The State of Wedding Photography

[Bob Carnie]

Soon all weddings will be shot with the Red Camera which pops off 12-15mb per frame.

 

[msage]

The emphasis is on "quantity" rather than "quality"... it's all about having more stuff even if the "stuff" sucks. I have more crappy "stuff" than you have. My big elaborate house may be falling apart but it's still bigger than your house that stands the tests of time. My car may cost $10K/year just to keep the POS running but it cost more than your car. Mine is bigger than yours. My daddy can beat up your daddy. Ehh... I'm sick to death of the whole mess.

And being "outvoted"... means being a wuss. I choose to live without rather than have it cut off. These "new age" women will find themselves alone with their vibrators and missing their rights to motherly love rather than most of us men giving in to being neutered.

Two points. When we shoot a wedding, I believe we give quality images, either 200 images or 1200 images. If you shoot 1,000 images it does not mean that they are of poorer quality then if you only shot 200.

As for being a "wuss", reminds me of cutting your nose to spite you face!
Michael

 

[Mike1234]

No, being "outvoted" means that two of us had to make the decision, and my wife felt more strongly that she wanted some guests at the wedding than I felt we needed none. Easy. It is called discussion and compromise. No skin off my nose. You are in danger of sounding like you are ranting, Mike.

Im AM ranting, Ian. And I choose to masturbate rather than put up with being controlled. Yes, I'm VERY lonely but at least I'm not a wuss.

 

[Ian David]

Im AM ranting, Ian. And I choose to masturbate rather than put up with being controlled. Yes, I'm VERY lonely but at least I'm not a wuss.

I am married, but not controlled, Mike. Nor do I control my wife. Remind me again how your fondness for w*nking relates to this thread?

 

[Leighgion]

Isn't a couple of well done photos worth more than a trunk of hundreds of so-so ones?

Sure, but it's a fallacy to pretend that these are the only two choices.

Isn't ten well-done photos better than only two? It is possible to have ten really good shots, isn't it?

How about two really nice posed shots, plus an album full of good spontaneous ones? Can you honestly say it'd be better to throw out the album and only keep the nice posed shots?

Less is more is an aphorism, not a rule, as is quality over quantity. In every case, you choose the balance.

 

[geoferrell]

I like the new approach of archival printing that makes wedding pictures more permanent. In the 1950s photographers provided a small album and maybe six or eight 8x10s for under $50. I used 5 to 7 rolls of 35mm and one roll of 120 for weddings in the 1990s and then switched over to the DSLR in 2005 and have wound up with from 500 to over 1,000 files at times. Some of the photographers whose work I have admired only provided 40 images for a single wedding. I like being able to take pictures as long as they are wanted with a DSLR instead of having to load another roll. When I use film it is for art type applications, or for special use or request. I think weddings go to what the couple and their families expect and the level and approach for the pictures often means providing the files directly after the reception ends.

 

[eddym]

I started my career as a wedding photographer, after five years seeing negatives coming back for reprinting due to fading

That's not a problem these days; most of the marriages don't last that long anyway.

 

[msage]

Sure, but it's a fallacy to pretend that these are the only two choices.

Isn't ten well-done photos better than only two? It is possible to have ten really good shots, isn't it?

How about two really nice posed shots, plus an album full of good spontaneous ones? Can you honestly say it'd be better to throw out the album and only keep the nice posed shots?

Less is more is an aphorism, not a rule, as is quality over quantity. In every case, you choose the balance.

Right on! There is a lot going on (in my head) when I shoot a wedding. I am looking for those shots that invoke emotion, happiness, fun and passion.
If you feel there is a market for wedding coverage using a Speed Graphic, 12 pieces of bxw film too produce 10-12 8x10's in an album, go for it. I think it would be very cool! On the other hand, some folks want 3,000 images and there photographers to do that also. That is fine also. For me and my wife (second shooter) we top out at about 1,300-1,500 images before feeling tapped out emotionally and creativity. Now that I think of it, I may add a retro package offering 4x5 film and custom 8x10's.
Michael

 

[Peter De Smidt]

Sure, but it's a fallacy to pretend that these are the only two choices.

