Author Archive for Milton Gan – Page 2

Tying The Knot: Raiders Of The Lost CD

By Milton Gan
Wednesday, June 1st, 2011

1981. I was 9 years old and already developing a thing for leather and whips.

Not like that obviously. I had no idea what puberty was let alone a fetish! No, it was the year that Raiders Of The Lost Ark opened and in doing so created a generation of wannabe whip-cracking, gun-toting, adventure-seeking archaeology professors!

One of the most powerful scenes for me was the final one. You know it – the one where the old man wheels the crated Ark on a trolley through a warehouse the size of Texas to be buried down a non-descript aisle amongst thousands of other similar generic crates, presumably never to be seen again.

Sound familiar? Well it’s pretty much what happens every time I need to store a CD somewhere in my apartment!

But CDs are still popular amongst brides and near the top of a typical want list from a package.

Of course there’s nothing wrong with issuing a disc of images if it’s part of the package or an added extra. I do believe in promoting albums and books as the best way to showcase the best images of the day, but neither will hold the number of decent photos you should be taking. So a CD has become standard issue whether you like it or not.

In addition to being a storage medium, CDs are also wanted for security. It’s nice to know the disc is near you if you need it, right? Unless you live in my place of course!

But times have changed and there’s an education job to be done. Read More→

Categories : Make Better Photographs, Wedding Photography
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Tying The Knot: How A Promo Turned Sushi Into Big Fish

By Milton Gan
Wednesday, May 18th, 2011

Imagine a world where one wedding just isn’t enough for a bride. She loves them so much that she just wants to get married every weekend! Who cares who the groom is?! She just wants to relive that amazing day over and over again, and of course have you photograph each and every one!

Ok, time to wake up! Unfortunately we don’t live in that world and instead we face the reality that wedding photography is a hard business. Not just because of the scale of the event, or the long hours of shooting and editing, or the knowledge and skill required, but because you always need a constant flow of new customers.

Unlike other genres of photography, wedding photographers can’t rely on regular customers or repeat business as brides only get married once. Ideally!

Of course weddings inevitably yield baby and family portraits which you’ll be only too happy to shoot. But if weddings are what you want to focus on then how do you keep the momentum going and keep the portfolio building? And where exactly is that new business going to come from?

If you’re like me your first experience as a wedding photographer was second shooting at a friend’s wedding. That was a great start, but you only have so many friends and, inconveniently for you, they’re not all about to get married!

The solution is to grow your potential client base but that’s not an easy task either. With little wedding experience why would brides come running to you? Time to think smart. Read More→

Categories : Make Better Photographs, Wedding Photography
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Tying The Knot: Harry Potter And The Virtuous Circle Of Weddings

By Milton Gan
Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

Harry Potter’s annoying isn’t he? One minute he’s a wimpy kid who lives in a closet, then a fancy wand and a few games of Quidditch later and he’s the most powerful boy wizard ever! How did he get that gig?! And every year amazing things just happen; like epic battles with He Who Sounds Like Vol-Au-Vent!

If only it was just as easy to become a professional wedding photographer, right?! Why can’t you equip yourself with a decent camera, do a few shoots and then have weddings just magically come looking for you?

Well the good news is that it can and does happen. Because it happened to me. So allow me to tell you the story of my first wedding and a certain someone called Harry!

I was in the classic Catch 22 situation: aching to shoot a wedding but lacking any previous experience and with no idea when I was going to get my first taste! However, I knew when the chance came I would be ready. In a previous post I mentioned how I spent a couple of years prior to this point learning and practising four main genres of photography, knowing that they would prepare me to be a very competent second shooter. Well now I wanted to put my theory to the test!

My lucky break came through my day job. I work in a large advertising agency which is populated with young, cool, creative types and I had established myself as the company’s most passionate amateur photographer (read: I talked about my photography at every opportunity!), so it was really just a matter of time until an opportunity came my way. And it came in the form of my female co-worker and fellow camera enthusiast Harry. Harry was a couple of months away from marrying Sam at an outdoor ceremony up at Freshwater, one of Sydney’s pretty northern beaches. She had been a fan of my work for some time and invited me along as a second shooter so I could gain some invaluable experience and kickstart my wedding portfolio. Read More→

Categories : Make Better Photographs, Wedding Photography
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Tying The Knot: Knowing Your Style And How Bruce Lee Would Define Mine

By Milton Gan
Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

“My style? You can call it the art of fighting without fighting”. Cool huh? That was how one of my movie idols Bruce Lee very eloquently described his style of martial arts in Enter The Dragon.

Alas I can’t describe my style of wedding photography quite as philosophically. Call me pessimistic but I don’t think “The art of wedding photography without wedding photography” is likely to win me much business!

