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Excellent wedding pricing guide here! 4 YEARS LATER edit: GOOD GOD THE PROCESSING ON SOME OF THESE SHOTS IS HORRIBLE - I'll leave them up as a reminder to just keep your post work SUBTLE. Some of this stuff is really atrocious. I am so sorry. I recently volunteered to photograph the wedding of one of my best mates, not really knowing what I was getting myself into. As the wedding approached a did a lot of reading about it. The wedding sections in Scott Kelby's books were very handy, and there quite a few websites that offer great tips (DPS and ATP), I made a list of "must have" shots with the couple, we scouted the location the day before the wedding to see if we could find some nice scenery and so on. I shot the day with 2 Canon 350Ds (borrowed one from my brother-in-law), one had my 28-75mm Tamron lens on, the other had my Sigma 10-20mm lens. I synced the clocks on the cameras so I could sort the photos easily after all the shooting was done. On the afternoon of the wedding it started to lightly rain while we were waiting for the bride, it cleared up 10 mins before she arrived - and oddly enough a huge sea mist rolled in about 15 minutes after we finished the photos and were seated for dinner.          Excuse the lack of cohesion in the processing of these shots - I'm experimenting with different looks for the wedding album for my friend. Everyone has been really happy with what I've done and I've had a couple of tentative inquiries from people asking if I'd be interested in shooting their upcoming weddings. I've always thought that it was a bit cheesy (I mainly photograph bands) but I really enjoyed the day and would love to get into it a bit more. It's quite rewarding in the end, you're producing great pictures and capturing moments that will be on display in people's homes for decades - unless there's a divorce. I've been into photography for a few years and I'm still learning as I go, but if people are happy with my work and I'm confident that I can get the job done then I don't see why I can't make this into a little side business. The prices I've seen people ask for wedding photos seems very high, but they usually have two photographers on the day and offer a range of prints and an album and so on. So I guess that opens the floor up to discussing wedding photography, the business around it and all that sort of thing. What do you charge? What services do you offer? Awesome photographers who make me feel like a complete fraud: http://jonaspeterson.com/ http://www.danodayphotoblog.com/ http://www.ilovewednesdays.com/ http://www.hilarycam.com.au/ psylent fucked around with this message at 05:13 on Jan 9, 2013 |
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Aug 26, 2009 06:07
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That's a really nice turn out for your first try at a wedding. I've shot about 10 of them now and I was starting to build some word of mouth and then I moved across the country and lost all of it. I'm now in the works on re-building that. I just finished editing the wedding I shot a couple weeks ago and added those into my portfolio, which you can check out here. There's some crappy ones in the back that I need to get rid of. I need to make a non-flash based one as well, as I've already had one person who couldn't get it to load. As for prices, there are a lot of factors going in to it. First and foremost is the market in your area. Wedding prices tend to vary a lot by where you're located and what the competition is priced at. Next factor is probably going to be talent. It's easy to see the difference between most of the people charging say 3 grand and the people charging $500. This isn't to say that this is always the case. And the last factor is what you're including. Some people do big packages with print credits, books, dvds, digital copies, etc and some people just sell their time and digital proofs. It's all in how you want to sell it. I myself only include a hardcover book of the best shots with my pricing and the rest go up for purchase through an online proofing company so any of the guests can order through there. I do not have a set price as often times I know the people and depending on what they're working with I might cut them a deal. For example, my most recent booking is actually my girlfriend's sister and I didn't feel comfortable just taking money from them, so they bought me some studio lighting gear instead. Typically though, my prices for the normal person are going to start around $1000 which includes my time, editing and the book.
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Aug 26, 2009 13:58
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As far as walking around at the reception goes, what do you do about lighting? Is it just a hot shoe flash bounced off the ceiling or do you rig up some kind of diffuser and aim more at the subjects themselves? I don't see myself doing weddings at all, but my family business holds or attends a pretty good amount of similar gatherings and I'm wondering how you'd handle something like that. E: vvv Thanks! DJExile fucked around with this message at 15:09 on Aug 26, 2009 |
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Aug 26, 2009 14:18
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DJExile posted:As far as walking around at the reception goes, what do you do about lighting? Is it just a hot shoe flash bounced off the ceiling or do you rig up some kind of diffuser and aim more at the subjects themselves? I started doing weddings this year and I managed to get three. All of them were a gigantic learning experience. Generally for the reception I try and use a bounce flash. A diffuser would probably work for outside shots, though it might make for some harsh catchlights and glare on shiny things. Inside, anything that you point a flash directly at usually ends up with harsh shadows behind the subject that totally ruin your shot.
