jeffascough Posted July 20, 2009 Share Posted July 20, 2009 <p>Laura - some clients have 5-6 groups; some don't have any at all; and occasionally I cover up to ten groups on a wedding. The only criteria I have is that they shouldn't take any more than ten minutes to complete.<br> Typically it will be immediate families, bride with bridesmaids, groom with groomsmen, that sort of thing. I try and avoid extended family groups and anything that logistically would present a problem. I always do a couple of bride and groom pictures which take a couple of minutes to do.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamphoto Posted July 20, 2009 Share Posted July 20, 2009 <p>Dear Jeff,<br> With your current clientele involving beautiful celebrities, historic and spacious venues, and God on your side with the lighting - when was the last time you shot bridal preparation in a terraced house with bad decor, followed by a 1970s registry office and finger buffet at the Dog & Duck under strip lights? What advice do you have for making the most of visually challenging locations?</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duncan ireland Posted July 20, 2009 Share Posted July 20, 2009 <p>Hi Jeff,<br> many thanks for this great insight.<br> <br> I often think many wedding photographers over rely on craft and technique to compensate for their inability to see a great moment. By contrast your work is inspirational in your ability to see perfect moments, I really see the parallels between your work and the documentary masters that you mention like Nachtwey.<br> <br> My question is - do you do any sort of mental preparation before or during a wedding to stay mentally sharp? When I shoot a wedding it's usually a long day. Have you got any tips on staying sharp and able to keep spotting those precious moments over adrenaline alone?<br> Cheers and thanks for your great blog.<br> Duncan</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rick_donhauser Posted July 20, 2009 Share Posted July 20, 2009 <p>Dear Jeff,</p> <p>Thanks so much for the workflow strategies. The next questions concerns album creation. Do you still use Yervant software and your album's software to design? Do you try to keep the original crop as much as possible on each of the images? Do you use a square or rectangular album format? Why do you make one photograph black and white and another color? And finally what do you think about when you start designing an album? <br> Also would it be possible to see an example of one of your albums?<br> And thanks, thanks, thanks for being so generous in sharing your knowledge.</p> <p>Rick</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fellipe_de_paula Posted July 20, 2009 Share Posted July 20, 2009 <p>Jeff, do you provide any proofs of the album design or just the finished album?<br /> When picking the photos for the albuns spreads how do you handle those pictures of friends, and other guests?<br /> Aren't you afraid to miss someone important in the album?<br /> Could you please explain to us more of the practical side of choosing the photos for the album instead of letting the client?</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
think27 Posted July 20, 2009 Author Share Posted July 20, 2009 <p>Hold on the questions now until Jeff answers.. Thanks guys</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffascough Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 <p>Adam - last year!! The environment is ultimately a big part of the wedding story, so I don't try to hide it. Obviously I don't want it to distract from the images, but an environment can be used as part of the storytelling process. Part of what challenges me is getting images in situations where most photographers would give up. </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffascough Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 <p>Duncan - great question. I don't do any mental preparation as in psyching myself up, but on the way to the wedding I do run over a few things in my head in terms of logisitics. I like to be very relaxed and open minded when I start a wedding. Once I start shooting, I make sure that I stay hydrated and take plenty of small five minute breaks. This allows me to keep shooting for 12 hours or more. Last year I also started to take my health a lot more seriously, and lost 10kg in weight. That probably made the single biggest difference to me in terms of being able to shoot for longer. My stamina increased as did my alertness.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_hobson1 Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 <p>Hi Jeff,<br><br>I really love your work, you're a very inspirational photographer. In lieu of attending one of your seminars I wondered if there were any books or DVDs focussed on wedding photography that you could recommend? <br><br>What would you consider are the core skills required to be an excellent wedding photographer?<br><br>Many thanks for taking time to answer questions here<p> MODERATOR NOTE: Website link removed from forum thread as per photo.net policy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotografz Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 <p>Hey Jeff, in all the years I've known your work you continue to be a re-affirmation of a classic, yet highly modern approach without resorting to fads to stand out. Your humanity sings out in a world fraught with superficial gimmicks.</p> <p>My question for you is about managing your own success.</p> <p>While I have been shooting weddings for some time now, it was not my profession. Now it is ... a bit late in life perhaps, but I went 100% last January after a long career in advertising.