Jumping off a cliff and trying to figure out how one becomes a wedding photographer.

[seamus_cohen]

<p>Hi all; Want to start off by thanking everyone for taking the time to read this! This is my first posting of a question. Before I get started I will give a little background and a list of some of the equipment I own. I was forced to retire from my career as DP and Gaffer about nine years ago due to a spinal injury on a film. The injury never healed nor will it ever heal... so I cannot do the hours a movie requires. <br />However with that be said maybe I would like to try shooting a wedding here and there if I can.<br />Before the injury I had about 30 years working behind a camera with more movies, TV movies/shows and commercial/music videos etc... then I count at the moment. I was very blessed to have a good and long career, however still way to short. I recently bought a couple of canon cameras 1d mark ii used<br />in great shape... canon 7d new. The lens were an easy choice to make 17-40 f/4 L, 24-105 f4 L, 70-200 f2.8 L and two other lens, sigma 18-200, canon 55-250 both are light and not great but good, easier to carry around for fun and can work if needed as a back up. <br />My film cameras are vast to say the least. from Nikon f, f2, N60, that is a few of the nikons then there are the mamyia's from seckor to medium format.... needless to say I have even more lens.. That is just a few all are perfect working order and have been maintained. I also have all the little things back up battires cf and sd cards a dozen or so of each. At the moment I do not own any lighting so I will rent whatever I need when needed. <br /> So now with that out of the way I can get to my first of many questions to come. What are some of the best ways to become a wedding photographer, I have no idea where to start or how to get clients. Oh not to sound arrogant but I am not going to become an assistant to anyone! I do not have mobility or youth that, that takes. That is not saying I do not want to learn because I still learn everyday.<br /><br />Thank you so much for taking your valuable time to read and possibly answer this.<br />Best Regards<br />Seamus</p>

[Spearhead]

<blockquote>

<p>Oh not to sound arrogant but I am not going to become an assistant to anyone! I do not have mobility or youth that, that takes</p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

How are you going to survive a whole day of shooting, which requires a lot of mobility and energy, if you can't do it as an assistant? </p>

[seamus_cohen]

<p>That is a great question! I do not know how much I can handle so I am going take one day at a time. Also I am going to bring an assistant with me and only carry in my hands what I need. I have been shooting as a pro photographer for almost 30 years just not weddings...</p>

[Marcus Ian]

<p>To be honest, I think Jeff's question is a crucial one. Being a pro wedding photog can be very physically demanding. Not only does the day require plenty of mobility and energy, but, specifically, it requires bending, twisting, climbing, all while holding a brick (steadily) up to your face and shooting with it. Having an assistant trail around you carrying all your gear is simply not practical, nor particularly speedy (things happen fast).</p>

<p>Many clients want coverage all day (specifically the best paying ones ;) ), which means that not only must you be able to do all that, but you must be able to do all that for hours on end. I've done countless weddings which I was shooting from 9 or 10 in the morning until the B&G 'retired' at 10 and 11pm. Indian weddings (for example) can require you to be shooting for up to 3 days continuously (there's a reason I don't pursue them! ;) ). </p>

<p>As a result of these <em>norms</em> for a modern wedding photog, and your physical limitations, were I in your shoes, I would be trying to find a local pro who would let me 2nd for a whole day wedding. You <em>need</em> to know if/how you can handle the physical requirements - <em>before</em> you sign a client.</p>

<p>In a nutshell, I think you are jumping the gun. <em> First</em> you need to know if you can do the job,<em> then</em> you should worry about trying to court clients. Just because you are/were a pro photog does not mean you are (or want to be!) a pro wedding photog.</p>

<p>As far as starting the business, a routine method is to put together a portfolio, build a website, start marketing your services locally (maybe through bridal shows, they've always paid for themselves IME), and pay for some google adwords. There is no guarantee, but if your portfolio looks great, and you can get brides to look at your pictures, you'll get inquiries...</p>

 

[seamus_cohen]

<p>Thank you! That is a great idea to be a second shooter and one I will try. </p>

[william-porter]

