3rd wedding I have shot. unhappy bride!

<p>So please tell me what you think of these. My bride hated them, even though she had seen my other work and Knew I was inexperienced. She thought the lighting was all wrong. My friends and family think they are very good, what do my fellow photographers think?</p>

<p>It will help if you provide a link to the images.</p>

<p>Yes, we need a link. And what exactly did the bride say? Is this something you can fix in post-production?</p>

<p>they're all overexposed</p>

<p>Mark, where are you seeing these pictures?</p>

<p>I think Mark is pulling our legs, Betty. Perhaps it is the latest set on Kelli's website. But we can't know for sure until she tells us.</p>

<p>Well ... while I was waiting, I checked out Mark's site. Oh SO very awesome. VERY awesome! : ) </p>

<p>Holy cow Mark, you're my new photographic hero. Beautiful beautiful work!</p>

http://summerfordphotography.webs.com/apps/photos/album?albumid=4958818

 

I think this is the site, not positive tho.

 

Based of only these 23 shots if I were the bride, I would be slightly disappointed. There's no structure in your posing, the sun lit up some of the people, but others are shadowed. It looks like you didn't use any type of flash, either fill ot straight on flash.

 

Good news is for only doing a few weddings the bride should be happy.

 

To help you out for future weddings pick up some CD's, books on weddings and portraits. Some of the older books from the 70's and 80's are wonderful for mastering poses, getting beautiful bridal portraits, and understanding lighting. In my opinion creative lighting techniques is the secret comparing an average photographer to the worlds best photographers. When I look through a camera I often back away from taking the shot, because the lighting or the posing is wrong. Even when I'm hired to do only PJ style weddings, I won't just take a shot for the heck of it, knowing in my heart the photo won't fly.

 

If you want me to go over each of the 23 shots, email me.

<p>Kelli, I'm sorry but these are snapshots. If a bride hires someone with two weddings under her belt, that bride really shouldn't expect to be happy. That's her bad, not yours. If you want to shoot more weddings, learn first. As Bob said, the lighting is bad, the compositions are poor, many backgrounds awful. Read all you can. Visit the sites of top wedding photographers so you know what the best looks like. This will inspire you and give you a target to aim for.</p>

<p>Mark Ridout, aka Buckethead, is one of the finest wedding togs around. His site would be a good place to start.</p>

<p>And don't listen to friends and family. They'll almost never provide you with useful feedback. They simply can't be objective. You were wise to seek opinions here.</p>

 

<p>I'm not so sure those are the photos that she is wanted critique on - as she as another posted for June... Kelli can you please provide a link... thanks</p>

<p>I looked at the ones for June, as that seems like the most likely recent bride... maybe Kelli will clarify which gallery she means.</p>

<p>Kelli, I just looked over your site. It needs a LOT of work. From the pictures to the type.<br>

I cannot believe you wrote this in your pricing area: Some people are more photogenic and will have more "good pictures" than others.<br>

This is, in a word, saying "hey, if you're ugly I can't help it if your pictures are bad"<br>

This is a terrible way to approach photography. It's your JOB to make pictures beautiful, photogenic or not.<br>

Honestly, I am all for encouraging anyone to go for their dream and learn what they can, but this whole paragraph really turned me off.</p>

 

<p>I think you need to work on outdoor fill flash, sky detail is clipped and main subject is underexposed. I would have the same feelings as the bride.</p>

<p>Responding to the set 'campbell wedding'. These are the things I notice:</p>

 

<ul>

<li>Your b+w conversions have no black points or white points - they're all mid-tones. That's not what a b+w image is supposed to look like. They lack contrast and acutance.</li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li>Few images are sharp. Most of them look like they're either suffering inaccurate focus, or you've given them some kind of blur in post-processing, perhaps to augment their artistic appeal. If the latter, I don't think it's working.</li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li>Many compositions are not successful. And some (for example photo 31) look strangely inappropriate for a wedding.</li>

</ul>

<ul>

<li>There are exposure problems on most images.</li>

</ul>

<p>I agree with the issues mentioned above... the black and whites that lack both black and white, the lack of sharpness [that isn't 'artistic blur', it looks more like a plain lack of focus] and compositions aren't working. <br>