</p> <p>My difficulty is that to survive with enough weddings, I can't seem to land enough of them in my more documentary style ... and to survive must take on weddings with far more structured requirements that take me away from documenting what is really happening. If I try to manage client expectations by limiting the more structured images, they sign with someone else ... even reluctantly sometimes because they like my humanistic documentary approach more. Prior to going full time it didn't matter as my income was from elsewhere. Now it matters. </p> <p>Your thoughts? </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mehul_ruparelia Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 <p>Hi Jeff,<br> I'm a big fan of your work and have heard you speak at Focus On Imaging and attended your Wedding Photography seminar in July 2008.<br> It seems the weddings you cover are mostly Christian weddings set in a church or beautiful location somewhere in the UK countryside. In my mind (correct me if I'm wrong), these weddings and locations lend themselves to your type of photography (or vice versa) in terms of the lighting and colour of most of the outfits. Have you ever covered a Hindu/Indian wedding? These are usually a lot more colourful and brash in terms of lighting and I would really be interested to see how your style would work with these weddings and am also interested in how you might approach this type of wedding.<br> Regards, Mehul</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffascough Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 <p>Rick - I haven't any album designs I'm willing to share on a public forum but I can answer your questions. I use Jorgensen Album Designer for all my albums now. The albums are predominantly square and I don't ever crop the image when it comes to the album design. The images are converted to b/w or colour depending on their content, and aren't converted for the sake of album design.<br> The first thing I think about when starting an album design - a nice big mug of coffee ;-) Seriously, the flow of the pictures influences the design, so I just relax and see what images work best with others while keeping some sort of chronological order to the images.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffascough Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 <p>Fellipe - I supply the finished album. The clients can choose which pictures they don't want to go into it, but the design etc is mine. They simply see the images online, and let me know if they are happy with everything going in or do they want to take some out. Those images then make up the album.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffascough Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 <p>John - Marcus Bell has an excellent book on wedding photography, and some great DVD's. Joe Buissink has a great DVD called 'Defining the moment' which is well worth looking at.<br> To be a good wedding photographer, you need to be able to be calm, patient, and respectful of the people you are photographing and the people around you. Being able to take great pictures helps too :-)</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_hobson1 Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 <p>Hi Jeff, Just a quick one - do you use a third-party split prism focussing screen to aid focussing manually?</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffascough Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 <p>Marc - I would think it has more to do with marketing than anything else. We market my business in a very deliberate way; it is all about the images. The albums, groups, packages etc are all largely irrelevent to my clients when they enquire. I believe that clients can either afford me, or they can't and that's the criteria for them. What they get for the money isn't the main factor. It is interesting that when a client enquires with a list of things they must have from their photography, I rarely get the wedding.<br> Once you decide to focus solely on the images, then people book you for those images. We work in a very visual world now, and it is important to move people with your pictures, not what you are offering in terms of package, or anything else. It is all about the pictures.<br> To get those pictures, the clients have to allow me to do my thing. I tell them this from the moment they enquire, and reinforce it throughout every time we speak to them and so on. That's how we manage their expectations. I've even given clients who want to restrict the way I work, the name of another photographer who would be able to help them, as I feel they will be a better fit.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffascough Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 <p>Mehul - I have covered weddings from various cultures throughout my career including Indian weddings. My approach is exactly the same as it would be for any other wedding. I will observe and document the day. The colours and lighting are simply part of the challenge.<br> I will be honest and say that I don't get very many enquiries for Indian weddings these days. I get plenty of mixed culture weddings, but it's rare that I am contacted by a couple where they are both Indian. I would dearly love to do more of them, as they are really fun to photograph.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffascough Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 <p>John - I use the Canon EG-S screens in my 5DMKII's to aid manual focusing.