook concept, and they opt for that and a single framed photo - they know they will have all their pictures delivered on a DVD to print later if they wish. We finalise the details, and complete a wedding agreement that secures the day for them and details all the arrangements we have discussed. Back home by 10:00 and all the contract details are entered into my database and diary while they are fresh in my mind. One week later, I call up to confirm the details - it is surprising how often people think of something they meant to ask after I have gone home! Over the next couple of weeks, I will contact the Minister, Priest or Celebrant to introduce myself and ensure that I know about any special requirements they have: there are pastors don't allow cameras in some parts of the Church, for instance, and a respectful attitude and reasonable approach well in advance if far better than being informed about it at the start of the Ceremony! Well before the day, I visit the wedding venue, assess the lighting, look for photo locations and make myself known to people like the Wedding or Events Manager. Once that is done I can nominate an Assistant for the day and brief him or her. I also contact locations and book venues when necessary... the bookinbg fees can be quite high (Parramatta Park charges up to $270, and parts of the Sydney Botanic Gardens can be twice that for a couple of hours access), but if you don't book, the party misses out, so I do it on their behalf well in advance. Two weeks before the Big Day, a deposit is due, so a reminder goes 3 weeks in advance (I don't require the balance until the photos are ready to deliver). It’s the day before the Big Event! Time to clean and check the kit, charge all the batteries, make sure the memory cards are formatted and that both the laptop and the portable image-bank are fully charged: throughout the day I will be backing up my cards to the image-bank and to the laptop. On the day I will be at the groom’s place quite early, take some photos, introduce my assistant (and meet the Best Man and Groomsmen if I haven't already done so); I will often leave my Assistant with the Men when I move on to the Bride’s place (I will also have my wife, a key member of the photo team with me); I will take a series of informal snaps and posed pictures featuring the girls’ preparations, the dress and shoes (very important!). This is usually where I will take the best pictures of the cars as they wait for the bridal party to be ready. Half an hour before the bride leaves for the wedding, we are off to the venue to record the the guests arriving, the decorations, and the nervous groom waiting for his bride. Her arrival and the reactions when he first sees her are wonderful moments in the day, and I will go on the record the ceremony in intimate detail: my assistants will capture the wedding guests and their reactions while I concentrate on the Bride, Groom and their attendants, with special attention to the vows and exchange of rings. The first kiss, signing the Register and the presentation of the Man and Wife is easy to capture (despite typically appalling lighting!) but then you have to scoot out of the church to catch the newlyweds as they leave: usually my Assistant will leave before the wedding party and be ready as they emerge. Now it get hard: people are milling about, everyone wants to greet the newlyweds, and the bridal party gets separated... and then you have to gather them all together into some sort of order to take the group photos everyone expects, but that nobody wants to be organised for! So out comes the megaphone and the ladder (well, I don’t really have a megaphone, but the step ladder is real) and we somehow make sure everyone is included and nobody blinks, and then steal the Husband and Wife away from the crowd of well-wishers to head out for a photographer’s delight: a loving couple, a beautiful setting and my camera. And even if they usually hate to have their photos taken, suddenly we have the ingredients for true magic! I love this time, and when we get to chat about the day over the photos, I find it was just as wonderful for them as it is for me. It turns out that being directed by someone who knows what they want and how to achieve it is great fun for our new celebs. Back to the Reception and a quick tidy up, fix the make-up and I am ready to capture the Grand Entrance. My team and I are going to spend the next few hours virtually invisible as we capture the guests, the speeches and people reactions to what is said and done: the Cutting f the Cake; the First Dance; Throwing the Bouquet and later, the Garter - we will be there until the newlyweds are fare-welled and leave for their honeymoon. During the brief wait while the bride fixes the hair and dress that got a bit messed up while she was “modelling”, my assistant is setting up a portable studio, with backgrounds, studio-type lighting and a tripod mounted camera. Guests who want a special memento with the bride and groom (or just to have a family photo) can slip away from the reception for a few minutes and have a mini-studio session. It is always a popular service. Midnight: and it is home to back up all the files to an external drive (that’s 3 copies now) and uploaded to a secure online storage site. Even if the house burns down, not a file will be lost! Next day I will start looking at the pictures: just to do a first scan is going to take about 5 hours (3000 images, 1 minute per image...) and then I will start the process of colour balancing/correcting the best 1500 or so. No matter how carefully we work, many will need correction: red-eye will have to be found and eliminated; unflattering angles and lighting attended to; leaning horizons and converging verticals and lens distortion will be present in some shots and decisions will have to be made re correcting or discarding “nearly-great” shots. Next come the more detailed work: skin tones, blemishes cropping for composition or impact, merging images into composite scenes, making decisions about saturation and sharpness and setting aside images for special treatment like mono and sepia effects... for every hour spent shooting I allow 3 hours editing. Now the images are prepared for upload to the web gallery: mostly an automated task, but if you leave it to its own devices, the server will hurt you! So you have to monitor it while you clean your gear, recharge the batteries and clear your cards. Not finished yet, of course. The best of the best will be set aside for canvas and framed prints and photobooks; a representative set will be organised for a multimedia DVD program, and special favourites earmarked for promotional brochures. Within 2 weeks of the wedding, the photos will be burnt to disk and uploaded to the web. I will contact the couple (if they are back from their honeymoon!), let them know their pictures are ready, and send them the details for payment (usually by bank transfer or BPay - I don’t like to handle cash or cheques if I can avoid it). Once they have had a chance to look over their pictures and select those for their album, photobooks, prints etc. I will spend a couple of days on the layout and design for the book(s) before uploading the designs to my Publishing House. Ten days later they will be ready to deliver, but they won't go out until I have gone over them carefully and approved them... There will be some residual business - people ordering from the website, follow-up orders from the newlyweds and their families - but largely, this wedding is complete... and THAT is what a wedding photographer does!

