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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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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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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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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'm still starting out and trying to decide on what to offer, but I'm thinking offering a standard 40-50 photos retouched in a hardcover book as part of the package deal, plus the rest of the shots on a DVD.
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Sep 1, 2009 05:59
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Rockcity: those books look great, but I'm in Australia so I'm looking around for a similar service here. I got a bunch of books made up from my own wedding and they're OK quality, but if I'm providing them for someone else then I want them to be very nice quality. I've been in contact with a photographer who's a friend of a friend. She's agreed to take me on as a second shooter for an upcoming wedding she's shooting. We haven't talked money but I'll assist on the first one for free, but after that I'll be asking for pay. 
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Sep 2, 2009 00:26
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Depends on the bridesmaid.
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Sep 17, 2009 02:19
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Yeeha, just picked up a gig shooting an old friend's wedding in Fiji. I'm doing it for "mates rates" as it is a friend, so we worked it out as them paying for my wife and I's airfare there and back. Not too shabby.
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Sep 25, 2009 03:00
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jackpot posted:You don't want to blow this - you're gonna need an assistant. Mannequin posted:What do you photographers do about scouting the location ahead of time? When I shot my sister's wedding I was glad to be able to check things out a few days in advance, even attend the rehearsal the day before. It really gave me a boost of confidence in allowing me to understand what conditions I had to work with.
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Sep 25, 2009 16:44
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Dread Head posted:Agreed, looks like a snap shot to me. psylent fucked around with this message at 12:21 on Sep 27, 2009 |
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Sep 27, 2009 12:11
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8292164.stm A couple sued their photographer for lovely photos.
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Oct 7, 2009 10:26
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Cyberbob posted:I just re-read the thread for a wedding I'm shooting tomorrow. My 70-200 f2.8 Sigma just arrived yesterday, along with a 10mm fisheye 2.8. I'm assisting on a big wedding tomorrow, it's at a hotel right on Bondi Beach. If the weather's good the photos should be amazing.
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Oct 16, 2009 02:27
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Righto, assisted on my first wedding over the weekend:      I worked for free as I'm trying to build my portfolio, but it was a pretty good experience. The couple were up for pretty much anything when it came to the photos, the other photographer I worked with was really friendly. While she did a lot of the formal portraits I walked around taking candids of the guests. She shot on an 18-200mm the whole day, while I switched between my 10-20mm, 28-75mm and 55-250mm constantly. I definitely need two camera bodies in the future, I'm meeting a woman about shooting her wedding at the end of the year, and I've got 2 more booked in for March 2010. My wife has approved the purchase of a Canon 7D.
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Oct 19, 2009 11:49
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Thanks for the crit. I wasn't always in prime position to take the shots I wanted - I left that to the pro photographer, so some of my angles were a bit awkward, also I just screwed some of the shots  And yep, stuck to the 18-200mm for the whole thing. She's been shooting weddings for 8 years. I've looked through her portfolio and her work is decent, but not amazing. She's incredibly friendly and is giving me a lot of advice which is helping to me started, but her technical knowledge isn't amazing - or that's what I picked up on from chatting to her.
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Oct 19, 2009 14:40
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torgeaux posted:The 18-200 isn't a bad lens or anything, but one would assume you'd have to stop down to get acceptable sharpness, and it doesn't seem she'd be able to limit depth of field with it. If she shoots mostly daytime outdoors, or strobes up, opening it up isn't as big a deal, I guess. I've got more photos up here - forgive the slapdashedness of the gallery/site I'm still putting it together. psylent fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Oct 19, 2009 |
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Oct 19, 2009 21:56
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As I was assisting, I didn't always have prime position to get the shots I wanted. As for the pool shot, I composed it that way on purpose as it's the kind of shot I thought would work well as "decoration" in the album. I had a couple of longer lenses with me, I wasn't directing the shoot so I only had time to switch them when the bride/groom weren't posing, plus we were pretty limited for time as we had to make it to the reception venue. 
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Oct 20, 2009 00:23
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I just had a bunch of them printed to add to my portfolio as I'm meeting a potential client on Thursday, and oddly enough - that one in front of the pool looks fantastic at 6"x8".
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Oct 20, 2009 04:22
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squidflakes posted:The moral here, it really depends on your client. The more wealthy the couple/family the more they expect to pay. If you don't follow that expectation you don't get the job. edit: I'm in Australia, not NZ - but I'm sure I can find a local dealer. I picked up an album yesterday but I'm not entirely happy with it. psylent fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Oct 22, 2009 |
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Oct 21, 2009 21:26
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squidflakes posted:If you're going to show the portfolio in person, spend a couple of bucks and get it in a nice looking bound album. I think it was rockcity posted something a bit back in the thread, but being in NZ there are probably some local options that won't require your first born for shipping. That's my soon to be purchased Canon 7D half paid off.
psylent fucked around with this message at 08:51 on Oct 22, 2009 |
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Oct 22, 2009 08:49
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Jesus, screw that. There's hundreds of websites and books I can read rather than doing that.
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Oct 22, 2009 11:39
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This is brilliant: http://www.loft3pd.com/blog/?p=1724
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Oct 23, 2009 01:53
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I wonder how much they paid for that, those are pretty bad.
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Oct 24, 2009 01:00
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HE'S FEEDING HER LIGHT! Do you have any advice for someone just starting out? I'd love to do this fulltime as the pay and hours are better than working in my particular branch of IT and I want to escape.
