Wedding Photography Tips #26;  Being Yourself

I thought I’d take this last week of December to give a few tips on how to ensure fabulous photos.  Things to help you relax in front of the camera.

Be yourself

Seems like a simple thing, right?  But when there’s a million things going on around you, it’s hard to just be in the moment and yourself.  Tammy and Jeff  just love to be around each other and they instantly glow.  I love when I can step back and just watch and document the couple and how they interact.  They’re true genuine feelings for each and they’re true personalities.  So don’t stress about how you look…if you’re in love and totally smitten with each other it’ll show.  Just be yourself and enjoy your day!  It’s just the beginning of a wonderful life together!

Wedding Photography Tips #25; Designing My Album

MERRY CHRISTMAS!  I can’t believe it’s Christmas already.  2010 is just about over.

So who puts these albums together?  I offer clients the opportunity to choose their favorite photos, around 50.  From that I design the album myself.  Some photographers will out source this set, it depends if they album design is easy or hard for them.  It’s always good to know your strengths and weaknesses.   I personally enjoy it and it doesn’t take me more then a couple hours to put one together.   I then send the client a PDF of the design so they can make any changes before it’s send to print.  Most album company’s do the printing and binding in house.  Once it’s send to print it can take up to 8-10 weeks for the photographer to receive the album then deliver it to you.  I still have yet to figure out why exactly it takes so long to print and bind, maybe I should tour a factory?  But the time is pretty universal across the industry.

When you’re interviewing your photographer take time to look at the layouts in their albums.  Does it excite you?  Do like the white space, or the back grounds they’re using?  Does it feel they are enough photos to tell the story of your day?  What about covers, do you like the options they offer?  Not to say you should make a decision on who’s going to shoot your wedding based on they’re album.  But it could be a tie breaker if you’re struggling between two.

Just 6 more tips to go!

Wedding Photography Tips #24; Decoding Wedding Albums

Merry Christmas Eve!  I hope that you’re all in the company of family and loved ones this Christmas.

When I first entered the world of weddings I had no idea the difference between a $200 album and one that was $2000.  How could anything be that expensive, I mean really?  As I carefully investigated different albums I learn that there really is a big difference, it really is ‘you get what you pay for.’ Sure you can purchase a cheaper album, but the garentee that it’ll last decades just isn’t there.  Think of old books that they’re hinges start to wear out and fall apart.  Well crafted (and generally $800 plus) are going to stand up to time and countless uses.  The photos aren’t going to fade and the pages won’t turn yellow.  If you want your album to stand up over time it’s wise to spend a little more and get a well crafted album.

Flush Mount Albums.  These types of albums have the photos printed directly onto the page.  The pages are also thicker and will stand up on their own.  Almost like a mat board.  Cover choices depend on the album company your photographer uses, but range from Leather to linen and an actual photo as the cover.

Matted Albums.  Old School with a modern twist.  It’s not your momma’s wedding album.  The mats are sleeker and more polished the it’s counter part of the last 30 decades.  The choices for different mat openings has improved.  It’s a classic look that still feels modern and in my opinion won’t go out of style.

Coffee Table Albums.  These little guys often mask themselves under lower price ranges.  It looks similar to the Flush Mount, but the pages are thin and magazine like instead of thick.  Not all bad, but you do have to be careful where this type of book is coming from.  They can be cheaply made so take a good look at them and decide if the quality is there.  Most people can tell bad construction when they look closely.

Matted Wedding Album

I currently offer all three types of albums.  The coffee table book I offer is well crafted and I’ve made sure it’ll stand up to wear and tear.  With photographers that have been around awhile they’re probably using well crafted album company’s.  New photographers might not know the difference and be selling less the quality albums.  So just use your common sense and take a good look at the album.  Does it look like it could take a beating?

Wedding Photography Tips #23: Is an Album from my photographer Necessary?

Well nothing is necessary, it is all perspective.   I believe having an album of your wedding is extremely important.  It’s a hard copy account of your day.  Something tangible you can touch and feel.   I like being able to feel something, it heightens the whole experience for me.  Watching a slide show of 600 image from your friends wedding just doesn’t have the same fuzzy feelings as a tangible album to look through.

It also goes back to the previous post on what do you do with all this digital information.   You want to preserve it for your grand kids to someday see what you wore and what you looked like when you got married.   The best way to save those memories is through an album that will stand against all the digital changes we’re sure to go through over the next 60 years.

Wedding Album

We’ll decode albums in the next post.

Wedding Photography Tips #22:  So what do I do with this disk?

Digital changed everything.  Clients almost never took negatives, they got prints or an album.  But with digital clients wanting their photos on a disk took center stage.  They want to print whenever, upload to their own blog, website, facebook, twitter accounts.  Show the world their wedding.  But do you really know what to do with 600 plus digital files?  I believe the majority of photographers, including myself, will give you a disk of jpg images.  This is disk, like all technology, will probably be obsolete in 10 years.  Negatives are always the same, you can still get photos from a negative.   Don’t count on that with a disk.  Not only will the disk break down over time (think of your old CD’s you bought in the 90’s, they don’t work so well anymore) but you may not have a computer in the future with a DVD player to see the images.  Who knows what they’ll come up with next.  So it’s extremely important to back up your disk, just like any other important digital material.  Put it on your computer, put it on an external hard drive, and even web storage if you have it.  My best advise is to get prints of all the photos you absolutely love within the first 6 months after the wedding.  Put them in an album, it doesn’t have to be anything fancy.   Just a hard copy of your wedding at the very least.  I say within the first 6 months, because if you wait longer, it won’t happen. Trust me, you won’t.

Albums from your photographer are another great way to make sure you have a hard copy of your day.  Immensely worth their weight in gold 20, 40, 60 years down the road.   The important part though is to get prints, you never know when the disk just won’t work anymore and your hard drive crashes.