- This topic is empty.
wedding album help!
-
hi last week while on holidays i recieved a call from a woman who wants me to take photo’s of her wedding. thats fine even though it will be my first i’m up for the challange we agreed i’d cover the whole thing and burn the pics she picked to disk because she wanted to keep the cost down which suited me fine so i told her i’d give her a price this sat but this evening she rang me and said she and her husband decided they would like an album (aagghh)what the hell do i do!! where can i get an album done can i send my pics i take somewhere! any ideas!
i could help you, i could print and mount in an album for you
or the other option would be to do a photobook,
thanks very much steve but i dont think it would be worth it for you because their on a budget and because its my first wedding i am not in a position to charge much but please send me info on what you can do. what kind of album and price ect
Photobooks are a good option, most suppliers have an online design service that makes it very quick and easy to do the complete layout with basic tools.
One thing that strikes me though is that it seems like a casual arrangement that is slowly turning a bit more formal in the clients eyes. I hope I dont sound preachy or patronising but I just shot my first wedding two weeks ago as the sole photographer, and I’m just wondering do you truly know what you’re in for! I have been seriously preparing since January for this wedding but didn’t go in with any practical experience as the main photographer. I had been to loads of weddings recently, am competent with a camera and got lots of nice comments on the shots I got. I thought I was at least 3/4 way there! You should be fully clear of two things if you go ahead with this: A. Taking pictures at friends/family weddings as a guest is no preparation at all, close to zero value. B. Knowing how to take decent pictures with your camera is only the most basic skill you need (ie. agreeing to take on a wedding because you can take good pictures is like going into telesales because you can use a telephone).
There are three things at play at the moment that are probably leading to lots of very unhappy couples and would-be photographers after a wedding, one is that most people are short of cash and want to trim the corners, two digtial slrs are cheap and becoming the norm and three, reportage style photography trends give the impression that unposed fly-on-the-wall photography works just fine at a wedding and anyone with a good eye can hang around in the shadows and get a wedding album full of great shots.
Being the main photographer at a wedding involves a huge range of skills of which taking a sharp, well exposed and expertly composed photo is just taken for granted and so doesn’t appear on the list at all.
You need to have excellent organisational skills to keep the day flowing, anticipate every event, keep track of wandering relatives (you do not want to leave someone important out of the formal or informal groups, even if it’s some obscure aunt that they didn’t know was alive until they made up the invite list, do this and no matter how great your other pics are your name will forever be dirt to both families). Others will expect you to know the exact order of events so expect priests and hotel staff to stand looking at you like you’re an alien if they are waiting for you to arrange the next shot they would expect a photographer to want. Keep a list of every person in every group shot and have a list of arrangements and posing ideas in case your mind goes blank (this happened me totally unexpectedly and was not pleasant, luckily had my list in my back pocket to review just in time).
You need to know good posing for women, men, couples and groups like the front, back and sides of both hands. You will have very little time to get the centre-piece photos of the couple and individual portraits and you must be relaxed, level headed and in complete control or your clients will look like confused schoolboys that just got caught shoplifting. People freeze when a camera is pointed at them, you need to undo that first. They must look relaxed, happy and posed in a flattering way from head to toe. You need to know how to animate the couple and get the best, most natural expressions. And this doesn’t even take into account lighting considerations, that’s the next skill.
You need to know how to find or create great lighting no matter what the weather, indoors and out. Having a TTL flash on-camera doesn’t count! Know where to find shade on clear sunny days (a nightmare for portraiture) and elegant backgrounds indoors when it rains, dont appear to dither on the day or you will lose their respect and attention very rapidly, they would much prefer to be drinking with their mates than aimlessly wandering around.
You need excellent people skills, you need people to listen when making requests and take you seriously while you at all times appear in a fun, relaxed mood. You may need to negotiate with a priest or a venue to get the best locations for shots or to use props/lights/access routes etc. You wont generally have time for these kinds of issues so you have to sort them quickly and not offend either the clients, guests or other service providers (it will always get back if you’re rude to anyone on the day). You also need to tear a lot of people away from their drinks in the middle of the gossip-fest between the ceremony and meal, this can be a long, painful process if you haven’t arranged for people in the wedding party to round up specific groups of people. There’s no room for delays and lack of initiative here, most people hate this part of the day and you need to make it very quick and painless. Do not have the bride and groom standing among a group of grumbling relatives checking their watches and huffing and puffing because no-one can find deaf uncle Josie and his mobile is switched off, this will make them anxious and tense, thereby ruining the romantic couple photos you had planned.
Bear in mind that most couples ideas of what they want from their wedding album can change rapidly leading up to the day and even after it! They may not have considered that their parents will want formal group shots of relatives that have travelled far or are rarely together. You dont want to discover this on the day. They probably don’t realise that the ‘unposed’ photos they see in magazines and websites are really heavily posed by a master photographer who can achieve natural expressions and posture with a few well rehearsed instructions and banter.
I’d advise some serious forward planning and definitely some experience as a second photographer for at least a few months, failing that buy some good books and DVD’s on wedding photography (I found the books were great for ideas for shots but seeing a wedding in action on DVD is a real eye-opener and a serious wake-up call!).
I don’t mean to put you off your ambitions, you could be a complete natural :) I do think though that it’s a far, far tougher job than most people realise and involves lots of clear thinking under stress and an ability to take the unexpected in your stride so I think you should go in with your eyes open and it may work out very well for you.
Good luck!
Marvellous advice Cian and I compleately agree with you.
Your in-depth advice is a credit to you and if only more
people were as honest as you were here, peoples perception
of wedding photography might be a lot different from what they
actually think its like…well done on the best answer I have seen
for ages on PI.Noel Browne.
wow cian that advice is second to none its like you’ve been doing weddings for years and its a credit to you. i have read all the points and understood them very well and have no experience to date in weddings but thats not to say i havn’t been working up to this day for some time now i know it’s what i want to do with my life and am fully committed. i have read numerous books and took down important detail so i have a list already done in case i get stuck and am not to bad at arranging people and had planned to find some local photographer to tag along with for at least a couple of weddings before diving straight in but this one came out of the blue and even though i’m nervous of the wedding its the album i dont have a clue about could you recomend a good photo book!
I’d be starting to get a bit nervous at this stage. Their conditions and requirements are changing as the date gets closer and I would be concerned that they are adding to the specifications on a gradual basis and all of a sudden you are in a bind. I’d listen very carefully to what Ken (CianMcLiam) said above. Absolute familiarity with your equipment is paramount and a given and no matter what you might think of the bridal party expectations and the agreement you have in place now, as the date gets closer it will be more difficult to get out of it no matter what changes are made by the party. You will find that requests are not actually that, they are demands in disguise.
Bridal expectations are based on what they have read in glossy magazines, TV programmes, and their friends album done by Joe Bloggs who has an exclusive studio and charged €2500. This is their benchmark by which all others are judged, even if on a budget wedding, so I would be very cautious.
As Steve recommended above, a photobook can work very well and you could get one done at blurb.com for a very reasonable price, but it’s not a professional product. You then have places like GraphisStudio in Italy who will do a professional job and charge you accordingly, but they are good. There are several Irish companies that are now doing it and I have seen work by http://www.imagestudiolabs.ie in New Ross and it looked good.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
