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Wedding Ideas/HELP!!!!
Hello fellow photogs. I could use some advice. I am an amateur photographer who is trying to do this professionally. First question before I delve further... what makes a photographer "professional"? When can you say "I am a professional photographer"? A friend of mine is getting married in August of this year. She loves me and asked me how much to shoot her wedding. I about fainted. I have been asked to do family portraits and modeling portfolios, these I can handle... a freaking wedding? OMG! I need help. Advice on how much is reasonable to charge, especially since i am not a "professional", and how can I make it fabulous without looking like every other wedding you've ever seen. Any and all advice would be wonderful. Thank you for your time. Natasha M May 27 05 10:53 am Link I've been asked several times by friends to shoot their wedding - I refused. I wanted to keep them as friends. Another photographer I know did. All he got was grief. May 27 05 11:01 am Link Posted by NatashaM: When you don't need to. May 27 05 11:02 am Link i hate shooting weddings. i will shoot one from time to time, because it pays well, but only if it's a small one. any recommendations? tell them to pretend you aren't there and just shoot. May 27 05 11:03 am Link Barnes and Noble is your friend. Buy a couple of books and read them. May 27 05 11:13 am Link Posted by Gary L.: Barnes and Nobles... Great idea. May 27 05 11:43 am Link "Danger Will Robinson!" Photographic a wedding for a friend can be a lot of fun, but can also be a disaster. Keep in mind, weddings are a specialty and a specialty which has a lot of emotional involvement. Blowing a wedding can and has resulted in photographers being sued. Since you have not done one before, I have a couple of suggestions. Pick up a book on wedding photography and devour it. Second, since it's a friend, don't charge for it. Do it for your out of pocket costs. That could help you keep a friend and also give you some samples to show in the future, while also helping you decide if wedding are something you would like to do in the future. Shooting weddings can be lucrative, but they carry a lot of responsiblity. You get only one chace to get it right! May 27 05 11:48 am Link Several Excellent points made here, many of which I have actually followed myself. If they are good friends shoot for free, Get a book, or 2 or Three. And Weddings are a touchy one, chance to get it right,kind of an assignment. I shot 5 weddings for friends over the years before I finally did a professional Wedding Job, I was a lot more relaxed about the whole deal. It helped me out greatly. May 27 05 11:54 am Link VERY IMPORTANT! Tell her to hire an experienced wedding photographer. Then shoot behind the scenes as a friend and give the couple the pictures as a gift. Reason? If you have not shot a wedding before, then don't take a chance on this one being your first and last! When a couple friends got married many years ago, I shot the wedding behind the scenes while a true professional covered it too. So I followed exactly the advise I'm giving you. Now I shoot weddings professionally and charge for the services starting at $1,000 on up! Depends on exactly what the couple want. Best wishes! May 27 05 12:07 pm Link If you can shoot in the style of your Friends Forever and Playground Have Changed photos in your portfolio, you will be very popular... Also, no staged shots please. I hate seeing welding albums full of the standard stock wedding photos (i.e. groom and groomsmen looking at their watches when in fact the bride was there before any of them). Try to capture the event and document it. This may be the last time the family is together before an aunt, uncle, or grandparent passes away. Don't dance, eat, drink, or act like a guest. You are there to do a job. Don't give the client film or CD to make prints from. If the prints look like crap, it hurts your reputation. Make sure to have at least one back up of everything you need, especially a camera. Talk to the wedding planner to get a script of the event. Plan where you need to be based on the order of events. Talk to your "client" about specific shots they need (i.e. father giving away bride, family groups for "formals" etc...). Things you might need: Extension cords, memory cards, film, batteries, cameras, lenses, flash, light stands, tape, diffuser, laptop, business cards. Print a card just for the wedding with a URL for that event. Hand it out to guests. Let guests go to your website to order prints of themselves at the wedding. Introduce yourself to the wedding planner, DJ, or anyone involved at a professional level with the event. Follow up with each of them with one photo of them at work at the event. They will send you business. May 27 05 12:11 pm Link Hey there I haven't done a wedding yet but would love to do one perhaps one day. Like some people have said get some books on them. Since I was just married and had a photographer do it..