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Index |
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Article Index
Everything You Need to
Know about Wedding Photography...but probably don't
Bruce Allen Hendricks MPA, F.Ph. - Impact Photographic
Design, Manitoba, Canada
Fabulous Feminine...
Nancy B. Alaimo - nbphotos, SW Ontario, Canada
Timing...
Nancy B. Alaimo - nbphotos, SW Ontario, Canada
Why Hire A
Professional...
Nancy B. Alaimo - nbphotos, SW Ontario, Canada
Your
Wedding Photos aren't just for You...
Nancy B. Alaimo - nbphotos, SW Ontario, Canada
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Photographer ~ Professional
Advice |
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Everything you need to know about
wedding photography…
but probably don’t.
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Besides everything else that goes into
your wedding to make it your special day, you searched high
and low to find the perfect dress -the one you had always
dreamt you would be wearing when you got married. The one
that makes you look and feel like a princess! Don’t you
deserve photographs that show how good you looked on your
wedding day? Don’t you want to look back on your wedding
and relive it just as vividly as you did on the day itself?
There are millions of wedding photographers out there…how do
you know which ones are good and more importantly - which
ones to avoid? Well, let me help you with some of the more
important things to look for, both good and bad when you are
looking for a wedding photographer. |
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Digital technology has
caused a swarm of wanna-be photographers to enter the
market. They think it’s an easy way to make a fast buck.
Unfortunately, the fact that they really don’t know what
they are doing and can easily cause a lot of problems at a
couple’s wedding is second to the fact that they want to
make some quick extra cash under the table. Just because
you like you aunt’s cooking doesn’t mean you would hire her
to cater your wedding does it? Well then why would you hire
your uncle/cousin/friend
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of a friend or you
brother’s girlfriend’s neighbour to photograph your wedding
just because they have a fancy camera and can taken pretty
vacation pictures? There is no shortage of these people who
will photograph your wedding and burn the files to a DVD for
$1500 or even less. Unfortunately, most of the time the
couples who go this route end up extremely disappointed in
the final results. Owning a fancy camera doesn’t make
someone any more of a wedding photographer then sitting on
the floor of a garage makes you a car.
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There are dozens of
little groups out there with different types of names. Some
even advertise in such as way that they imply that they are
industry leaders, or the trend setters, or whatever. All of
these groups are simply a few friends who have pulled their
marketing budgets and gave themselves a name. There is
nothing wrong with that. What I find troublesome however is
when they start to advertise in such a way as to imply that
they have had to be accepted into the “organization” or the
group is responsible for some industry standards. These
groups are not independent third party organizations that
are there for the good of the industry or as a way of the
general public to be assured of professional quality and
conduct. They only did this to make themselves sound more
professional and as if they were a recognized organization.
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| Unfortunately in a lot
of ways it’s buyer be ware now-a-days when hiring a
photographer. There are just so many unskilled,
unprofessional and unethical people out there calling
themselves professional photographers. Fortunately, there is
at least one way to avoid most of them. |
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Where to find a
good photographer:
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So how do you know you are hiring a
skilled and ethical photographer? Hire someone who is a
member of the Professional Photographers of Canada (PPOC).
Their website is www.ppoc.ca
Ask if they are a member of this particular association by
name. PPOC is a non-profit association dedicated to the
Canadian professional photographic industry. PPOC’s goal is
to help increase the quality of work its’ members produce
while making sure its members conduct themselves in a
professional and ethical manor. Photographers had to qualify
to become a member. Obviously some members are more
talented then others but all have met at least minimal
professional quality levels as well as have proven to
conduct themselves and their business dealings in an ethical
manner. Ask if the photographer has any Accreditations in
the wedding field. Accreditations are given after a
photographer has proven to be able to produce above average
professional level work in a specific field of work. These
prove a photographer has at least a solid level of
proficiency in an area of photography (in this case wedding
photography). At the other end of the scale is the title of
Master of Photographic Arts (MPA). This is an industry
degree that is earned over the course of years by (among
other things) continually demonstrating a top level of skill
and ability by consistently creating outstanding images.