Trust and Wedding Photography

Generally, I won't accept more than one wedding contract on any weekend; this week I agreed to shoot one wedding on a Friday, and a second on the Sunday of the same weekend. Neither are high-end contracts, and it isn't about reputations - The parties are not celebrities or even well known; and it isn't a favour to a friend, either: they found me on the Internet.

So if it sn't for love, fame or fortune, why put yourself under this sort of pressure? My wife says the answer is simple: I must be mad! She is probably right.

What happened is this: on Tuesday I was shooting an event in Cabramatta when I got a call from a distraught lady... " I found you on the Internet: can you do my wedding in October?"

'October? That's pretty soon!'

"I know, but my wedding photographer has just cancelled ; he said he made a double booking and sent back the money."

So I checked my schedule, talked it over with my wife and called her back that evening to accept the job.

When a wedding photographer lets down their clients it isn't just bad for their reputation, it is bad for the reputation of every good photographer.

And it is wrong! OK, it is possible that unforeseen circumstances could arise - sickness or personal tragedy; an accident or a fire the destroys your cameras - maybe there is a reason you really cannot fulfil your obligation; but does that mean you can just cancel a contract?

Maybe (I want to say "no", but legally its depends on how the contract was worded) ... but does that make it all right to leave your clients in the lurch? Of course not!

You should never put the onus for finding a replacement on your clients! You should find an alternative professional. and if they charge more, YOU should pay the difference. That's ethical and reasonable: this character just said 'sorry' and sent back the money. Not good enough!

But I wouldn't be much better If I just complained about the other person's lack of ethics and did nothing practical: so I took the contract.

It isn't the first case like this I've come across recently, and they were all low-cost affairs: $400 to $600. That is too cheap to sustain a professional studio, it is the province of the week-end snapper and the part-timer earning a few dollars on the side.

Done properly, it costs more than this to provide a decent service. Break-even for a small operation without promotion costs and basic overheads is about $800, and I cant help being suspicious that the clients got dropped because the photographer found a more lucrative job. Even a couple of tickets to a big game might be enough of a temptation for a part time snapper to get out of the job that has no real profit margin in it.

That's the hidden danger in taking the cheapest price; not only are taking a big chance on quality, but you may find yourself hunting for a replacement photographer at the last minute, and having to pay whatever they ask; not that a reputable professional is going to take advantage of your situation, but with good photographers typically accepting booking 6 to 18 months out from the wedding, your choices may be quite limited.

There is a growing trend towards "Shoot-and-Burn" wedding photography. If that is your photographer's typical or preferred approach, then be careful. Shoot-and-Burn is about cheap, not about quality. It is not about service.

If the photographer never has to commit images to anything but a CD, the time savings are enormous. You can get away with never having to work on a single image after the shoot.

Few clients understand the technical qualities that determine how the images on their disk should reproduce, or what processing they require. By the time they actually get to see their photos it is too late. The photographer has accepted the fee, and has no further commitment or responsibility to the images or to the client. The client has a set of JPEG files; the RAW files from which they were produced are gone: actually most Shoot-and-Burners don't even bother to shoot RAW; the time and skill involved in converting these professional files into jpegs is just one more step to avoid, and one more "efficiency" they can apply.