Isn't ten well-done photos better than only two? It is possible to have ten really good shots, isn't it?

How about two really nice posed shots, plus an album full of good spontaneous ones? Can you honestly say it'd be better to throw out the album and only keep the nice posed shots?

Less is more is an aphorism, not a rule, as is quality over quantity. In every case, you choose the balance.

Sure, it's a continuum, and people should get what they like, and photographers should provide what their clientele desires.

That said, I expect that if you asked couples 20 or 30 years after their wedding day if instead of a huge album of pictures they had a couple of great toned silver gelatin, platinum, carbon transfer, or even piezography prints, and you showed them some samples, that many would've wished that they had chosen the small number/high quality option.

It would also raise the chances of the prints being looked at down through the generations. What I'm suggesting is the creation of a few family heirlooms. My grand parent's wedding pictures are on display in my home. While I have albums full of pictures of them, I only look through them about once a decade. I bet I'm not alone.

My wife and I married in 1990. I've looked at our wedding album twice. (It's large and crappy. I had nothing to do in arranging it, as I was on another continent the year preceding our wedding.) My wife has looked at it perhaps double as much. It was a very poor use of quite a bit of money.

If you really want a play-by-play account of your wedding, get it videoed.

 

[msage]

That's not a problem these days; most of the marriages don't last that long anyway.

I hear that all the time but, the divorce rate is the lowest since 1970.
http://www.divorcemag.com/statistics/statsUS.shtml

Another fact is that District of Columbia had the lowest reported divorce rate followed by Massachusetts.
Michael

 

[Allen Friday]

My wife and I belong to a dinner club. Last year the club had a "Everything Weddings" dinner. (The oldest child of one of the couples in the club was getting married, so we decided to celebrate by remembering our own weddings.) All the couples brought their wedding albums. Three of the couples were married in the early to mid 1970s and my wife and I were married in 1981.

It was interesting to see the variety of wedding albums. My wife and I had photographs from a professional photographer and the prints have held up very well. There are about 40 prints in the album, which include photographs of all the members of our families and our close friends. One couple had a friend shoot their wedding and they had a notebook filled with plastic pages and prints that looked like they came from a drug store. The other two couples also used professional photographers, but their prints have not held up nearly as well as our prints have.

The variety of albums brought to the dinner makes me think that it is best not to generalize about the quality and permanence of wedding photographs taken years ago. I imagine some wedding photographers in the 1970s were lamenting the decline of wedding photography once brides expected color prints instead of black and white. I imagine some wedding photographers in the 1970s were complaining about the large number of photos that the bride wanted: "Remember the good old days when I could get by on 5 film holders, the bride now wants me to take 100 exposures."

it seem like we have some Pollyanna views of the good old days. Times are different, but that doesn't mean they are better or worse. Brides want different things, so photographers give them what they want. There were bad photographers working 100, 50 and 25 years ago, there are bad photographers working today. There were great photographers working 100, 50 and 25 years ago. There are great photographers working today.

It is up to the bride and groom to check references and to examine the work of the photographer they hire. So what if a bride wants 1200 photos from her wedding and they are delivered on a CD? So what if the bride posts 500 of them on a wedding website for friends and family to download (with permission of the photographer of course)? If it is important to the bride that friends can download the photos, then shouldn't that be the standard for determining whether posting on a website is good or bad? Hopefully the bride will get some high quality prints that will survive the test of time. Hopefully those prints will hold up better than some of those brought to our dinner club.

The dinner was very fun. My wife found a wedding dress at goodwill for $25 and I found a used tux for 99 cents. One member of the club is a minister and he wore his robes. We cut the cake, toasted with champagne, danced to our "first dance" songs from our weddings, and then we relived our wedding night.