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Aug 26, 2009 14:52
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DJExile posted:As far as walking around at the reception goes, what do you do about lighting? Is it just a hot shoe flash bounced off the ceiling or do you rig up some kind of diffuser and aim more at the subjects themselves? Depends on the room and the lighting in the room really. If the ceilings aren't too high, I'll bounce the light. Most of the time with my 80-20 attached, which looks like this.  I really can't recommend one of these enough. They are awesome. It let's 80% of the light pass through and bounces 20% at the subject. It also has reflectors you can pop into it to bounce all the light as well. I also have a softbox for my flash that I put on there too. Both of them get a lot of regular use at weddings. I use the softbox more when I want more of a direct, but softened flash and I don't want much of the background and if I want more of the ambient feel of the room, I use the 80-20. For the most part though, I really don't focus on reception shots. Most people could care less about them and they all tend to blur together. I focus on the ceremony and the formals.
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Aug 26, 2009 19:24
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rockcity posted:
Oooo... That looks insanely useful. You don't happen to have a link do you?
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Aug 26, 2009 19:33
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http://www.lumiquest.com/
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Aug 26, 2009 19:47
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Wooten posted:Oooo... That looks insanely useful. You don't happen to have a link do you? I got mine from Adorama. It's made by Lumiquest. They have a whole bunch of really useful velcro-on flash attachments. My softbox is made by them too. Edit: You beat me by seconds Nicole, haha. P.S. Nicole kicks rear end at shooting weddings. rockcity fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Aug 26, 2009 |
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Aug 26, 2009 19:47
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DJExile posted:As far as walking around at the reception goes, what do you do about lighting? Is it just a hot shoe flash bounced off the ceiling or do you rig up some kind of diffuser and aim more at the subjects themselves? I use stofen omnibounces on my flashes at receptions. Most of the time unless the dance floor is super huge I radio slave the flashes and put them up at diagonals from each other. Then I just walk around with a wide angle lens. 
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Aug 27, 2009 02:14
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And here's one with a bounce flash straight off the ceiling for comparison.
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Aug 27, 2009 03:08
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I've got a cloned Gary Fong Lightsphere for the indoor/receptiony type photos. It does the job pretty well. The problem with bouncing a flash straight off the roof is that you always get those dark shadows under people's eyes, and it's rarely a good look.
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Aug 27, 2009 03:43
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psylent posted:I've got a cloned Gary Fong Lightsphere for the indoor/receptiony type photos. It does the job pretty well. The problem with bouncing a flash straight off the roof is that you always get those dark shadows under people's eyes, and it's rarely a good look. Face the flash backwards at a 45 degree angle. That way you are bouncing off the ceiling in front of your subject not directly over their head. Needs more flash power but if you crank the zoom way up you end with a soft boxish look.
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Aug 27, 2009 04:26
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The last time I did a wedding I used one of these for outdoor shots both to add a bit of direction to my fill flash and to bounce some setting sun light into scenes. They fold up quite small so carrying them isn't a problem but you will probably need an assistant to hold it. It could be good in a high-ceilinged room, too. Though you might not worry too much about the reception, it can't hurt to wander a bit and get a few more casual shots of the guests. The last time I did this, as a favour to couple of friends, a few of the older relatives were dead within 6 months and the shots I took were the last decent photos of them alive.
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Aug 27, 2009 05:05
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Seconding that the lumiquest products are awesome. I shot my first wedding a few weeks ago. It was terrifying, and a great learning experience. I mostly prepared by reading as much as I could, including "The New Wedding Photographers Handbook" by Al Jacobs. That guy almost seems to hate brides though. I royally hosed myself for pricing, but the bride and groom were friends and it was my first wedding ever so I don't totally care. I messed up a lot of things that I tried to document in my blog post about it, but overall I was happy with some of the shots I got. This is probably my favorite. 
