Topics 21-End
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# 21. Are you good at taking charge of a situation?
Boy aren't you glad you read this, because this is a huge topic. The problem with letting people pretend they are wedding photographers is something you don't want to discover first hand. . I've had somewhat experienced photographers get very shy when it comes to doing wedding photography. One lady actually hid in the corners of the room and shot with telephoto lenses at the reception.
When you interview photographers you tend to base a lot of opinion based on one on one interactions. As you well know, people often act different in groups. Someone who is lively and talkative at their studio has all the personality of a 3 day old veggie pizza at your wedding. You think they have a dynamite personality, but it's actually Neapolitan Dynamite's personality!
Of course there is the other extreme with the photographer who simply never shuts up! Or even worse, the party animal. Yes, we've heard stories from brides about their friends photographer spent more time on the dance floor or flirting with a guest than taking pictures.
The main complaint I've heard about is at the alter. It's hot out, the ceremony ran a little late, their is an open bar at the reception and the bridal party is ready to split! It's time for pictures at the alter, and this is the moment you expect the photographer to take charge and "Get er done!" Instead you got a genuinely confused photographer who has no plan, and a handful of guests standing next to him taking the same pictures he/she is taking. The people in the group shots have no clue where to look so they end up looking everywhere but at the photographer You end up with group shots with people not looking in the camera. Someone outspoken in your family has to take charge to get the group shots together. Your mom keeps walking up to him/her to retake photos once again, this time with the people that were missing in the original session.. Search and rescue crews go out to find missing family members as people wait for them at the alter. You want to get this over with, but people are standing at the alter, waiting and pictures aren't being taken. You are annoyed, and getting agitated. Your mother snaps at you "why aren't you taking pictures?" At that moment you have a decision to make. Either you need to start screaming, or you need to leave. If you start screaming the topic around the dinner table at your reception was how you turned into Bridezilla at the church. If you leave you get to hear about all the pictures that didn't come out well from your mom. Then she will list the ones you didn't take in her regretful tone of voice every Thanksgiving from now on.
You would think these images aren't that important. After all, how many wedding photography websites have you seen with family pictures at the alter on the front homepage? It's just assumed that it will be done well. It's actually much harder to do these pictures today than in years past. In years past when people used film only a few people want to shoot along side me at the alter. Today with digital cameras it can be as many as 20 people. And they want to take all the same pictures I'm taking. It really started to ruin the resulting images, and made the session longer and more chaotic. Then I figured out a solution and stuck to it, and so far there haven't been any problems. I can keep the guest photographers at bay without coming off rude. I can get the shots done efficiently with people not staring off into other cameras. Best of all I can get everybody to the reception in a timely manner, and keep mom from complaining about missed photo opportunities.
# 22. How much retouching will you do on my images? How much say will I get in the process?
I recently had a young bride who had what I felt was a perfect face. No crow's feet, no bags under her eyes, just smooth, flawless skin. And then I pulled up her images on my large monitor and found all her well hidden acne and broken pores. These digital cameras have an ability not only find flaws, but highlight them. At those wonderful digital cameras with better glass and more megapixels all make these problems worse.
Nobody has perfect skin, or a perfect face, and thus you will most likely want your images retouched. If your wedding happens on a hot day you will most likely want your images to not make you look like you just got out of the shower. Retouching is time consuming to do it well. Many photographers just want to shove images into the album as-is. Even though their demo albums are retouched like crazy, yours most likely won't be. So, be very clear about what they will and won't do with your album. Are they going to charge for every image they retouch? If so, how much? How much retouching comes with the package? If you don't like the retouching job they did on an image will they fix it without making your feel bad?
We spend a lot of time retouching images, not to make people look like people they are not, but to make them look like who they think they should look like. You don't want to open your wedding album and stare at your flaws. Instead you want to enjoy the album and look great. That's our goal too! Though we don't get many complaints about our retouching, we are open to suggestions for improvements from our clients.
# 23. I have a few more appointments and need to talk to my family about this, how much time will you give me?
Unfortunately, you can throw used car salesmen, time share salesmen and wedding photographers in the same boat, depending upon the photographer. Used car salesmen know if you leave the lot without buying a car you'll most likely never come back. Timeshare salesmen create this environment like you're long lost friends. . They often have multiple people you meet and the only way to describe the feeling when you don't buy (which has been every time for us) is like having a significant boyfriend or girlfriend with a family that adores you, and then breaking up with them in the middle of Christmas dinner in front of everybody. Yes, they make it that uncomfortable to not buy their timeshare.