I agree also your website-- which seems to be the primary tool for marketing anymore-- needs a lot of work, both images and text. A previous poster noted the "some people are more photogenic than others" issue... you then offer "boudoir photography" with more samples than some of the weddings. <br>

<a href="http://summerfordphotography.webs.com/investmentspricing.htm">You also say</a>, " I charge you only for my time Photographing you and the time it takes me to edit your pictures. Being an Artist and a perfectionist I enjoying spending as much time in Photoshop as needed to give you the best Picture possible off one shot if need be. You may even get 2 versions of 1 picture, maybe one in color and one in black and white etc. " It doesn't take long to do a BW conversion in Photoshop, and do it well... looks like most of your editing is doing selective color.<br>

[How much would anyone here pay for selective color? I've always wondered that.]<br>

In any event, learning lighting, poses, and some web design would be your friend. One thing that may help as well is to think of economy of shots- something lost in PJ-style photography. Back in the day when you had a limited number of shots, each one cost a certain amount of money... everytime you pushed the shutter, it cost you money. What would happen if with each shot you thought "That just cost me five bucks!"... would you be taking unbalanced pictures of selective-color tongues?</p>

 

<p>Take this image as an example <a href="http://summerfordphotography.webs.com/apps/photos/album?albumid=4958818">http://summerfordphotography.webs.com/apps/photos/album?albumid=4958818</a></p>

<p>The color was horribly blue from the blue sky. Fill flash was needed badly. The dress should be white, white, white. What was in the image was blue tinted. The posing is really bad especially the arm on the shoulder. The attendant on the righ is missing her arm completely. Also try and get people to smile. These people look like they are at a funeral. You have also blown the highlights of the brides dress.</p>

<p>I warmed the picture up, corrected somewhat the color cast on the brides dress and some vignetting to remove some background detail. Certainly not great as I am not going to spend a lot of time but an improvement nonetheless.</p><div></div>

<p>Just being honest here:</p>

<p>Personally, I would be disappointed as well. The post processing is bad, the compositions aren't very good and the only flash I can see in these is direct and popup. The grain/focus also looks like something on the Rebel range with cheap glass and almost everything is F4+. The spot color and soft focus effects is what curls my toes though. Hopefully she's getting more than 30 photos for the most important day in her life? Myself... I would give her her money back and start second shooting to gain experience before you continue doing them on your own. You need a lot more training especially in the post processing department and should not be doing these on your own yet. I would also invest in some better equipment. Perhaps a 40D+ or 5D+ SLR and some USM or L glass that's 2.8 or faster (if shooting canon).</p>

<p>Seriously, please don't be hurt by what I've said, just trying to be honest and as critical/helpful as possible and to save you the heartache of this sort of thing happening again. There's nothing wrong with going out there and getting trained up to be the best you possible! So learn learn learn, shoot every single day (and I do mean every single day, like 1000 pictures a day) for a month. Take your camera everywhere. Shoot everything you can see until you can use your camera in complete darkness and know what you're doing. It will make such a difference for you!! Keep at it, don't give up, work hard and you'll get there. :) We're always happy to answer any questions you have so feel free to drop us an email.</p>

<p>Kelli, I took a quick look through your pics on your website and they do look fairly consistent but all hold true to the above statements. Unfortunately with this industry, even when b&g's go with the less experienced cheaper options they still expect more in their hearts. Now you are stuck in the middle.<br>

Family and friends are also terrible judges of your photography and will never give you the answers you need to hear. If you really want to get into photography I suggest you get into second shooting from a photographer and learn from them. Get a nice lens or two and it will help you to improve your work in the long run as well. As for dealing with your unhappy client... I am sure a lot can be improved in photoshop since her complaints are on the lighting, maybe that will smooth things over but I've never been in that situation so I don't exactly know what I would do.</p>