<p>Sean,</p>

<p>Too much info about your gear. It's simply not that important. You're not asking, "How do I take (this or that type of) wedding photographs?" You seem to be asking, "How do I set myself up in business as a wedding photographer? How do I get clients and make money?" These two questions have little to do with one another. Of course, you have to have cameras to be a working photographer. And you have to be at least mediocre (i.e. not completely terrible) photographer to achieve any kind of "success" at all. But <strong>you don't have to be a good or great photographer to get wedding gigs, or even to succeed. And you don't have to have super-duper equipment.</strong> </p>

<p>•</p>

<p>So, back to the problem of getting clients and building a business.</p>

<p>As with practically every other interesting job in the world, there's a chicken and egg problem here. Hard to get work without experience, hard to get experience without work. If you want to start a business — even a part-time business — as a wedding shooter, you have to solve that problem. Possible approaches:</p>

<ul>

<li>Work for free. I attended a workshop with Roberto Valenzuela about a year ago. I think he said he shot dozens of weddings for free before he started charging. </li>

<li>Work as an assistant. </li>

<li>Get together your best photos, build a website, start marketing yourself, read everything you can about what's involved in shooting a wedding so you're as prepared as reading can make you — and fake it.</li>

</ul>

<p>I transitioned into weddings after doing an enormous amount of volunteer work, initially in connection with a school my daughter was attending, and then branching out from there to shoots that had nothing to do with my daughter, including events that present challenges similar to those presented by a wedding, like First Communions and Confirmation ceremonies, Fundraising Galas (not just for schools but for foundations, yacht clubs, etc), some commercial photography, etc. I also shot family portraits for a local botanical garden for years (that was for money) and learned a lot doing that. After a couple years, I had enough of a portfolio to build a website and persuade some young brides to let me shoot their weddings for free.</p>

<p>My approach worked, sort of. I learned an awful lot and eventually I did transition to making money shooting weddings for strangers. <strong>But teaching yourself = discovering everything on your own. It's inefficient.</strong> If I learned X amount about photography in my first three years when I was basically just winging it on my own, I learned 10X int the next three years after I started taking workshop classes and assisting other excellent photographers (although I only ever assisted on portrait shoots, never on a wedding).</p>

<p>•</p>

<p>There are about 40 self-proclaimed wedding photographers available for every wedding that's scheduled these days. (I'm making that statistic up but it <em>feels</em> true.) Competition isn't fierce, it's absurd.</p>

<p>It seems pretty clear that an awful lot of brides are finding their photographers <em>by accident</em> or via nearly random selection, because there are just too damn many websites to go through for anybody to do serious comparison shopping. You can get a couple gigs a year without working too hard in this environment if you have a half-decent website. <strong>But to get more than a couple gigs a year, you're going to have to work much harder at marketing. My guess is that you'd have to spend as much time promoting yourself as you'll spend shooting. And that requires a lot of work that has nothing at all to do with taking photos,</strong> I mean, doing things like driving around and talking to managers at bridal shops, wedding coordinators at churches, florists and caterers, etc. </p>

<p>Of course, here again, you'll face the chicken-egg problem. Nobody's going to recommend you when you've never shot a wedding. But even after you have a number of weddings under your belt, self-promotion requires personality traits that not all photographers have — traits I wish I had to a much greater degree. </p>

<p>There's also the problem of making money in this environment. With so many wannabes shooting weddings for free or for $500, it's hard to make a living as a wedding photographer and equally hard to make it worthwhile as a part-time job. Not impossible. I have friends who are doing it and a few who are doing well. But it's hard. </p>

<p>•</p>

<p>Final note about your physical condition. Sorry about your injury. I also have serious medical problems and have my entire adult life (i.e many decades). Most of the time I've been able to manage my disease pretty well. When I started trying to be a serious part-time photographer (in 2005), my health was pretty good and although I'm no athlete, I was in decent shape. I've hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back with my wife many times.</p>