As mentioned before wedding photography is often sold on a vibe and feel. There is often a chemistry that develops which is good. Yet, this positive bond often causes people to overlook certain things such as high prices, poor quality, and ambiguous details about what you'll be getting. Very often it's a push to get you to sign up on the spot. There are a lot of come-ons such as cutting you a hell of a deal if you sign up today. Do you really think that they won't give you this awesome deal two weeks from now if they aren't booked? Are they really going to tell you "Too late, you should have signed up when I made that deal." The other thing that can be annoying is that if you make it out the door without a contract in hand, they often hound on the phone over the next few weeks.
Very often you need to consult other people, so you cannot sign up on the spot. You need to work out financial arrangements as well. There are a number of reasons why you cannot sign up on the spot. If someone is going to act disappointed that you don't sign up on the spot, or harass you on the phone, then what good are they? You should be free to come and go as you please. If you don't sign up, you should have the right to be done with them and never hear from them again.
My belief is that this is a big decision, and you should feel good about your decision. From a photographer's point of view it takes a lot of belief and confidence in yourself, and your work, and your offering to let people walk out the door and visit competitors. . Yet, forcing people to sign up on the spot denies them of a complete shopping experience and forces them to make an uninformed decision.
Sometimes we hear people tell us that they are seeing other studios and that they need a few weeks to make a decision "So if anybody inquires about our date can you let us know?" Don't even bother asking this question, photographers are in business to book weddings. As you probably figured out by now good vendors book up quickly. Thus its a good idea to settle on seeing wedding photographers in the same one or two week time period. It's strange but sometimes three people will inquire about the same date within a few days of each other. Thus, you should only ask for a few days at the most. The longer you make the process the higher the chances someone will snag the photographer you really wanted.
#24 Communication
What's the best way to reach you? What are your standard hours? When I have questions how long will it take for you to get back to me? Do you work fulltime? If so, what are your working hours?
With cell phones, e-mail, texting, Twitter, social networking, and IM you would think that you shouldn't have a problem getting a hold of anybody. Yet this isn't really true. How many times have you e-mailed someone and hear back from them a few weeks later with the explanation that they don't check e-mail? What you're trying to get at is how likely you are to get a hold of the person in a timely manner. You have to be somewhat realistic in your approach. In general phone calls and e-mails should be returned by the next business day. If you call a wedding photographer on a Saturday afternoon for example and leave a message that you'll be around home for another hour and call you don't be surprised if this doesn't happen. We are often at weddings and can't return the phone call as fast as we can during the week. If you have some quick questions e-mail tends to work well as they can be returned when it's convened to the photographer. If you have a long series of questions, or have a topic that requires a fair deal of attention, a phone call works better. You will need to ascertain when the photographer is busy, such as if they work fulltime. If so, when do they return phone calls? A lot of time if a photographer is hard to get time with to schedule a meeting, doesn't return initial phone calls promptly, and is slow at responding on e-mail you may want to find out why. If they weren't on vacation or had some family emergency take it as a sign that this person will be difficult to communicate for the entire time you're dealing with him or her.
# 25 What is your idea of ideal client?
I know it sounds like a Miss America softball question, or a job interview question. It's not a standard question that you will get from a magazine. But it's a very telling question. Instead of asking if they like their job, or what do they like about being a wedding photographer you can change it up a little. It's a great final question because we are trying to go for non-standard questions that dig deeper into what the photographer is all about. Of course they are going to say that they like their job and they do wedding photography because they love people, photography and wedding cake! Let's dig deeper.
I'm going to answer this question on my behalf and I can give you some real insight into my thought process. When I first started doing wedding photography I liked "any" bride. I just needed weddings under my belt so any bride would do. Then I discovered something, pretty brides were easier to photograph. Other brides responded well to images I took of stellar beauty brides. I can tell you I have had the pleasure of photographing some of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. Then I found a certain breed of stellar beauties. This are women that are so gorgeous that they could be selective. They tent to only date rich, good looking men. If you think about a baseball player's wife for example, that's the standard. They have very expensive weddings at places like the St. Regis in Monarch Bay. So, when you have a stellar babe marrying a stellar guy at a $150,000 gala affair, how can you go wrong with the photography? I know the bridal magazines feature these weddings, but back it up a moment, is this you?
We don't do the quarter million dollar St. Regis weddings. Our clients are teachers, police, fire, accountants doctors, students, etc. In other words they work. They may not be plunking a quarter million on their money, but the money they do throw down is important to them because they've earned it. i always think of this one bride I had 10 years ago, she worked a second job just so she could have a nicer wedding. Having nicer food and better photos meant working 7 days a week for a few months.