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Aug 27, 2009 05:30
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Wow, that guide from Al Jacobs looks pretty good. I'm going to read through that tonight. I had a nice bride for my first shoot, but I can imagine some of them can be insane bridezillas. Have any of you experienced one?
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Aug 27, 2009 06:34
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This guy has always been my goal for wedding shoots, or any sort of photography really. He has some interesting and great ideas for each shot, and he seem to have some awesome post processing techniques. http://cliffmautner.typepad.com/my_weblog/ and nice write up robertdx. DaNzA fucked around with this message at 07:52 on Aug 27, 2009 |
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Aug 27, 2009 07:49
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To balance out the previous link I posted: How to shoot an lovely to mediocre wedding with an expensive camera http://www.photographertoronto.com/2007/Weddings%202007/Wedding%20Photography%20Toronto.htm Yeah we get it, you have a 1Ds Mark III and a bunch of L lenses. The whole website is a clusterfuck http://www.photographertoronto.com/
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Aug 27, 2009 08:13
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DaNzA posted:To balance out the previous link I posted: How to shoot an lovely to mediocre wedding with an expensive camera
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Aug 27, 2009 10:33
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I, too, shot a wedding recently. I'll make a big write-up of it sometime soon. I've posted a few of the pictures here and there around CC but I'll do some consolidating.
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Aug 27, 2009 11:05
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psylent posted:I had a nice bride for my first shoot, but I can imagine some of them can be insane bridezillas. Have any of you experienced one? Fortunately, the babbling bride I had to deal with was an ex-girlfriend with whom I am still good friends. She trusts me, so when I said "Would you mind just shutting up for a minute so we can get these shots before the sun sets," she was OK and calmed down. Her mother, on the other hand, was visibly horrified... but I never really liked her mother much... and neither did the bride. (Note: this is not a recommended wording for talking to brides at their weddings, even the third time you ask.)
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Aug 27, 2009 13:41
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Are any of you using a flash bracket attached to your cameras? I have mostly seen people using their flash either wireless or on the hot shoe.
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Aug 27, 2009 13:57
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AIIAZNSK8ER posted:Are any of you using a flash bracket attached to your cameras? I have mostly seen people using their flash either wireless or on the hot shoe. I do just what you said, hot shoe or wireless. I hot shoe it for reception shot and keep it wireless for formal type stuff. Though if I have access to power, I use my alien bees.
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Aug 27, 2009 14:19
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rockcity posted:Depends on the room and the lighting in the room really. If the ceilings aren't too high, I'll bounce the light. Most of the time with my 80-20 attached, which looks like this. This is really drat cool. I'm still new to all this, so what situations would call more for the softbox as opposed to just the 80/20? DaNzA posted:To balance out the previous link I posted: How to shoot an lovely to mediocre wedding with an expensive camera This is the most hilarious thing I have seen in a long time and the fact that anyone takes it seriously and gives this guy money is a mindfuck.
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Aug 27, 2009 15:25
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DJExile posted:This is really drat cool. I'm still new to all this, so what situations would call more for the softbox as opposed to just the 80/20? Well, I use them based on the look I'm going for. The softbox I use when I went more of a direct, but not harsh light on one or two people only and I don't care so much as to what's in the background. I tend to use it for dancing shots. I usually dial the power down a lot when I use it. The 80-20 I use for pretty much everything else at a reception. Photos of the cake, speeches, general partying photos, etc. It provides a lot more spread out light and looks more like what you're actually seeing. Normally the power on this one is a lot higher than the softbox power. I also use the softbox whenever I use my flash wirelessly as a portrait light in more remote locations where I don't have power....though someday I plan to have a vagabond to rectify that.