<p>Even so, shooting a wedding is a fairly serious physical, mental and emotional challenge. You're on your feet and moving for eight hours straight, without much in the way of a break, carrying cameras that will seem like lead weights before the day is over. The people you're photographing are often under significant stress themselves, sometimes because the mother or father of the bride hate the groom or his family (or vice versa, or both), or because the bride's divorced parents are both attending and having trouble behaving themselves, or because people get drunk, or (almost always) because things are running behind schedule and people you're trying to photograph are actually not relaxed and capable of being patient. <strong>It's a rough job and while you don't have to be an athlete, you do have to be able to move, and you have to have a lot of stamina.</strong> I shot one wedding when I was not in great shape (4 weeks after major surgery). My wife helped me. I took it easy and my experience made it possible for me to do an okay job. But I realized afterwards that I'd have done a better job if I'd felt stronger, if I'd been able to move faster, or assert myself more, etc.</p>

<p>And on top of everything else, when you sign the contract, you make a commitment to show up and do a good job on a date certain a year from now — and if you get a cold or the flu or have a medical problem on that date, well, it can be tough to deal with. In short, wedding photography is a game best played by healthy photographers. Due to serious changes in my own health two years ago, I stopped seeking wedding gigs. I'm feeling pretty good today and could shoot a wedding <em>this afternoon</em> without a problem. But I can't be sure about any given Saturday in 2015. And you have to be pretty sure to make that commitment.</p>

<p>My advice: Don't do it. </p>

<p>Will</p>

[pete_s.]

<p>Another option you might want to consider would be to venture into portrait work instead. Or perhaps just doing short weddings where you shoot only the ceremony and portraits and not the all day all night kind of thing.</p>

<p>It's the shooting for 15 hours straight that's physically and mentally demanding.</p>

[seamus_cohen]

<p>Hey Will<br>

Thank you! Thanks to everyone for taking your time to answer with so much detail.</p>

<p>I agree with you success in any business relies more on how you run the day to day and bring in more work then just quality of photography. The work has been a way of life for me not just a job in which to earn a living. So I would not mind shooting for free at first to see what I can still do.</p>

 

[seamus_cohen]

<p>Hey PeteThanks for the great advice!<br>

I have to say I miss being able to work the 14 to 18 hours a day! I have always had the need to tell a story with images keeps the soul my soul alive.</p>

[savagesax]

Don't jump! Shooting weddings isn't worth jumping! I've been at this since 1988!

[seamus_cohen]

<p>lol! that is what I told kids when I spoke a UCLA film school about ten years ago.</p>

[seamus_cohen]

<p>I want thank everyone for such great responses! I am going to see if I can second that seems like it can test how much I can do without killing myself. It maybe a little though I can be a bit of a control freak about my work.</p>

[William Michael]

<blockquote>

<p>I can be a bit of a control freak about my work.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>People Management Skills (or sometimes people avoidance skills) are usually an integral element to a successful wedding photography business.</p>

<p>WW </p>

[DickArnold]

<p>I haven't done a wedding in ten years. Here is a typical wedding that I shot. First off I got the client from hounding my local Chamber of Commerce until they all knew me and recommended me to out of town visitors. It was about being a member of the Chamber. It was about landing the local hospital as a client and being known in the town. This was is a kind of ocean resort town. In my mind the most important thing I did before the wedding was interview the clients to establish a rapport with my customers. If we liked each other and communicated the shooting was much better and the brides more fetching. It is also about aligning expectations between the photographer and the contractee so I tried to hammer out the financials. I learned this the hard way. Before the wedding I packed my gear. In those days the media was all film both 35mm and Medium format. I was triple redundant with everything I took to the wedding: cameras, lenses, flashes, batteries, film backs etc. I liked to get to the wedding early to assess the light and check out the gear again. I liked to shoot arrivals. I tried formals before but someone critical was often late, the bride wasn't dressed yet, etc. I won't belabor this. Ceremonies were often late starting cutting into my formals time. Usually I had about thirty minutes to take the most important pictures between the ceremony and the reception. If its a large wedding its easy to miss relatives in the group pictures. I always enlisted help from the families. After I did the whole reception and a lot of head shots. I was lucky if I got a meal. The cake and the flower toss were mandatory pictures. You have to get all of this right the first time for there is generally no reshooting although I did it a couple times due to rain. I flew combat and I equate the stress of shooting a wedding almost on a par with that. I did film and never saw results until I got proof delivery from the printer. I never really blew a wedding but I dreaded that three or four days of waiting to see if I screwed up. On big weddings I was there for eight hours at least. I delivered very rapidly so my week after the wedding was hard work making a couple of enlargements in the darkroom and sorting through pictures to make a presentation albums for delivery within two weeks and often a week. I dreaded getting behind. I remember on 9/11 I was processing two weddings on a beautiful day. I sometimes carried three cameras around: two 35s and a Bronica. I had other things to do besides weddings because I did sports and had a studio. I did all of this after I retired from a job in DC. Doing weddings in my humble opinion is about sixty per cent marketing, twenty per cent processing, ten per cent accounting and the rest shooting pictures. At least for me it was hard work. There is an additional handicap today and that is the competition is much greater than when I did it. Not many people knew how to use a Bronica, then. Shooting weddings, particularly doing it by oneself, is damn hard work. It exhausted me at times. It wore me out. In my humble opinion wedding photography is not so much about photography but more about marketing, doing good contracts, accounting, my accountant and the IRS and delivering on time. I sure could have used LR. It is very much about establishing rapport with brides, MOBs, uncle Bobs, groups, and product presentation. I think like flying airplanes consistently one has to do more than a few weddings to stay sharp and avoid mistakes. It certainly does not have to do much with gear as long as it can do the job and the gear is unbelievably good today.</p>