A digital image straight from the camera is not ready to print. No professional truly proud of their work would ever allow these to be seen even as proofs until they had been colour corrected, sharpened and spotted at the very least. Only selected images ever make it through the editing process to the point of being presented to a client.

Every week I have someone tell me about how their 'cousin was so upset' by the quality of their wedding photos, and again and again, they were shoot-and-burn weddings. And every week I am asked to photograph a wedding and supply "just the CD". Will I do it? Sometimes: but only after I have spent enough time with the couple to ensure that they understand the options and choices they have. But not happily, and not often, and never for the kind of prices the typical shoot-and-burners offer.

At the budget end of the wedding market, photographers who care about their work and about their clients will always lose a few weddings to unsustainably cheap contracts, but not many; the quality and value offered by true pros more than offsets the higher prices they ask.

A realistic budget for an "economy" package is between $1000 and $3000; the high end of the market starts around $5000-$8000. Neither of these markets seems to have suffered much in the recession. The intermediate photo market ($3000-$6000) may have been effected more, with people looking very carefully at the value-for-money aspects of their packages, but it remains strong.

I am not sure, but I suspect the Shoot-and-Burn brigade are marketing to people who would not have considered hiring a photographer in the past; unfortunately, it may ruin their attitudes towards the legitimate professional for many years to come.

Towards an Affordable Wedding

It's a reality: weddings have become a very expensive approach to married life. A budget wedding is certainly possible, but with the average Australian wedding costing $30,000, even budget doesn't necessarily mean cheap.

When it comes to the budget, just where does the photographer fall in the list of priorities? In a sense, the photographer isn't part of the wedding at all; he is just there to record what happens.

A good photographer will do much more than that, of course: he will share the entire day with you, as intimately as your Bridesmaid and Best Man. He will help you create some of the most personal and lasting of those memories, especially during those moments when the Newlywed slip away from everyone else with their photographer. Often that is the first time they will have had to relax and draw breath in the whole, frantic day... which is why it often produces such wonderful images.

As weddings have grown in cost, wedding photography has actually become more affordable. Digital technology has helped, but so has our attitude towards what is "essential": the Wedding Planner, as a paid professional, was unknown a decade ago; the Cake has beome increasingly elaborate and expensive; the Reception has gone from a small gathering of friends at home, to a fully catered fiest at an International Resort. The cost of photography has actually gone down in proportion to the cost of the wedding.

Yes, there is plenty of scope in all this to trim back on expenses, and hundreds of advisors who can suggest how to make a wedding affordable. But apart from cutting down on the time your photographer spends at the wedding, how can you manage the photography costs better?

Here are some common suggestions:

1. Look for a photographer in close to the venue (or one who does not charge for travelling time).

Time is the big cost for the photographer, and for every hour taking photos, he will typically spend another 3 to 4 hours editing and preparing your final photos

2. Consider getting all your images on disk instead of in prints or albums.

Many photographers will not be willing to allow you to keep the picture files, but for those who do

may save you some money in the short term. Printing your photos later will cost you more even if you use a cheap, depatment store printing service and important work like spotting, colour balancing and correction will be lost... but it takes the pressure off until the bank balance recovers a bit.

But beware: many couples never get around to printing more than a couple of photos, never make up an album, and share hardly any of their memories with their family. It's just something about human nature, I guess.

3. Get family and friends to take the photos.

I did it (see my blog of June 7 2009) but it is second best; maybe a student photographer would be willing to have go for the experience or to build a portfolio.

Another approach is to ask friends and family for a Photo Gift Certificate: treat it like the Gift Register at the store, by putting it on your wish list. Instead of (another) toaster, the Gift Certificate can go towards to cost of your wedding photography.

I offer this service from $55 up to the full cost of the Wedding, and I am sure others must have similar schemes.

It is a particularly good idea for loved ones who cannot get to the wedding and who may never see the towels or dinnerware they oredered on-line from your catalogue.

When the gift they contribute towards is your wedding photography, it will last a lifetime, and they can share in it with you. And if you happen to choose another photographer, the voucher can still be used to turn a "prints on CD-only" service into an album, some framed prints or whatever you hoped you would be able to do later.

Practicaps Weddings can take your CD, no matter who took the pictures, and apply the voucher value to them... or you could save it up for a Christening or Anniversary picture.