(wasn't the best photographer in my opinion..ugh..if I could go back I would have gotten a friend of mine to do it.) Here's what was taken at my wedding: Family group together both sides of the family Bridal parties Bride at her parents house before the actual ceremony Groom at the church before the ceremony Shot at the church..(you need to find out what is acceptable and not acceptable in the church..ask the church they have rules set up for that) At the reception, get those unique shots like the first kiss, slice of the cake, first dance, family dancing.... Hope this helps you out! Ariesroses-Sarah Beautiful Disasters Photography May 27 05 12:17 pm Link Check out the Wedding and Social Event Photography forum at photo.net. It's one of the best and has an amazing wealth of info and talented wedding photographers. But note that Patrick Walberg's answer is in many ways the right answer--but it's still up to you. http://www.photo.net/bboard/forum?topic_id=2021 May 27 05 12:28 pm Link Oh my gosh. thank you all for your answers and support. i am not sure if i will take this job on. I understand all those aspects you'all went over> once in a lifetime, friendship> ruining it if I don't have it together> etc... I have been studying all aspects of photography but I haven't studied a lot on weddings. I think I not experianced enough. If it were a small, casual wedding I would feel better although it is still just as important. May 27 05 04:26 pm Link Posted by NatashaM: Speaking as one who did his first wedding in 1972 (for some college friends), I'll tell you this. Just as various specialties in law and medicine require certain temperaments and talents, the same is true of photography. A great many hot shot advertising and fashion/glamour photographers would get eaten alive on a wedding. There are no reshoots in the wedding business. Given your lack of experience, my advice is that you pass on this one, advise the couple to contract the services of a professional wedding photographer (too bad I'm so far away), and just shoot whatever catches your eye and make a wedding gift of your photos. If you're interested in getting into weddings, you should find a good wedding photographer who'll allow you to work as an assistant (too bad you're so far away). You can't really learn it from a book. May 27 05 05:19 pm Link Posted by Herb Way: Posted by NatashaM: Speaking as one who did his first wedding in 1972 (for some college friends), I'll tell you this. Just as various specialties in law and medicine require certain temperaments and talents, the same is true of photography. A great many hot shot advertising and fashion/glamour photographers would get eaten alive on a wedding. There are no reshoots in the wedding business. Given your lack of experience, my advice is that you pass on this one, advise the couple to contract the services of a professional wedding photographer (too bad I'm so far away), and just shoot whatever catches your eye and make a wedding gift of your photos. If you're interested in getting into weddings, you should find a good wedding photographer who'll allow you to work as an assistant (too bad you're so far away). That is exactly how I got into shooting weddings ... starting off as doing it as a gift to the bride and groom. Then worked as an assistant a short time before going solo. May 27 05 05:26 pm Link I would also agree with the advice of "hire a professional and shoot in the background" stuff. I've shot about half a dozen weddings in my life. Most of them were video-productions. Only once was it photography. And I can safely say that I never want to shoot a wedding ever again. Too stressful. Difficult to get that once-in-lifetime photo. Doing as many weddings as I did taught me that it isn't the kind of environment I enjoy shooting in. It's really difficult. I like having more control over a shoot. I don't enjoy weddings in the slightest. It's just not my thing. And I wish it was, because wedding photographers can make great money. You're lucky if you thrive and enjoy that kind of work. But, you need to shoot a few so you can find out if you like doing them or not. So, definitely shoot your friends wedding. It's a great way to "test the waters" but have them hire someone else too. BE SURE THAT THE BRIDE TELLS THE PHOTOGRAPHER THAT YOU WILL BE SHOOTING TOO. Many of these wedding photographers are VERY uptight about people shooting over their shoulders. They make a lot of money selling prints. So, if a bunch of relatives and friends get the same angles as the "pro" then they sometimes get all pissy. If that happens, bitch-slap him around and tell him to stop being a pansy because if he was so great at his job, his shots should be better than yours anyway. May 28 05 12:23 pm Link Posted by Eric Muss-Barnes: I don't quite appreciate your remarks. Perhaps you'd be more sensitive if you'd shot more than a half dozen weddings. It's not all about us professional wedding photographers being "uptight." Rather, it's about the reality that we have a tremendous responsibility and that we're under tremendous