 

[snegron]

Having shot weddings in "the old film days" as well as in our current "D" age, I can say that there are several factors that have forced the change in our shooting techniques.

Back in the days of 120 film, rolls were expensive to process and print (not to mention we had to have several pre-loaded film backs to keep the momentum going). Autofocus was non-existant, so it took time (at least for me) to capture the image I wanted. Using 35mm film for an entire wedding was not the accepted practice because everyone knew that the larger the negative, the higher the quality of the image. The big debate was square vs. rectangle, and people thought that 645 negatives were a bit too small to be considered for "serious" wedding work. Later on, using 35mm for shots at the reception was ok because most of those images were not going to be any bigger than 5"x7" (two per page on the album).

Bigger negatives meant less images available on a 120 roll. Of course, there was always 220 length film but that was even more expensive to process. Bottom line was that the images had to count, so much more care went into planning each shot in order to avoid waste.

When "Uncle Bobs" started showing up at weddings with their cool 35mm AF SLR's and shooting dozens of halfway decent pictures (thanks to improvements in film technology, better lenses, faster cameras), we found ourselves having to give clients more (as well as better) images.

When I started shooting weddings with DSLR's, I noticed that people were asking me "where are the rest of the images?" when I only showed them 200 or so shots. Clients today have gotten used to shooting several hundred shots with their own little point and shoot digital cameras and expect "a pro" to provide even more shots. The thought is that if the "Uncle Bobs" of today shoot 500 pics with their fancy new DSLR with kit lens, isn't the "official" photographer supposed to shoot at least triple that amount? They tend to expect your images today to be a collection of documentary photographs with a few artistic shots worthy of display.

Lately I have cringed when some couples have pointed out during the initial interview process how their friends take "killer pictures" with their expensive cameras (usually point and shoots), but these friends can't photograph the wedding because they will be either in it or will be out of town. Several have asked me why I charge so much because "after all, there is no cost to taking digital pictures". I will admit that I have simply given up trying to explain to them that they are paying for proffessional results. I have told many of them that they should stick with their friends who take "killer pictures" as they will be getting a much better bargain. :rolleyes: Maybe I'm just getting too old for this.


p.s. I wonder if the trend of "more is better" is reflecting in camera manufacturer's decisions to produce cameras with video capability? Is this a sign of the future trend of shooting a digital video and freezing the desired image for print? The ultimate "spray and pray" wedding camera? http://www.dpreview.com/news/0910/09101402nikonD3s.asp

 

[removed account4]

I like the new approach of archival printing that makes wedding pictures more permanent. In the 1950s photographers provided a small album and maybe six or eight 8x10s for under $50. I used 5 to 7 rolls of 35mm and one roll of 120 for weddings in the 1990s and then switched over to the DSLR in 2005 and have wound up with from 500 to over 1,000 files at times. Some of the photographers whose work I have admired only provided 40 images for a single wedding. I like being able to take pictures as long as they are wanted with a DSLR instead of having to load another roll. When I use film it is for art type applications, or for special use or request. I think weddings go to what the couple and their families expect and the level and approach for the pictures often means providing the files directly after the reception ends.

hi geoferrell

http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi

50$ from 1950 is about 442.53 in 2008 ...
a product that costed 50$ in 2008 would have cost $5.81 then...

i wonder if the photographer stayed for more than the "formals"
and if 50$ was his whole charge?
having said that the giant spurt of the now-folks who
make a 50 pg album and charge 3K seems like a bargain

i have often thought of marketing the 10-photo-album
all formals, all shot large format for 500$ ...
in this recession maybe it would be a perceived "deal"
especially if the client knew it was " quality from their grandparents' time"

 

[JBrunner]

In consumerism, people like what they are told to like.

 

[Mike1234]

Present society seems to equate "quantity" with "quality". More is better even if the parts are of questionable individualistic value.