Most photographers work their entire career and never
achieve this title that is given by their peers. At the
moment only 14 photographers in the province of Manitoba
have achieved this level of recognition. |
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Why are any of these
memberships, accomplishments and degrees important to you as
a bride? Simple. You don’t get a second chance to
photograph a wedding. To get the memories you deserve, you
should hire someone how has proven their skill and ability.
Weddings happen very fast and you have to react quickly to
situations that have arisen on the spot. The photographer is
very much involved with the timing and flow of your wedding
day. |
| When you have someone
who has experience in handling the stress and pressure of a
wedding day, the couple and families are much more relaxed
and can enjoy the day. Not to mention you want someone who
is skilled at making people look their absolute best in
photographs. With proper knowledge of the human body a
talented photographer can slim down people in the
photographs and make sure no one has a double chin just by
how they are photographed – among a host of other aspects to
make people look their best. After all, there is a big
difference in photographing a bride in a dress that flairs
out from the waist and a vacation snapshot. I’ve never had
a bride yet ask me to please make sure they look heavier
then they really are in their photographs. Yet if someone
doesn’t understand the nuances of photographing a bride in a
wedding dress that is exactly what will happen. |
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| What can happen
when you hire someone who photographs weddings on the side
for a fast buck? |
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About a year and a
half ago I had a couple contact me who had seen a coffee
table book I had done for another couple. They said they
had hired a photographer for what they thought was a great
deal ($1000) and that person photographed the wedding and
provided them with the digital files and copyrights. They
said the photographs where “not as good as they had wished”
and were hoping I could fix them up a little. They were in
fact some of the worst photographs I had ever seen! It was
if the person who took them had intentionally done
everything they could to damage the files. |
| When the dress is
still white, but the skin is orange…you know you got a
problem! Did I mention how the photographer bragged how
they had used to shoot fashion professionally on the West
Coast? They were lied to by someone who wanted to make a
fast buck. In the end after about 20-30 hours of computer
time we were able to salvage an OK album for them and each
of their parents. They ended up paying more to try to fix
someone else’s mistakes then if they had just hired someone
good in the first place. It’s the old adage “you get what
you pay for”. Or is it “pay me now, or pay me later”? |
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| I don’t care
about the technical stuff, just take my pictures! |
Normally I don’t talk about any
technical aspects of photography with a bride, but there are
a few exceptions. Most people are familiar with what’s
called a “jpeg” (or jpg). Most people are not familiar
however with what is called “Raw”. The basic difference is
this, a Raw file is simply all the information the camera
captured with nothing done to it. The camera basically says
“here it is… now go back to your computer and deal with it!”
where as a jpeg has been manipulated by the camera before
anyone ever sees it. A jpeg throws out information that the
camera “thinks” you don’t want to use. One major problem
with this is easily explained when it comes to wedding
photography.
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The problem is the
bright, white dress with all the detail work! The beads,
the sequins, the lace, etc. can easily be so overexposed to
the point where information being permanently lost in a jpeg
– you can be left looking like you wore a plain white bed
sheet in a lot of your wedding photographs. However with
Raw a lot of that over exposed detail can be salvaged. So
your dress ends up looking like the way you hoped it would
when you tried it on for the first time in the store.