[seamus_cohen]

<p>Hi and thank you to all again!<br>

Marketing, selling yourself is part of any career and I agree with both WW and Dick. As to working under stress, that is something I am rather good at since most of my career before I was injured was working on shoots that had strict time limits and the client would be paying anywhere from a hundred thousand a day to several million a day. The last TV spot I shot we closed down 5 blocks in downtown LA.<br>

The reason I am looking at shootings is because I can do maybe one a month then give lots of time for my body to mend well sort of.<br>

I thank you all so much for the great advice and insight!</p>

[thomas_k.]

<p>Not every wedding has to be a grueling 10hrs+ job. You can target for shorter 3-4 hour, ceremony and post-ceremony portraits gigs and see how that feels.</p>

[seamus_cohen]

<p>that actually sounds very doable. I will look into doing those types of wedding gigs... thank you very much! </p>

[richard_beisigl]

<p>Seamus,<br>

Sorry to learn of your spinal injury that cut your job short.<br>

I agree with those who are advising you to not to do wedding photography.<br>

I did wedding photography for almost twenty five years, and would have done it longer if I did not start having back problems.<br>

After my first back surgery, I thought I was back in the game until half way through a wedding, I could hardly stand up. I did finish the wedding though.<br>

I went back to my doctor, and he told me I needed another back surgery which ended my wedding photography days.<br>

There are a lot of other photography jobs out there that do not require you to be on your feet for long periods, so I suggest you look into those jobs.<br>

In my twenty five years of doing wedding photography, I only got sick once which forced me to cancel shooting the wedding.<br>

I wish you the very best in pursuing your photography dreams.</p>

[William Michael]