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derrickc Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 <p> <p>Hi Jeff,<br> can you share about the rare times when you have used a flash? What are the deciding factors that would lead you to using one? What do you look out for when you do use a flash (e.g. some people try to do it in such a way that it's not obvious from the image produced that a flash was used, etc). Any examples of images in which you have used a flash with some background on the thought process that went through your mind?<br> Cheers, Derrick</p> </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffascough Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 <p>Derrick - I haven't used flash at a wedding since October 2008. The 5DMKII's high iso officially made flash redundant as far as my work is concerned. I find flash to be incredibly intrusive. The only time I ever used it was to either stop movement during the first dance in low light, or for the occasional formal image in low light where I needed more depth of field than the available light would give me.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fellipe_de_paula Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 <p>Jeff<br> Av, right?<br> Which metering system do you use and how realiable is it?<br> Do you still shoot jpg only or you moved to raw?</p> <p>Thanks a lot!</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotografz Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 <p>Thank you Jeff.</p> <p>-Marc</p> <p> </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oistein Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 <p>Hi Jeff,</p> <p>Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts and knowledge here on this forum. I have been doing photography for some years now and I really really enjoy it. Just a couple of months ago I quit my safe job to persue a career in photography. One of the real turning points that got me one step closer to realising that I wanted to make a living of photography was during a wedding job last year when I was so incredibly lucky to get the chance to cover a big wedding in Sicily for a couple from London (the bride was half Italian). It turned out a great success and the couple was really satisfied with the book I made and with how I approached everything during the day. I asked my friend and photographer Daniel Mikkelsen to come with me as a second shooter. He among others covered the groom's preparations (while I covered the bride's preparations) prior to the ceremony. I understand that you work alone, but how do you sort out the logistics here, do you just prioritize where to go and what to cover? Especially with regard to the preparations when the couple is not together. </p> <p>I just want to say BIG thanks to you for your inspiration - I've seen your photos long before and it made me think that wedding photography really can be wonderful and not just "look at me now, bend slightly forward" extremely kind of boring work. So as you understand I am in the very early beginning of my professional photography career and I am curious to hear if you learned anything during your first years - things that you'd recommend other photographers to avoid doing, things that worked well etc. Did you just do what you liked to do and after that the snow ball just started to roll?</p> <p>I see a lot of questions here about albums etc, I am also concerned about that. I've done a couple of 12x12" albums using Moab Chinle with rag paper, however since photos come out with more impact on satin/glossy paper I also consider options in that area. I will certainly look into the Jorgensen albums since you recommend them so much. Do you do all the editing, printing and album-making yourself by the way or do you outsource some of this?</p> <p>Sorry for being a bit long here, just so excited about having you available here..thanks for your time!</p> <p>Best regards, Oistein</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noah Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 <p>Jeff--Your work is amazing.<br> I like your philosophy of offering a complete album created by you and I understand your marketing helps your clients know why you work that way. Clearly you've earned the trust of your clients.<br> As a documentary photographer just starting out in weddings, I was wondering if you worked that way from the beginning? I'd prefer to forego proofs and just provide a finished album and online gallery for additional print sales. But as I'm starting out, I'm finding couples want and expect a cd of images, proofs, etc.<br> I'd like to explain to potential clients how I don't want to give them a disk of the images since then the prints they get made at the drugstore will not be up to my standards, and that really I've been telling stories in images for my whole career and the editing and design of the album is part of my job.<br> I don't want you to get into proprietary information, but I am curious if you were able to work the way you currently do right from the start or if you had to move in that direction as your career advanced.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffascough Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 <p>Fellipe - AV correct. Evaluative metering, and spot metering when the light is tricky. All you can ask of any metering system is that it remains consistent. Pretty much most pro DSLRs are consistent in that department.<br> I haven't shot jpeg for a couple of years now. I'm shooting RAW even on my p&s cameras.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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