Archive for Wedding

Wedding Prep Is A Lifesaver!

Procrastination, we all do it. It’s easy to fall into a routine and become complacent. When it comes to your client’s event date though, the last thing you can do is fall into a routine; you need to be prepared for everything. Here are some of the things I do to prepare for an event to make sure everything goes smoothly for me.

Batteries, new batteries, charged batteries, just batteries. Besides your memory card these are the most important and most easily forgotten about part of your camera bag and it can bring your event to a screeching halt. I always prepare for an event by ensuring all of my flashes have new batteries, not barely used but new, and I always test them. One time I had the misfortune of buying new batteries an hour before the event only to find out the batteries I just bought at the store and hour earlier were completely dead and had I not kept my old ones I would have been in a lot of trouble. Test your equipment once you load the new ones and keep enough spares to run through however many cycles you think you’ll need. I keep enough in my bag for 3 battery changes just in case. I charge my camera batteries the night before and make sure everything is working before I leave. You don’t want any surprises when you get there.

Memory cards! On those tiny little wonders of technology can really put a cramp in your style if you turn on your camera right before your client’s event only to discover the photos from the event of the previous weekend are still on the card and you forgot to transfer them to your computer. You can’t erase them and you don’t have enough room for the photos for the current event. That will bring your event to a screeching halt and you want to avoid shooting an entire wedding in low resolution. Always check your cards at least the night before and make sure that any images on there have been transferred to your computer and make sure that you format your cards before your event. You will want to have a clean slate for your client’s event. Bring spares even if you think your 60GB card is enough. You never know when that little devil will suddenly decide to start giving you a card read error and then you not have a backup plan. Ever heard the joke about the film photographer running out of film during the wedding???? Well, it can happen to us digital photographers as well so remember the Boy Scout motto, Be Prepared! Read More→

Dealing With Less Than Cooperative/Absent Guests

There is a critical piece of CYA that I incorporate into my wedding contracts that I never thought I would need but got the idea from reading about other photographer’s experiences. The responsibility of capturing important people in the formal photos and ensuring they are present to be in the photo. In one of my previous posts I discussed the possibility of having to deal with less than cooperative guests. I wanted to expand on that and more specifically narrow that down to the formal wedding photos and the guests that are included in them.

Formal wedding photos can be a frantic situation for a new or shy photographer. Generally you have a very limited window to get a very large number of people set up in several different poses with people who all want to move onto the party all while trying not to sweat to death and maintain your professionalism. The most important thing to do is maintain an element of control. You are the paid photographer, you are in charge. Yes, Aunt Sally may want to get a quick shot but unfortunately, you are on a schedule and that schedule doesn’t allow for Aunt Sally to hold the show up. On top of that you realize that Grandma and Grandpa decided that they wanted to high tail it to the reception. What to do now? Read More→

Tying The Knot: 5 Preparations For The Wedding Day

There’s a popular saying: failing to prepare is preparing to fail. And this is true.

I have my own take on it which goes: have you seen 127 Hours?! Do you realise that failing to prepare could mean the loss of your freaking arm?!

Ok, hopefully nothing that drastic will happen to a wedding photographer! But then again, screw up someone’s wedding photos and they might want to tear more than just an arm from you – without the use of knives!

So here, for your health, are 5 essential preparations for any wedding day:

1: The run sheet: this is so important it starts with a “The”! The run sheet tells you where you have to be at what time and all the little nuances of the day. Without it you’re working blind.

Ideally you should have a first draft a few weeks before the wedding so you can familiarise yourself with the day and plan your driving routes, timings, and equipment requirements. Some of this you may have already covered off if you’ve been diligent and performed a location scout.

There will be tweaks leading up to the day which the couple should keep you abreast of but the first draft will allow you to map out 95% of the day.

On the day don’t take any chances; be savvy and have a printed copy in your pocket and a backup sitting in Dropbox so you can access it on your iPhone in case of emergency.

2: Batteries: goes without saying but it’s easy to put this simple task off until you realise you don’t have time to charge them all! Camera batteries are crucial and you should have a spare for each body you’re using plus ideally a charger for each body to reduce charging time. I use two bodies and have two chargers but with 4 batteries to charge that means I still need a few hours to top them up!

And if you’re using speedlites then the batteries and spares for those will also need to be charged.

Read More→

Marketing Campaigns for Photographers – Wedding Fairs

Traditionally this is one if those marketing campaigns that are essential to many photographers wedding businesses.

Wedding fairs or fayres can be fruitful when it comes to getting leads but at the time they can be costly and hard to get into. You do have a couple of options when it comes to how you approaching a wedding fair.

  1. Play the numbers game and try and speak to ask many people as you can and collect as much data as possible.
  2. Try and spend time with each couple you talk to and really sell your personality as well as your work.

Both approaches work and it is possible to do both. I’ve found that at some of the bigger wedding fairs photographers go for too much of a hard sell too early. It’s just a case of creating a balance that suits your personality.

Here are a few tips to help you along the way.

  • Make sure your stand screams “This is my USP!”
  • Dress immaculately. A smart appearance goes a long way. In fact make sure your table is dressed to impressed, a nicely ironed table cloth is just the start.
  • Don’t hide behind tables, it’s always better to be visitor side of the table even if it means moving round when people approach you.
  • Don’t sit. It makes you look bored and disinterested. Read More→

Why Your Client Needs A Professional Wedding Photographer

We all love photography. It is what we do. We are artists and sometimes the business end of the business doesn’t really seem like our cup of tea. We would all be happy if all we had to do was shoot and edit and not have to worry about marketing and selling our services. Convincing potential clients of why they need to choose you can seem daunting but I am here to give you some advice. I am here to help you understand why you need to make them understand they need you.

Weddings can be such inspirational events. The grace, the charm, the elegance, the beauty, all things that make for great photographs. As a photographer I love to photograph weddings for exactly these reasons. They inspire me. They truly bring forth the meaning of a fairytale. Everything seems possible on a wedding day. As a photographer it would be ideal for us to be able to control all aspects of a shoot from lighting to setting to color to positioning. Unfortunately during a wedding this is just not possible. Some of the hardest shots we take are on the move with less than ideal lighting with very limited timeframes in order to achieve beautiful timeless photos that will capture client’s memories forever. It is because of this reason that wedding photographers are both in high dollar demand and can leave a bad taste in people’s mouths. It’s also because of this that your client needs your professional abilities.

Wedding photographers get a bad rap and unjustly so. Everyone with a digital camera calls themselves a professional these days. They print up a few business cards online, make a website, put up some cheap prices and start selling to everyone out there who wants to save a little bit of money on their day. They charge $300 bucks, shoot the entire wedding with their camera on automatic using an on-camera flash and give the client a CD with badly edited images and they call that professional and it makes us look bad. We’ve all seen it, we’ve all experienced it. I admit, my wife and I were no different and have experienced it ourselves. Read More→

Tying The Knot: How A Promo Turned Sushi Into Big Fish

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→