Advice on finding a wedding photographer

First let me start off by saying I'm not trying to pitch myself ;) In fact I haven't been shooting weddings for a few years now and won't be until I have my basement studio finished (if even then). However, I'm often approached by people asking if I'll shoot their wedding and always feel the need to write up a long email referring them to other photographers as well as give them tips on what to look for. I realized today that I've probably written over 50 emails like this so I finally decided to just make a blog post about it so in future I can just link them to it ;)

There are tons of photographers to choose from.
With the price of digital SLR cameras these days everyone seems to be getting into the biz, this is both good and bad for you. A fancy camera does not a photographer make ;) There are a lot of up and comers that are undercutting established photographers, a few are amazing and are a steal of a deal where others simply shouldn't be working. On the flip side some of the "established" photographers out there are really quite terrible. So what do you do?

First off ask your friends/family that have recently been married who shot their wedding and ask to see their wedding photos. Word of mouth and testimonials from people you know carry way more weight than a fancy website and/or ad campaign. Remember, a photographer's portfolio is their best work and not always typical of what you're going to get so trust what you see in your friends album over the portfolio.

Here are some questions to ask yourself as well as the prospective photographer:

• How many years have they been shooting weddings/how many wedding have they shot? An experienced photographer that has shot a lot of weddings will probably cost more but it might be worth it because they'll know how to handle any situation that comes up. On the flip side a newer photographer, other than being cheaper, might be more in-tune with newer styles and may not take shots that seem as "old fashioned".

• Engagement Photos. Often packages will include engagement photos and as I photographer I always preferred to do both the engagement photos and wedding photos. This gives the bride and groom a chance to work with the photographer and build a rapport with each other so that when the big day comes everyone is comfortable with each other. From purely a customer stand point my take is that the only reason for engagement photos is to have a nice photo for the wedding invitation, the rest of the photos are forgotten after the wedding. If the package includes it then great, if it costs more then its up to you to decide if you really want/need them.
  

• What if it rains? Amazingly even some of the high end photographers don't do a proper job if it rains. Rain means shooting inside, preferably with the proper lighting equipment and skills to use it. This is where most photographers either lack studio experience, proper gear, or studio space to do it properly. Note that this is why I've decided not to take on any weddings for now, I simply lack the studio space to accommodate a wedding party. Ask the photographer what the backup plan is in the event of inclement weather. If they have a studio available to them with proper equipment ask them to see examples of the shots, if they've been shooting weddings for any length of time they will have certainly been rained out at least once.

• Backup equipment. One thing that almost nobody asks the photographer is whether or not they have backup equipment. It's not unheard of for a camera to suddenly fail during a wedding shoot (a photographer's worst nightmare ;) but this again is where a seasoned pro will be covered and a newer photographer may not.

• All day, just ceremony & formals, or by the hour? Most photographers will offer at least 2 of the 3 if not all of them. Which one you should choose is really up to you. You'll want to cover the ceremony and formals as a minimum and that is often much cheaper than all day coverage. Are the "getting ready" shots worth the extra price? Same goes with the dance, if you're cool with just "documenting" these extras then skip the all day coverage and collect pictures from your friend's digital cameras.

• What is a second shooter and should I pick a package that has one? A second shooter is a second photographer that helps ensure the main photographer doesn't miss a moment, also by having one you'll get photos from multiple angles which can yield better coverage during say the ceremony. Generally only the higher end packages offer a second shooter and depending on the photographer/package they might only be there to help cover the ceremony.

• Full resolution files on disc or ordering through the photographer? Nowadays with the digital revolution more and more photographers are just giving the files to the client on a disc and letting them make as many copies as they want. It's worth it to pay a little more for this feature as ordering through the photographer is generally expensive and some of the prices I've seen for enlargements are downright un-ethical. If you do get a disc though I highly recommend making a few extra copies as backups and keep one at a friend/relatives place as an off-site backup.

• Photo editing, wedding album, hosted gallery etc. One thing you need to ask, especially with cheaper packages or inexperienced photographers, is whether or not the photos are edited and to what level are they edited. Is it just basic exposure & colour correction or does it include blemish removal etc. As for the other extras you might want to save the $$$ and do it yourself. I recommend www.blurb.com to all of my friends for photobooks, they are really economical and offer a very professional method for displaying your photos. Hosted galleries are almost pointless nowadays since you can do it yourself on facebook or flickr. One more thing about the photo editing, if possible see if they photographer will even be willing to throw in the original or "RAW" files, this way if the person doesn't do a good job editing the photos you'll still have the originals which could be edited properly at a later date.
  