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Oct 28, 2009 11:20
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Did you use a ring flash on that asian family? What's going on there?
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Oct 28, 2009 22:24
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I've just had a friend of a friend ask me for a quote for a wedding, they want me there for 4 hours (groom/bride getting ready through to the start of the reception) - and I've quoted them AUD$1200 which I think is pretty reasonable especially as the wedding is a 3 hour drive away from where I live. I'm including all photos on a DVD and a web gallery in that price. It's about 40% lower than the average photographer in my area, but the bride is saying that she only wants to pay $800-$900 at the most. I want to market myself to clients in the $2000+ range (bundling prints/albums/thank you cards into that price), and I'm offering a pretty low rate as I'm still starting out. Am I being unreasonable? psylent fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Nov 2, 2009 |
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Nov 2, 2009 14:23
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Why not take both?
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Nov 10, 2009 08:27
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torgeaux posted:The 50 1.8 will fit in a pocket, or a purse. Take it along.
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Nov 11, 2009 01:55
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This was a one off, I've just purchased a 7D and my usual shoulder bag isn't quite big enough so I took a backpack with me. It was a really hot night, the backpack was making me sweat like a pig, so I left my bag with the DJ and crammed whatever lens I wasn't using into my pocket
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Nov 11, 2009 08:46
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Holy poo poo that's huge! I'm looking for a new camera bag at the moment, the Crumpler $7 Million home looks perfect for my purposes but seems stupidly overpriced. I want something that can carry my camera body wit a lens attached, 2 lenses, my external flash and the bulky as gently caress lightsphere diffuser - oh and it can look like it holds thousands of dollars of camera gear. Any suggestions?
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Nov 11, 2009 14:58
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Righto, I've got my website together - if any of you have time feel free to critique/suggest ways to make it better: http://www.paulwilcock.com/ edit: the page loads random images each time the page loads, I've tried to optimise the file sizes to keep the load times fast, I'll have to doublecheck the images so that there aren't any with horrible jpg compression artifacts. psylent fucked around with this message at 01:51 on Nov 12, 2009 |
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Nov 12, 2009 00:59
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Cyberbob posted:I just recently shot a beauty pageant event (Miss XYZ region 2009) and it turns out that the organizer is a part time wedding planner.. That'll be someone to keep in touch with
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Nov 12, 2009 02:24
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I've done a couple of free charity events recently to get my name out there a bit more. It's worked really well, I've got two weddings booked in for March, and one of them is all day event and they want a photo album for themselves, photo books for the parents, prints, thank you cards - the mother loving works. I've got the two in March, one in April, and I'm meeting a client tomorrow about a wedding in September. Yeeha
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Dec 17, 2009 14:32
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I've just been hired to shoot a wedding in Septmber, the bride's uncle is an award winning wedding photographer with 20 years experience, but she wants him there as a guest and not working. Not any additional pressure there.
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Dec 18, 2009 10:49
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Jasmine Star  quote:I know this goes without saying, but I miss him. A lot. Everywhere I go, I see a version of him. Every dog has a little bit of Polo in him, and if it's a small white dog, you'll find me on my knees kissing his head and rubbing his ears. My family sends me iPhone photos of him...in the bed, chasing his favorite soccer ball, watching TV. My heart aches for my dog and as silly as it sounds, I can't wait to be home with him. Any other wedding photographer/bloggers I should throw into my RSS feed? I quite like Ryan Brenizer and Tracy Turpen - but I'd like more people And a couple of recent shots:  - this could have done with a shallower DoF, but the couple were happy with it. - I tried a variety of processing methods, but again the couple were happiest with this look.
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Jan 5, 2010 00:51
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I've got Ziser in my RSS reader as well and he gives good advice, but I'm really not a fan of his photography, for some reason I find that everything he takes looks really dated (to me at least). I still read his updates though.
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Jan 5, 2010 04:17
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I understand the suitcase and the backpack, but what's in the huge rectangular thing?
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Jan 9, 2010 01:00
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Spending a shitload on engagement rings is a tradition manufactured by the diamond industry: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/198202/diamond - long article but definitely worth the read. I spent AUD$400 (US$370) on an engagement ring for my wife, we spent the rest of the money usually reserved for a ring on a trip to the Greek Islands while we were living in the UK. We got married on the beach in Thailand with 25 guests and it cost about AUD$15K (US$14K) all up, and that included staying in a five star resort for two weeks, her dress, my suit, airfare etc etc etc. fronkpies posted:Either its my age (21) or me and my girlfriend are really cheap, but I dont even want to think about spending £15000 on a wedding.
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Jan 12, 2010 00:19
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squidflakes posted:Indian Wedding I'm a bit disappointed to be honest, I'd love to shoot a huge Indian wedding at some point.
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Jan 19, 2010 04:16
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teamgod posted:Has anybody here used Gary Fong flash diffusers? I've got an SB-600 with my D90 and judging by some sample shots I've seen, it looks like a nice solution when bounce flash isn't in your favour.
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Jan 26, 2010 22:07
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Don't forget you can rent lenses. I'm not quite making enough cash to justify buying the f/2.8 70-200mm just yet, so I rent it from a local dealer for AUD$70/day. A lot cheaper than buying it for AUD$2000+
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Jan 27, 2010 01:17
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