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| Colour is
even more critical with digital photography then it was with
film. Florescent lights, incandescent bulbs, sunlight,
cloudy days, every imaginable lighting condition has a
different colour to it and drastically effects the final
photograph. The real problem comes in when you have mixed
conditions – like florescent lighting that is near a
window. When shooting jpegs you better get everything
perfect for every shot before you take it because otherwise
you are adjusting each one of them individually afterwards
and each major color adjustment really hurts the quality of
a Jpg. |
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| While with Raw you can
adjust all the colours afterwards easily without damaging
the file whatsoever. You probably started thinking right
after I mentioned the white bed sheet “why don’t all wedding
photographers photograph in Raw format?” The answer is
simple – some are lazy. Photographing in Raw is more
troublesome to them. Raw files are larger (they have more
information after all); they require processing by a
computer before you can do anything with them – a process
taking hours. A fast buck stops becoming fast when you have
to put a little effort into things. So instead of the best
possible images from your wedding, you end up with so-so
ones because you hired someone who doesn’t take pride in
their work and doesn’t want to put the effort into doing
things the proper way to insure their clients get the best
possible wedding images. |
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| Awesome album
verses just a bunch of 5x7s |
Digital technology today allows for
the most amazing albums to be able to be created! Again
however, designing an album and doing even the most basic of
artwork (what couple wants zits or shinny faces from the 33
degree heat in their photographs?) can easily take 15+ hours
of time. So it’s much easier to say “here are the
files…good luck!” Now a couple doesn’t know what to do, so
they end up getting a bunch of individual |
| prints printed
somewhere and that’s their wedding memories. The dress is
slightly green in one photograph, a little blue in another
one and a touch yellow in the next. It was a summer wedding
so the sweat is beading on everyone’s faces, and your little
brother’s acne is like a connect the dots puzzle. The wanna-be
photographer who shot the wedding for cheap and handed over
the files doesn’t care because he/she has already got their
fast buck out of the deal. So, instead of an awesome album
that makes you look like you stepped right out of a fashion
magazine, you are stuck with a bunch of iffy (at best)
pictures. |
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| Ok, so what if you
want to get a really nice album done and you have the
files? Well, somebody has to design it and do the artwork.
That’s not something anybody can do. You might have
experience playing around in Photoshop, but this is an
entirely different story. So you have to get someone else
to do it for you. Anybody even remotely decent in the
industry charges at least $40 an hour (absolute minimum) and
expect at least a 10 hour bill even from the quickest
artwork and design person. (15 years ago you paid $75/hour
for a good airbrush artist in Winnipeg) That is just for
the album design. Not even any basic artwork like getting
rid of the zits, the shine on the faces, etc. Expect double
that bill if you want an album designed with any creative
flair and artwork to make every one look their best. That
is just artwork and design time, the album itself hasn’t
been even ordered yet. A lot of the coolest looking
albums/books available today come from over seas….Italy,
Japan, Australia, New Zeeland, etc. Most of these companies
will not deal with the general public directly anyway; you
have to go though a professional photographer. But
remember, arranging all of this is your hassle, not the
person who took your wedding pictures and handed over the
files. They’ve made their quick buck and have left all the
hassle up to you. So instead of going through all this
hassle, you just end up with a bunch of 5x7s with no artwork
done on them and the colours are kinda close – sort of.
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Yes, having your wedding photographed
by a talented professional photographer and having them
produce an album for you certainly does cost more then
having your neighbour’s cousin photograph your wedding and
hand over the files... There is no denying that. You also
get a finished product and memories that are a 10,000 times
better! When money is tight people have to cut back
somewhere. But cutting back on the photography is only
cheating yourself out of your memories down the road. Is
having an open bar or a steak dinner instead of chicken
worth doing that to the two of you? What are about your
children and grandchildren? It’s also their heritage you
are taking away from them. You hear it all the time after a
disaster…. after all the people and pets are saved it’s the
photographs that people are most concerned about.
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| After the meal has
been eaten, the music stops and the hangover fades…..all you
have left of your special day are the memories. If a
skilled photographer does their job right you can relive
your wedding day on your 50th anniversary just by looking at
the album they created for you. In a year the money you
saved on your photography by hiring someone cheap will be
long spent and forgotten. Those lousy wedding photographs
will not be going away however. I’ve heard literally dozens
of women express remorse about not hiring a good
photographer for their wedding – some in tears. The couples
who show their wedding photographs but feel embarrassed
because they are not really any good always try to explain
them away by saying what a deal they got by hiring a cheap
photographer. Maybe it’s just me, but my way of thinking is
that no matter how little you paid for something you don’t
like…you still over paid. Hindsight is 20/20. It’s an old
saying, but one that remains true to this day:
“the bitterness of
poor quality remains long after the sweetness of cheap price
is forgotten.” Invest in yourself…. invest in your
memories. |
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Bruce Allen Hendricks MPA, F.Ph. -
Impact Photographic Design
Manitoba Canada |
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Ladies, this is
intended mostly for you.