 

[Paul Jenkin]

I have one 8x10 hand-tinted print of my mum and dad's marriage in 1948. That's it. I don't know if there were any others. The story I was told is that the shot was taken by the local newspaper guy, they bought a copy and my dad did the colouring-in. It's a nice photo and tells me everything I need to know about two people whose love never ceased.

I got married two years ago. I love taking photos but detest being in them. My wife is equally unhappy about being the centre of photographic attention, so I took our wedding photos outside the Registry Office. Armed with a tripod and in-camera self-timer, I took about 20 shots and have processed about half a dozen. Admittedly, it was a very quiet wedding - just six of us present on the day.

I also took shots at the "wedding breakfast" afterwards and on honeymoon. Our album, limited in photo numbers as it is, tells the whole story from the wedding through to doing our PADI Open Water diving qualification on honeymoon in the Maldives.

Quality, not quantity, is what counts for my missus and me. I doubt we are unique. Albums that run to 70+ photos are, in my opinion, completely unnecessary and verging on the nacissistic.

 

[rjphil]

On a side note,
I remember a guy by the name of Rocky Gunn who for his time was quite unique. His style reminds me of a lot of the work I see today.
He had a crew that basically worked with him from wedding to wedding, There were the technical assistants that would take the family groups, and cover the basic story with precision , and then Rocky would roll in with a couple of assistants for an hour or two max and shoot the creatives with the bride and groom, He was very popular and charged large.
I always wonder what happened to him.

Bob - I met Rocky at the old PPA Winona School in Indiana (I was on summer staff there). Great guy, lots of energy. He was one of the first ones I saw that wanted to get the bride and groom together before the wedding to do really different formals, outdoors in hayfields, along the shore, wherever they wanted.
Very cool work. Sadly he died in the early 80s at 42. Nice guy.

 

[Bob Carnie]

He was unique for the times and a bundle of energy.
He would show up for weddings in a souped up Van with all his gear, bluejeans white tshirt and walk away with the bride and groom for an hour, then he would go to the next.
He did not shoot any of the formals and I think he hired the best technical shooters he could find for this so the Bride and Groom did get a very balanced offering.
A very good talent to die at 42.

Bob - I met Rocky at the old PPA Winona School in Indiana (I was on summer staff there). Great guy, lots of energy. He was one of the first ones I saw that wanted to get the bride and groom together before the wedding to do really different formals, outdoors in hayfields, along the shore, wherever they wanted.
Very cool work. Sadly he died in the early 80s at 42. Nice guy.

 

[Ken N]

This is a tough one for me. I'm partnering with another photographer and do the usual 1800+ digital shots per wedding stuff. It's what the market demands if you want to be a regular wedding-mill photographer.

But my heart is in shooting weddings on film. I typically top out at 400-500 pictures and that seems like millions. Frankly, beyond 250 I'm just wasting film.

The key to survival in promoting film is that it is something special, not a thing of not being current.

All this me too digital sameness is so nauseating. It's ultra clean, easier to shoot and does give a better product overall, but it just looks so boring. No character to speak of. In fact, that's the whole goal behind buying the best possible digital camera--there is no character you have to work around.

You might as well photograph a child's Barbie Doll collection. You end up with the same look.

 

[jolefler]

I Got Dragged In....

(kicking and screaming) to the wedding shoot scenario on three occasions in the past year.

FWIW, those three couples were of lesser means and had no affordable options offered to them by other local professionals. All of the options offered by the wedding specialists were more than $2000. One young lady said,
"$2000!, that's as much as I'm spending on the entire ceremony!"

Perhaps the industry would benefit from reducing their proof count by a considerable amount in order to make an affordable package.

I gave two weddings away to close friends, and charged $300 for the one that was for a referral from another friend. Each of those packages contained 30-4X5s from digital and 30-5x5s from negatives in a modest album. I also included 2-8x10s from digital and one 8X10 silver gelatin, all matted to
11X14. A CD of watermarked images was also included.

Granted, I didn't make enough on the $300 wedding to base a business model, but sure could by padding it by $150-300! No one had any problem with only 60 prints of my choice in the album, or the # of enlargements.