pressure to deliver quality and service within a limited time frame. I could give a damn less about some amateur shooting over my shoulder, but I do tend to get "pissy" when I set up a shot, take it, and then have to deal with some amateur screaming "wait, wait, let me get one" and prolonging the time it takes to move on. People tend to be very inconsiderate. May 28 05 03:51 pm Link Posted by Herb Way: Posted by Eric Muss-Barnes: I don't quite appreciate your remarks. Perhaps you'd be more sensitive if you'd shot more than a half dozen weddings. It's not all about us professional wedding photographers being "uptight." Rather, it's about the reality that we have a tremendous responsibility and that we're under tremendous pressure to deliver quality and service within a limited time frame. I could give a damn less about some amateur shooting over my shoulder, but I do tend to get "pissy" when I set up a shot, take it, and then have to deal with some amateur screaming "wait, wait, let me get one" and prolonging the time it takes to move on. People tend to be very inconsiderate. I definitely agree (respectfully, because Eric may just not understand all the difficulty). weddings are very stressful and one-shot-only, as well as on-lookers shooting just when the pro does ... ever see the results of three diff flashes on one image? Eric, the photog who makes his/her living at weddings needs space to do the job ... because that is what the bride/groom are paying for: expertise and best results, unencumbered by friends/relatives screwing up the shots. Sure they make money by selling extra prints ... BUT ... the prints are FIRST for the bride/groom; no great prints, no happy couple ... and bad publicity for the photog in addition to the loss of extra prints!! May 28 05 04:11 pm Link Posted by Harry Young: Posted by Herb Way: Posted by Eric Muss-Barnes: I don't quite appreciate your remarks. Perhaps you'd be more sensitive if you'd shot more than a half dozen weddings. It's not all about us professional wedding photographers being "uptight." Rather, it's about the reality that we have a tremendous responsibility and that we're under tremendous pressure to deliver quality and service within a limited time frame. I could give a damn less about some amateur shooting over my shoulder, but I do tend to get "pissy" when I set up a shot, take it, and then have to deal with some amateur screaming "wait, wait, let me get one" and prolonging the time it takes to move on. People tend to be very inconsiderate. I definitely agree (respectfully, because Eric may just not understand all the difficulty). weddings are very stressful and one-shot-only, as well as on-lookers shooting just when the pro does ... ever see the results of three diff flashes on one image? Eric, the photog who makes his/her living at weddings needs space to do the job ... because that is what the bride/groom are paying for: expertise and best results, unencumbered by friends/relatives screwing up the shots. Sure they make money by selling extra prints ... BUT ... the prints are FIRST for the bride/groom; no great prints, no happy couple ... and bad publicity for the photog in addition to the loss of extra prints!! Thanks for the support! I think some people on this site could stand to do some growing up. Let's see if he's big enough to apologize. May 28 05 04:15 pm Link 1- I wouldnt take the shoot on. Its a once in a lifetime day (or supposed to be) and they will want the best they can afford to photograph it. You don't want to be the cause of their disappointment (potentially speaking of course). 2- if you want to learn, and have time between now and then, offer to assist a working wedding photographer. Offer to do it for free, they will consider it. You'll learn how to expose, meter, compose etc. 3- shooting weddings is not a pick up the camera and shoot kinda thing. you really have to have your exposures down, indoors and out. white dresses, black tuxedos...its not something a beginner is going to nail, having to expose for both in the same image. Setting your camera on auto doesnt cut it when it comes to whites and blacks, especically outdoors. 4- proper gear is also important. There is a reason these guys use off camera flash, and have those flashes on high poles, and meter often....something an assistant usually does. I can certainly understand when a pro gets antsy when others are bouncing around with cameras. He is there to do a job. (imagine walking on a construction site with your hammer, lol). If someone gets in MY way while Im working, I certainly would say something, politely and with respect. There IS a lot of pressure to shoot these weddings as perfect as possible. Again, you can't just call 'do over!' . The better wedding guys (at least here in NY) get 5k or better for a wedding, with the proofs and books. I should know. I print those books, and have 90+ wedding studios as clients. Hope that helps. Good luck with whatever you decide...and should you take it on....share the images! Best, Stu May 28 05 04:26 pm Link |