• Wedding Insurance, say what? Chances are you probably didn't even know this existed, don't worry because most photographers don't either. It's actually ingenious really and I'm surprised more people don't get it. Some photographers offer it but I believe the bride/groom can purchase it on their own as well. If you're planning a big/expensive wedding I recommend giving it some thought. Here is just an example of some of the things that can be covered: Personal Liability, postponement/cancellation, wedding photographs, wedding gifts, loss of deposits, wedding gown & attire, wedding jewelery.
  

• Location location location.Where are you planning to get your photos taken? A few quick things to remember when choosing a location is that public places (parks etc) generally can't be booked for private gatherings and during peak wedding season may be inundated with other wedding parties. Here in Saskatoon a popular place is the Boffin's Club gardens, what most people don't realize is that you can't actually book this place. You can call them and they'll put your name down but they'll do the same for the next photographer that calls too, if you're lucky they'll let you know how many other weddings are marked down for that day. In short, try to have a backup plan and discuss this before hand with your photographer.

• Agreement of service expected. To be honest I'm not actually sure if this is common or not but I think it should be if it isn't. Basically before you hand over any deposits write out in point form what the package includes AND what the photographer's liability is if for some unforeseen reason they are unable to deliver (gets into an accident on the way to the wedding etc). Essentially this is a contract for services, if they are asking for a deposit to ensure you don't bail on them its only fair that you have some assurances as well.

Well hopefully that covers just about everything, if I think of anything else I'll update this post.

Cheers,
James

Insuring your gear - Have you even considered it?

If the unthinkable should happen are you covered?

This is a topic that isn't addressed very often but is quite important. How much gear do you own? Could you afford to replace any or all of it if it got damaged/lost/stolen/vandalized? Most likely the answer is no, at least not at the drop of a hat anyway.

You have to insure your car if you want to drive and if you want a mortgage you have to have house insurance, plus both of those are big ticket items. Your camera gear, if it's valuable, should be treated the same way especially if you're using it to make money.

First things first I just need to say that I'm basing the information in this article off of my own experiences, costs and policies may differ depending on which company you deal with and where you live.

After I picked up my 5DMKII I realized I really needed to look into insurance, I was starting to carry around over $8000+ worth of gear to a photoshoot and it was making me nervous. A quick call to my insurance provider and I had all the info I needed. Since I only do photography on the side and use the money mainly for funding my addiction hobby I qualified for a "semi-professional" rate provided I didn't earn more than $5000 per year. The insurance company referred to this as "scheduling items". All I had to do was draw up a list of equipment I wanted to insure, note the replacement value and serial numbers, then submit it to the broker. My rate was $3.50 per $100 worth of gear I was insuring per year. So to insure $10,000 worth of equipment costs $350 per year or roughly $30/month. If you are making money doing photography then you should already be claiming that income as a small business on your taxes and this insurance is considered a business expense which can be written off. Also worth noting is that if you schedule items they are not subject to a deductible, you simply make the claim and get reimbursed.

To my knowledge just about everything is covered, say if I'm up in the mountains taking photos and I lose my footing and drop my camera over a cliff I'm safe. There are probably some limits to this but when I ran down the list of most likely scenarios they were all covered.

So what happens if you fall outside of the semi-professional range?

If you're an amateur photographer who doesn't make any money off of photography should you still insure it? That's up to you, if you have regular house insurance it should cover items like this however you will have to pay a deductible which may exceed the cost of replacing or fixing the piece of gear. $3.50/$100 is pretty cheap, $5 a month will cover $1700 worth of gear. If you think about it you may want to say no to that extended in-store warranty next time and just buy insurance instead.

If you're a pro and are making over $5000 a year I would hope that you don't even need to read this post because you already have your gear insured but if not I'll cover it anyway. I talked to my broker today before writing this article just to make sure I had the correct info, unfortunately professional rates aren't a straightforward number, they have to be calculated based on a number of things so I couldn't get an exact rate. The gentleman I talked to though said it was most likely still close to the $4/$100 range with the exception that you are also required to get liability insurance which is a minimum of $400/yr. If you're making a living doing photography though this is just a cost of doing business and having that extra liability insurance isn't a bad thing if all of a sudden a lightstand falls on a model ;)

What if you rent and don't have house insurance?
Get renters insurance. Period. Its that simple. I've known a few people who have lost everything in fires that weren't even started in their apartment (it was a duplex) but since they had no insurance they were left with nothing. From what I've heard renter's insurance is quite a bit cheaper than house insurance since you're only insuring your belongings and not the structure you live in (your landlord should have insurance for that).