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Aug 27, 2009 15:37
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DaNzA posted:To balance out the previous link I posted: How to shoot an lovely to mediocre wedding with an expensive camera I really want to believe that this is a joke. Please... Let it be a joke. (It probably isn't, and it makes me feel 1000x better about my photography)
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Aug 27, 2009 16:08
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I started getting into weddings this year. I pack my Alien Bees and make sure to use them as frequently as possible. I'll usually go out to take group shots with a vagabond and then use them to light up a hall during the reception. Natural light 90% of the time during the ceremony or key dramatic points. Here are some shots from the past few months:      
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Aug 27, 2009 16:21
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Knux posted:I started getting into weddings this year. I pack my Alien Bees and make sure to use them as frequently as possible. I'll usually go out to take group shots with a vagabond and then use them to light up a hall during the reception. Natural light 90% of the time during the ceremony or key dramatic points. This kicks rear end and I am totally stealing it for my January wedding. Is he actually being hit right then and there is or someone just sort of tossing snow? I really like how you flipped the common ideas for the guys and girls photos in those first two. I did the guy being help up one once, but the girls with cigars is a great idea.
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Aug 27, 2009 17:00
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I helped a local photographer shoot a wedding earlier this month, now she's paying me to be her assistant on some future weddings. So...yay.  If any glutton for punishment wants to look through that wedding and give me some tips, feel free. Smugmug
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Aug 27, 2009 17:02
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jackpot posted:I helped a local photographer shoot a wedding earlier this month, now she's paying me to be her assistant on some future weddings. So...yay. Your composure is good through most of it. My one criticism is that the flash is really harsh in a lot of your indoor shots of people. It makes a well composed photo look generic and P&S-like if you do that. Try bouncing it or getting a modifier and dialing it down.
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Aug 27, 2009 17:05
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If you're looking for a flash bouncer that you can fiddle with on the fly, I'd recommend the Demb Flip-It. Unlike the Lumiquests and a lot of other bouncers, it pivots so you can adjust your light ratio easily. It's also good because it mounts sideways on the flash so you can use it easily in both landscape and portrait unlike bouncers that mount on the long side of the flash head. And then if you don't want to use it for a particular shot, you can just flip it back. http://www.dembflashproducts.com/flipit/
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Aug 27, 2009 18:24
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rockcity posted:This kicks rear end and I am totally stealing it for my January wedding. Is he actually being hit right then and there is or someone just sort of tossing snow? Thanks man. The shot 100% real snowball breaking on his crotch. The next shot that was taken has the other one hitting his shoulder and him buckled over holding himself. We had the whole wedding party as the firing range.
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Aug 27, 2009 18:25
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rockcity posted:Your composure is good through most of it. My one criticism is that the flash is really harsh in a lot of your indoor shots of people. It makes a well composed photo look generic and P&S-like if you do that. Try bouncing it or getting a modifier and dialing it down.
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Aug 27, 2009 18:37
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I too got into wedding photography recently, and it definitely is a learning experience every time. Then again I've only shot 3 so far, but the last one (just last weekend actually) was a photographer's nightmare. Not that the bride and groom were hard to deal with, but they just wanted to get everything done so quickly and wanted focus on everything except the loving pictures. Now I'm no expert on posing people, but I do have a creative mind for certain shots. Both the bride and groom were so hasty about the photography that it felt like pointless for me to do a good job with it. After the ceremony, I wanted to get some 1-on-1 time with the bride and groom for some casual, fun, and formal pics. Well they just didn't care about doing that, even though the bride and I discussed doing this weeks before the wedding day. After the ceremony I ended up getting some casual pictures at the location, but didn't get any 1-on-1 time at all. Since everybody was heading towards the reception hall, they decided to just say "gently caress it" and left with them, leaving me high and dry. At least I got some decent pics there. I won't go on about the reception but let's just say I became a make-shift studio photographer for an hour taking pictures of every single combination of people while the bride ran around scrambling to find family members to be in photos. Nobody looked happy because everything was so rushed. I mean maybe I'm just being a big pussy about the whole thing but at times my time and effort doing this just seemed pointless. The groom wanted nothing more than to get drinking, the bride just wanted to get all the "wedding stuff" over with so she could party, and all the while I'm trying to make something good out of the situation. I'm not sure if it's just inexperience on my part or what, but there was no way I could get these people to realize that these pictures were important. Maybe they just didn't care, who knows! I compare this to the wedding before this one, which went perfectly. I had a full itinerary weeks ahead of time, was able to get tons of time with the bride and groom (alone and after the ceremony), and they actually looked happy. Nothing felt rushed, everybody was in a cheery mood, and as a result the pictures turned out really well. The groom was very happy with how the pictures turned out. teamgod fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Aug 27, 2009 |
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Aug 27, 2009 19:12
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jackpot posted:Yeah, I know it. I've got a diffuser on my Vivitar 285 and bounced off the ceiling, but a few early shots were dark and so I dialed it way up, not realizing until later that I'd gone too far. That's definitely something I plan to be more careful with in the future. I'm shopping for a new flash, maybe the Sigma EF-530 or even a 580; at any rate something a little smarter than my full-manual Vivitar. Not that I think equipment is the answer to all my problems, but I really hated that flash by the end of the night. I can definitely recommend the sigma 530. I have the 530 Super and it's quite nice. Very controllable, decent amount of light output. I wish it had some kind of input, but I bought a hotshoe adapter so I could plug in my cybersyncs and it works just fine.