Yes I still love a beautiful bride, but the ones that get to me, the ones I love walk in with this attitude. This is their wedding day and every cell in their body is so excited. They are lively, vivacious and are counting the hours until the day arrives. Their enthusiasm is so contagious that everybody they know is excited for them. The day is extra special. Here's the kicker. The brides aren't always glamorous. It doesn't matter, their photography is going to rock!
I also look for clients who understand what it is that I do and identify with it. They make the day easy because from the start they want to work closely with me to ensure that they get great photography. One client we had recently were quite ordinary looking, and they would have had very generic pictures, except for one thing. They didn't plan their day well, and we had considerably more time to take pictures of the two of them. Simply amazing pictures are what resulted. I know this isn't realistic with every wedding. But some of my most amazing work has been with ten minutes of alone time with the bride and groom. It's really that simple Thus for me, being good looking is a benefit, not prerequisite, it's more about how invested you are into the process. If you can devote a little time at key moments like sunset and break away for a few minutes you can get some stellar results. I am used to working quickly with people in these situations. Be brief, be brilliant, and be gone.
Sidenote, now many megapixels do you need for wedding photography?
This is something that will tend to have photographers debating for days. Does a camera with more megapixels mean better wedding photography? To me, it's like asking "If I replace my car with Nascar replica car, will I get to work faster? If you live in the big city where there is a lot of traffic, chances are, no If you live next to an empty two lane highway in Alaska and your drive is 100 miles each way, the answer is of course it will. The problem is that you really won't notice the difference in the higher resolution cameras unless you have very large prints and large albums.
I remember seeing the first digital wedding album, it was images taken by Gary Fong. Stunning, beautiful image quality that is still superb by today's standards. The images were created with a 3 megapixel camera (this was a long time ago). It's when I first leaned that image quality mean more than megapixels. Still, you would have a hard time booking clients as a wedding photographer if you were still shooting with a 3 megapixel camera. Just the same there is a new generation of digital cameras that have 15, 20, and 25 megapixels. Sounds nifty, right? An 8x10 print only uses 7.2 megapixels. The rest of the pixels simply don't get used. It's kinda like driving a Nascar car in Los Angeles traffic. Yeah, it sounds like it would be faster, but it really isn't.
I've seen a number of tests where people where asked to figure out which cameras shot which images. The cameras varied in megapixel size, and the images were large enough to display fine detail. A few of them were somewhat scientific in their approach and the bottom line was that in most cases people couldn't really tell.
Consider that five years ago a friend talked you out of blowing a huge wad of cash on a computer system. Why? You didn't need it! They tell you that you could get by with a cheaper albeit slower computer. Recently you upgraded your computer again and the new low priced system is 8 times faster than the computer you were talked out of buying. So, do you still not need all that power, all that RAM, and that really huge hard drive? Of course you do, things have changed, the software of today requires faster computers and the photos you're storing will fill up that huge hard drive within a year. That's how I feel about digital cameras and megapixels. Sooner or later I'll have the 25 megapixel camera, and so will a lot of other people. And yes, I'll love it, and won't imagine the world of photography before it, but just the same for the majority of prints we'll make we won't even be using half the megapixels that each image saves. It's like owning a car that can reach 150 MPH. Nice to know, but for day to day driving, you won't even reach half that speed. In the meantime I can answer the topic question. The answer is 8. Eight megapixels is the threshold for a good wedding photography camera. Every megapixel extra is like icing on the cake.
Some quick pointers for conducting a wedding photographer search.
1. Ask for referrals from friends and family. It's rare and a great thing if you have a friend who had a positive experience with a wedding photographer and would like to refer them. If you like the way their album came out , then you're off to a good start. Just the same, they may have different criteria for finding a wedding photographer than your own. Therefore, what worked for them may not work for you. But it's worth a shot!
2. Do your online research first. Spend time looking through websites and at least getting an idea of what you like. Don't fall in love with one photographer, it's time to be pragmatic more than emotional in making a decision.
3. Read through the 25 questions to ask a wedding photographer, focus in on the questions you find most relevant to your situation. Don't ask all 25 questions. Many of the questions have no right answer, just ones that you feel more comfortable with.
4. Talk with eight different photographers on the phone. Ask some of the questions upfront. Based on the answers set up three appointments within one week to two weeks max of each other. Ideally you should have your decision within 10 days. Make it a policy not to sign up with anybody at the first meeting. See the process through.
5. After 3 meetings if you still aren't satisfied, keep setting appointments. You should be excited about the photographer you hire, if not, keep searching. If your wedding photography is important to you, find the person that you have confidence in.
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