Have you ever
thought about doing a bridal / fashion shoot of just
yourself before the wedding? Take this great opportunity
to create a fantastic image that will knock his socks
off. As brides, you are testing the waters to get the
perfect look for your wedding day. Take it a step
further by scheduling a photo-shoot of yourself.
There are
photographers out there that specialize in this type of
photography. Work with the photographer to create the
ultimate art portrait for yourself in a comfortable
environment. This could also be the perfect
opportunity to test out a photographer before the
wedding.
If you want to do
a boudoir type photo or a high end fashion image, you'll
need to ask your photographer if they offer these
services. It also makes a great way for both of you to
see what works best in capturing the perfect image and
if the look that you are thinking of is going to be the
look you will be happy with on your wedding day.
Nancy B. Alaimo -
nbphotos
SW Ontario, Canada
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Your wedding day
is a swirl of emotions and schedules. A professional
Wedding Photographer can help keep everything moving
relatively smoothly.
However, you need
to remember that we cannot control all things, including
time. Please ask your photographer how much time that
they think they are going to need in order to capture
the images you want. Scheduling 30 minutes for family
photos will guarantee a rush, stress, and poor image
quality. When time lines are too tight it makes for a
difficult shoot day.
There are a few
way to make a tight schedule work.
1-Ensure that all
of the people that are to be included in the photos are
at one location by the designated time.
2-Supply the
photographer with a shot-list which includes people's
names and their relation to the couple.
3-Designate a person for making sure that all the people
that are on the shot list are at the shoot site. They
could also organize family and friend in order to speed
up the "set up" process for the photos.
Choosing 1
location for all family portraits is great for
scheduling after wards. Most photographers would
request for about 2-3 hours of family photos & portrait
creation, This allows for travel time, as well as,
spontaneous ideas on the location site will still
getting you to the reception on time.
Nancy B. Alaimo -
nbphotos
SW Ontario, Canada
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Your wedding
photography is important and you deserve the best you can
afford!
A professional
photographer knows what to do on your wedding day.
If budget is your
concern there are plenty of professionals out there in
all categories of photography with a the perfect pricing
for you. In booking a professional you can rest assured
that not only will you have someone who know how to
create images of your wedding, but someone who can deal
with the hectic pace that a wedding can be. With the
whirlwind of things to do and emotions, a true
professional will help rein it all in.
The Camera
never lies, so don't just shop on budget, remember
the connection you feel with the photographer is
very important as well. This means you should start
looking for your photographer as early as possible
in order for you to meet as many as you can and go
with the right choice for yourself. Most good
photographer book up 8 months - 1 year ahead,
sometimes even 2 years.
Remember that your
Photographer is with you the entire day so make sure that
you get along and feel comfortable with her/him. No matter
how wonderful their sample photos are, if you don't "feel
it" with your photographer then your images will show it.
Some of us even end up
being your "wedding Co-ordinator", "Seamstress" "Stylist"
and sometimes "Honorary Bridal Party" member.
Nancy B. Alaimo -
nbphotos
SW Ontario, Canada
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Your wedding photos should
be a legacy that you leave to the generations that come after
you. I can remember looking back trough my parents shoe box full
of photos, their reliving and retell the stories that each photo
reminded them of. Your wedding photos serves just such a
purpose. They are there to remind you, and those that come after
you, of the wonderful day when two families joined and became
one. A true legacy.
I have always said that
after smoke clears from that fabulous wedding day all you have
left to remember it by is each other, your memories, your
wedding rings & your photos.
Nancy B. Alaimo - nbphotos
SW Ontario, Canada
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