Take the above as a suggestion/note for those in the trade. I don't want to be!

Jo

 

[Denis K]

They seem to have the most value to the generations that follow. In the end, a couple of good black and whites is all I want...

Sixteen pictures of a little kid, each just slightly different than the last. Ugh!

I couldn't agree more. I lost my father during my second year at university, and I have but three photos of him. One was taken in theater during the WWII and the other two were taken during his wedding; by whom I don’t know. The wedding picture I like best is one where he is standing alone, in profile, in the grass behind the garden apartment where he has a reception following the ceremony. That picture is special to me because, as I know my father, I know the picture captures him as he was in life, and is not some quirky candid moment.

In my opinion, there is nothing that will destroy the value of a picture more than having a few similar ones like it. If I could give fathers everywhere advice, it would be to remain camera shy, but to have a very few pictures to pass along to their children.

Denis K

 

[Ken N]

Granted, I didn't make enough on the $300 wedding to base a business model, but sure could by padding it by $150-300! No one had any problem with only 60 prints of my choice in the album, or the # of enlargements.
Jo

I have a day job so photography is a side-line business for me. As such, I consider the minimum amount I need to clear from a wedding is $500 just to be worth the hassle and time. If I was strictly photography-based in my income, I'd need no less than $1000 net profit per wedding. If I was strictly a wedding photographer, I'd need no less than $2000 net profit per wedding.

We're talking NET PROFIT here, not what I'm charging them. This isn't greed, this is just to maintain a comfortable household income.

In the case of wedding photography, you can usually figure on 50% cost-basis, (depending on your staffing of second shooters), so take those net profit figures and double them. That's what you need to be charging the customers.

 

[wclark5179]

"Perhaps the industry would benefit from reducing their proof count by a considerable amount in order to make an affordable package."

Good idea!

I don't make paper "proofs" anymore. Haven't for several years.

What I've done is look back from previous years, more than 5 years, re-print sales, determined my bottom line profit, averaged it out, then added that number to my "packages" and now offer photographs on DVD's.

Still receive album orders and large size (> 8/10) print orders. Some of my investment points include an album while others do not. It's the clients choice. Though albums aren't as profitable as the time spent making them as I could easily do another wedding in less time & earn more money.

Yes, the business has changed! For the better, at least through my eyes.

 

[clayne]

You know what's incredibly insane? Having to edit through 1500+ images. We're not even talking post processing - just editing and initial sorting. How this is somehow amazingly faster than 100-200 frames on film is a mystery to me.

Fact is, if it is faster it's because 85% of the images are trash and easy to sort through. Let's be real, nobody is shooting 500 keepers out of 1500. Just to find the gems among a sea of images takes considerable time itself.

Limitations are your friend not your enemy.

 

[naugastyle]

I recently went to my close friends' destination wedding, where after shooting perhaps 300 photos I culled down to 75--covering the entire weekend of events and just drunken hangout time. The pro photographer really did submit about 1000 of ONLY "getting ready," ceremony, and reception--and since there were no blinking shots I assume this was still edited down. In truth, though, I do think the couple preferred the digital shots because there was a lot of glamorizing going on--super high-key, vaseline-style (which at our relatively young age is completely unnecessary). So I too think it has lots to do with changing attitudes of the bride (and sometimes groom) and not necessarily something the wedding photographers are forcing.

Of course I prefer quality over quantity, but don't think the quantity needs to be SO severely reduced. If I ever get married I'm down with the city-hall-and-pizza version, but for most people this one day is hugely important. My parents have only perhaps two posed studio shots in their wedding gear, which have nice color and they look great, but totally stiff. Perhaps early 70s Taiwanese photography is the same level of sophistication as 50s European/American . But their book of candid shots--wow. Many are just amazing, and I wouldn't want to lose a single one for the sake of tight editing for the best of the best.

Of course, I doubt there are even 100, let alone 1000...