But as we know, having a style is crucially important. As photographers it helps us to define who we are, what we stand for, and what drives us. And it helps our clients to identify and differentiate us from other photographers. So knowing your style is a fundamental building block for your new wedding photography business and it’s certainly something that I’m refining all the time as an emerging pro.

But how do you know what your style is? Is it the way you visualise, shoot and edit? Or do you go down the Bruce Lee path and consider what you don’t do as much as what you’re good at? Or is it a combination of all of the above? And if you think you know what your style is, how defined is it?

Try writing it down. Just three words will do. Oh you’re struggling? Tricky isn’t it?! Well fortunately if you want to be a wedding photographer you have three starting points already set up for you.

Brides inevitably turn to wedding magazines or websites for tips, advice and research. After all, it’s their first time being a bride (well, for most of them anyway!). Plus it’s quite possibly the first time they’ve had to hire a professional photographer and so their level of knowledge of photographic jargon is likely to be pretty low. Therefore photography advice sections of these resources aim to make things simple and so they generally use three terms to describe the main styles of wedding photography brides should consider: photojournalistic, traditional, and contemporary (or words to those effects). Consequently these are the terms that your clients are likely to search for or enquire about when they contact you, and hence you should strongly consider aligning yourself with one of these styles to match their requirements. Read More→

Categories : Make Better Photographs, Wedding Photography
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Tying The Knot: The Fantastic Four Superhero Lenses For Weddings

By Milton Gan
Wednesday, April 6th, 2011

One of my favorite pub debates with the boys is the classic “if you could have one superpower, what would it be?”. I’ve also tried this on first dates but the conversation never lasts very long (and nor do the dates for some reason…).

However, after hours of exhaustive analysis and comparisons, what always seems clear is that it’s better to have one kick-ass superpower than multiple skills. After all, who really likes Superman right?! And a collection of superheroes each with unique skills, such as the Fantastic Four, is pretty much invincible!

Anyway, back to wedding photography and it’s a similar story with lens selection. I outlined in a previous post how wedding photography requires knowledge of a number of photographic genres e.g. portrait, macro, landscape. Well, for each of those genres there are specific types of lenses which will help you to get the best results, and at a deeper level there are then usually choices between primes and telephotos. That’s a massive discussion point in itself, but for now it’s important to remember that shooting a wedding is not the same as shooting in a studio. I LOVE super fast prime lenses but I need to be practical about how many lenses I can carry around so I don’t turn up to a wedding looking like a lost safari photographer!

My current solution is a set of 4 lenses comprising two primes and two telephotos. It took me about a year of intense research, trial and deliberation to assemble this Fantastic Four as I wanted to ensure that any lens I invested (a not insignificant amount of $$) in would have a specific mission and deliver a particular type of shot that complements my documentary style of storytelling. I’m also keen to avoid lens “stuffocation” i.e. having so many lenses that you can’t make up your mind which one to use!

I’m not going to get into any technical jargon in this post because that’s not why you’re here. Rather my aim is to give you a feel for what my lenses accomplish and the types of shots you can get with them, so that hopefully you can make more informed decisions about your own lens selection. Read More→

Categories : Make Better Photographs, Wedding Photography
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Tying The Knot: The Wax On, Wax Off of Wedding Photography

By Milton Gan
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

If you want to shoot weddings the best way to start is to become a second shooter, right? But is that really all it takes? You bring your camera to a wedding, stay out of the way of the pro, take  a few nice candid shots of the guests and voila, you’re a wedding photographer! Nah, that’s not the best way.

Ok, I’m not saying it can’t happen like that, but those few shots you take would have to be pretty special for someone to entrust you with their most special day and lots of their hard earned cash. Second shooting is definitely invaluable for building experience; all I’m saying is don’t rely solely on being a dictionary-definition second shooter. Instead you should first aim to be as good as the pro and then second shoot like a pro to make your images much more marketable. So how do you do this with no wedding experience?

Let’s travel back to 1984 and take a look at one of my favourite movies: The Karate Kid. Apart from having one of the best soundtracks of the 80s, it also teaches a simple but important lesson: hard work and preparation pays off.

When Daniel-san spends hour after hour, day after day waxing cars, painting fences and sanding floors he doesn’t see how it’s supposed to prepare him for the impending All Valley Karate Championship. Instead he wants to learn the glamorous rapid punches and spin kicks he sees in the dojo and thinks that copying the routines in his karate text books will turn him into a black belt.

We know, of course, that all those seemingly unrelated tasks actually disciplined Daniel-san in exactly the skills he needed; he just didn’t realise it at the time. Read More→

Categories : Make Better Photographs, Wedding Photography
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