That pretty much sums up all the info I have to give on this subject, hopefully it sheds some light on a topic that I haven't seen covered much.

Simple way to digitize slides

Old Slide Digitized Using A Canon 5DMKII DSLR

Growing up it was always fun when my Dad would break out his big box of old slides and show them when we had company over. Years have passed since the last time that happened and with my parent's 50th wedding anniversary around the corner I starting thinking about digitizing them for a DVD slide show. To my surprise (and horror lol) I found that my father has 1200 slides in total, much too many to scan one at a time in a flatbed scanner. After asking one of the local photo stores about the costs of bulk scanning slides and finding this was relatively costly I decided to try and find an alternative.

The answer, it ended up, was laying in my camera bag. The simplest solution is to just set up the projector and screen and take photos of the screen. The results will not be as high quality as scanning them but for viewing on a TV and making 4x6 prints the quality is acceptable.

*Note: I've since viewed the images on my 46" HDTV using my PS3 and the results don't look that different from watching them on the projector screen itself ;)

What you'll need:
1) Tripod - This is a must
2) Cable Release - While not absolutely necessary it can reduce camera shake and result in a clearer picture
3) A camera capable of long shutter speeds (even most point and shoot cameras allow this now)
4) Projector, Slides, and a Screen
5) A darkened room

Things to keep in mind:
This will be a little advanced so most camera's "auto" or "program" modes aren't going to cut it or will need some tweaking, you're probably going to have to dust off your camera's manual and give it a good read. Because we're shooting in low light you'd normally want to use a high ISO setting, however that degrades the quality of the image, since the subject isn't moving we can use a long shutter speed instead allowing us to keep our ISO low to preserve quality. Also you should try to limit any changes in camera position or projector position shot to shot, this will help you later if you have a means of automating your post production (via Lightroom or Photoshop).

Tips for point and shoot cameras:

• Set your camera to the lowest ISO setting available (normally 80 or 100)
• Turn your camera flash OFF
• Use the self-timer function on your camera if you don't have a cable release, this will ensure your camera doesn't shake when the photo is taken. Some cameras have a 2sec setting as well as a 10sec setting, this is essentially the type of thing that the 2 sec setting is meant for.
• If your camera allows for exposure adjustment (usually indicated by EV±) you can use this to tweak the exposure brighter or darker, use trial and error to get it right.
• Limit the amount of zoom you use, the more zoomed in you are the more amplified any camera shake will be.
  

Tips for DSLR cameras:

• Set the camera to the lowest ISO
• Use an aperture that is big enough to let in a decent amount of light but small enough to ensure a depth-of-field wide enough so your image is still sharp and in focus.
• Use a cable release or self timer to limit camera shake, also if your camera allows mirror lockup you should enable that to further reduce shake.
• Limit the amount of zoom you use, the more zoomed in you are the more amplified any camera shake will be.
• Adjust your shutter speed to control overall exposure, again this will probably be trial and error.

Tips for post production work:
The first 100 slides I did manually one at a time, cropping them and then adjusting colour levels to correct for the colour shift over the years. I quickly realized that this was very time consuming and was defeating the point which was to get a "quick and dirty" copy of the slides while maintaining an acceptable level of quality.

A program such as Adobe Lightroom allows you to copy and paste develop settings from one picture to others. Basically you spend the time doing it right on one picture and then you highlight the rest and apply the same settings. You'll have to do this twice though, once for portrait orientation photos and then again for landscape orientation. Instead of spending 2hrs on 100 slides I was able to process 500 slides in 1hr. You'll still have to go in to manually fix a few of them if the colour correction or levels are funky but its a great time saver.

The same (or better) results can also be achieved with photoshop by setting up custom actions and then running them as a batch, this method is more time intensive but will also allow you to correct for perspective distortion (not available in Lightroom) since your camera will be shooting up towards the screen instead of perfectly perpendicular to the screen.

Using this method I was able to capture 300 slides in a little over 1 hour (not including cropping them on the computer and correcting colour etc).

Have fun and good luck