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Aug 27, 2009 19:15
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teamgod posted:...they just wanted to get everything done so quickly and wanted focus on everything except the loving pictures. If that happens you just gotta say gently caress it and shoot, get paid, and leave. If the wedding couple is paying you to take shots they should at least try to focus on having some time to get some memories captured. If they don't then they know what they'll get when you send them the proofs.
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Aug 27, 2009 19:33
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If - instead of sweating over flowers, cakes, bridesmaids, photos and every other detail that bogs down weddings - that couple decided to get down and have a good time and enjoy the party, they might be one of the smartest couples I've ever seen at a wedding. I mean yeah, it's a lot of money spent, but it sounds like they enjoyed their wedding more than most. Sucks for you, though.
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Aug 27, 2009 19:41
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Haha, well like I said, they were both nice people, and I know they just wanted to party hard, but it seems like a waste to me to hire a photographer but not make use of him (me). I guess every wedding is different, and this could just be a blessing in disguise; I doubt there are many brides who just want to have fun and not worry about capturing the important moments. I guess it just struck me as odd that they would both simply say gently caress it to the pics and get things done super fast, when she told me at our little meeting that she didn't like this look, and that look, etc. She seemed very particular about how she wanted the pictures to look. Edit: I remember brad industry commenting on why he doesn't do weddings.. he said that most people just don't give a poo poo about the careful editing and work that goes into the pictures during post. I'm beginning to see what he means, because when I show some of my wedding shots to friends and family, they just don't really "get" the look I went for, or don't really get any sort of feeling based on the picture itself; they seem to be more focused on the small details like the smiles, dress, hair, etc. If I take a picture of the bride and groom kissing at the end of a hallway for example and it looks all beautiful and moody, most people go "ooooh, that's... different." Either way it won't stop me from shooting, but just keep that in mind. Most people will never really get what you've done to make the pics beautiful. teamgod fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Aug 27, 2009 |
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Aug 27, 2009 19:47
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It's kind of funny. The only other people that will pay attention to all the little nitpicks you make in a single photo are other photographers out there. I've definitely taken this into consideration when batching through finals.
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Aug 27, 2009 19:57
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teamgod posted:Not that the bride and groom were hard to deal with, but they just wanted to get everything done so quickly and wanted focus on everything except the loving pictures. From my experience this happens at almost every wedding. You have a few rushed minutes to get all the group photos out of the way and usually the bride and groom are bored with the whole ordeal and just want to get away. The last wedding I shot the bride and groom were actually excited for some formals, which was awesome because that's the first time that happened to me. We got about 10 minutes before the wedding planner came out and (somewhat angrily) took them back inside. This happens even after I tell them weeks before that photos will take about half an hour, and preferably longer. It always amazes me how much people will pay for photos that they don't want. On the other hand I have been lucky to get at least a couple decent or really good ones of the bride and groom before they said enough. Maybe that's the true art of wedding photography, or maybe I'm just doing it wrong.
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Aug 27, 2009 20:19
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Weddings where the bride and groom are younger and willing to do crazy poo poo in front of the camera are the best.  knux I can't get over how beautiful the color saturation is in your images. Is there a short answer to "How are you achieving that?" As you can see from above, my image is washed out and lovely. I get that its exceptionally bright in the background, but most of my stuff ends up looking like that, backlighting or no. Also, awesome pose...  ... is universally awesome.
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Aug 27, 2009 20:19
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