<p>It kind of looks like her wedding was a small affair with a lot of touches from<br />family and friends. (Campbell wedding?) The cake top layer looks as if it's about ready to fall over, I'm not sure how you can fix that photo. Their might have been an angle that looked better. Most of the stuff looks like it's done with a lens that is not so complimentary to your work, underexposed as well. You need to utilize a flash more.<br /><br />It's really hard to catch beautiful stuff with weeds and cars in the background, a dress that has stitching flaws, the groom is in kakis, low powerlines, dead trees and silk flowers from walmart. A bride with no make-up and a hard to win smile doesn't help. I would also bet all that is part of what she is unhappy with. However, it's still our job to make it look like half a million bucks. <br /><br />Neil van Niekerk (planet neil-lots to learn there, great site) said once in a posting I read, that anybody that says equipment doesn't matter is wrong. So with that said I say get better stuff and learn how to make it work for you. Maybe glass first and then the bodies. Ditch using the spot color stuff until you become a better master of PS. A good work over in PS using levels and color balance will do wonders for this set. Loose the sepia and any other effects and fix the color first. She'll be happier and so will you.<br>

Happy shooting!</p>

<p>It kind of looks like her wedding was a small affair with a lot of touches from<br />family and friends. (Campbell wedding?) The cake top layer looks as if it's about ready to fall over, I'm not sure how you can fix that photo. Their might have been an angle that looked better. Most of the stuff looks like it's done with a lens that is not so complimentary to your work, underexposed as well. You need to utilize a flash more.<br /><br />It's really hard to catch beautiful stuff with weeds and cars in the background, a dress that has stitching flaws, the groom is in kakis, low powerlines, dead trees and silk flowers from walmart. A bride with no make-up and a hard to win smile doesn't help. I would also bet all that is part of what she is unhappy with. However, it's still our job to make it look like half a million bucks. <br /><br />Neil van Niekerk (planet neil-lots to learn there, great site) said once in a posting I read, that anybody that says equipment doesn't matter is wrong. So with that said I say get better stuff and learn how to make it work for you. Maybe glass first and then the bodies. Ditch using the spot color stuff until you become a better master of PS. A good work over in PS using levels and color balance will do wonders for this set. Loose the sepia and any other effects and fix the color first. She'll be happier and so will you.<br>

Happy shooting!</p>

<p>I'm not going to add anything to the wedding photo critiques, I think you've probably got the general consensus... some of your other galleries have some good photos. It does appear that many need work either in post, or using better lighting/flash.</p>

<p> I would go back and look at your wording in a lot of the paragraphs. In addition to the 'photogenic' comment that Cathy and David point out, further down your sentences start to make no sense. <strong>"Being an Artist and a perfectionist I enjoying spending as much time in Photoshop as needed to give you the best Picture possible off one shot if need be." </strong>I'd re-do a lot of that, maybe make your pricing a little simpler.</p>

<p>It seems that a lot of people here who aren't qualified to do weddings want to blame the bride when she's not happy. It's time to realize that the photos are going to be much more important afterwards that they are upfront. Just because the bride is looking for a less expensive alternative doesn't mean she's not going to be extremely critical. Every bride wants nice photos. You're the one providing the service and are in a much better position to judge if you're prepared than she is....-Aimee</p>

<p>Aimee, I don't think anyone is saying this is the bride's fault completely, but the old adage "you get what you pay for" holds VERY true in this industry. If a photographer is trying to get anyone to give them a chance at a wedding and charging a small amount, you better make sure they really know what they're doing.<br>

Photographers who may be seen as expensive often earn the right to charge what they do, and they are often worth it. But, it's not very often you see a $500 photog that is worth even that. Sadly. Brides need to educate themselves in regards to the photographs they expect to get.<br>

You can't offer up $500 and expect $5000 service, anywhere. This is a buyer-beware situation that too many brides find themselves in.</p>

 

<p>Hi<br>

I am no pro but I shoot events sometimes and must say I wouldn't be happy with those photos<br>

pretty much all of them are blurry the fucus should be on eyes and when you do selective color in almost all of the photos color spills out all over there is one photo where you selective colored guys tounge I do not think this works very well plus the poses are not the greatest either. Like most mentioned here try to shoot with a pro for a while and lear as much as you can read blogs, books, attend semminars, go out and shoot a lot.<br>

Shooting events is fast pace and usually there is no time to practice there.<br>

you'll need some good lenses and flash.<br>

you'll do good but need to practice a lot and learn even more. Listen to critiques and learn from them.<br>

" Once you make a mistake but you learn from it and know how to do it right next time then it's no longer a mistake. If you do not learn from it it's just stupidity"</p>