<p>Just a few points.<br /> <br /> Sorry in advance if this appears to be a blunt introduction to a new member. <br /> <br /> I am having a blunt sort of day and anyway you’ve surely had blunt comments before, I expect, and you should by now have the skill and experience to determine ‘blunt and intended to be useful’ from ‘simply blunt for the sake of being blunt and silly’.<br /> <br /> *<br /> <br /> I think that there is a great deal of good advice above, re read it twice, thrice . . . one always misses good points or other angles on the first and second pass. <br /> <br /> *<br /> <br /> I know you’ve bought your gear. Considering your medical history, rethink it. Two small format cameras perhaps mirror-less bodies and two main working lighter weight lenses might be a better choice.<br /> <br /> *<br /> <br /> Plan the gigs that you go after and the down-time that you spend with a camera to suit your purposes – which leads to <strong>Define your purposes</strong>. I don’t think you have done that yet. What I mean is you need to write out your purposes. <br /> <br /> As for one example: WP’s comment is sage – the comment about learning everything yourself is inefficient. That might define one of your purposes: “<strong>to learn from the experienced ones</strong>” – so you need to set about creating a LIST of activities that address that purpose. That list is NOT just ONE item being “I’ll be a second shooter”. <br /> <br /> Another purpose might be to get an idea of your endurance and your skill level and your ability to work directly and MORE intimately, one on one with your Subjects. A Film Set has a lot of people. I have worked on Film Sets. A Wedding or a Portrait Shoot has very few people. Basically it is just ‘you’ and ‘a few of them’ - OR - ‘you’ and ‘him’ or ‘her’. <br /> <br /> So a list to address those purposes will NOT just be the one item: “I’ll shoot a few portrait sittings”. <br /> <br /> *<br /> <br /> (now the blunt bit) If you mean to fast-track this idea and if you really mean business, then you need to be <em><strong>creative</strong></em> and also <strong><em>aggressive</em></strong> in setting the <strong><em>multiple tasks</em></strong> to address your purposes. <br /> <br /> An idea for your consideration (not the first time mentioned and this or similar always gets a laugh)<br /> <br /> <em> “I’ll go for a long walk in a populated area with two cameras and I will ask everyone I meet if I may make a Casual Portrait of them and I will engage those people and I will create a rapport with each of them and I will not be satisfied unless I get at least one good photo of everyone I engage and I will further contract to send each of them a beautiful Post produced copy of that Portrait within 24hrs”. </em><br /> <br /> If you make and take on several exercises like the above: then you will have worked on: <br /> your physical endurance; <br /> your mental endurance; <br /> your people management skills; <br /> your candid portraiture skills; <br /> your post production skills; <br /> your ability to work under the pressure of time; <br /> your marketing skills <br /> – and you will have learned a few more things about yourself and your skills too.<br>

And most importantly - you will have done no harm.<br /> <br /> Now for the blunter bit: I have thrown similar exercises out there to Students during classes – a lot laugh. Not many take up the challenge; of those that do, not many choose to do it twice.<br /> <br /> How much gas do you have in your tank and how much wind in your parachute?<br /> Are you really ready to jump off that cliff - or not?<br /> <br /> WW</p>

[bob_bill]

<p>I like William's suggestion. Before you book or try to book a wedding grab the gear you think you need to carry for an 8 hr shoot and go out and shoot for 8 hrs with little rest, little sitting, minimal water, perhaps no food, climbing up and down, getting on the ground and getting up. If your back and stamina is up to it, then go for it. But many wedding photographers who are in good health are pretty whipped the next day. It is a demanding form of photography. You apparently have the photo skills so might consider another area of photography. </p>

[DickArnold]

<p>One more point. The more weddings I did the more I got through referrals. People don't recommend you unless there has been some rapport established through personal service and good product. If I had been limited to one wedding a month I could not have made enough money to amortize the gear and pay the bills like loss and liability insurance. Also not actively seeking more clients more than one a month would have, I think, led to no clients. Not enough referral radiation. I did a lot of two or three hour jobs of all kinds including small weddings during the week after I once got going. I also had income from newspaper work. They helped pay the bills. I was not selective about the jobs I took nor did I use assistants. Too greedy. I did buy good gear with the proceeds. With all that my income from photography while positive did not amount to the big bucks some photographers command especially when you consider the time I put in. I have been told I should have charged more but my realistic prices got me weddings that I would not have otherwise gotten. I really think I had to do a lot of weddings to increasingly add quality to my efforts in dealing with customers and in improving my photographic product. I spent forty one years as an aviation professional before I opened my photo business. I think serious wedding photography is an all consuming profession and the good ones like the ones advising you here are real and dedicated professionals. They offer sound advice.</p>

[seamus_cohen]

<p>First and foremost I would like to thank everyone here! Before I respond I am going to reread all the comments above. Again I am very grateful for all the advice</p>

[fotografz]

<p>Seamus, let me speak from a kindred POV. My background was as an Art Director to Executive Creative Director for various national ad agencies like Y&R. I've also been on more motion shoots then I care to count … from multi-million dollar luxury car shoots to life-style spots for major food clients, etc. etc., etc. 40+ years of it. I'm now retired.</p>

<p>During my travels doing that, I tended to shoot candid photography of the places I went, people I encountered, and sometimes documented the behind the scenes of a major productions in LA, NYC, Chicago (including location stuff with an endless line of semis full of equipment, full kitchens for a food stylists, generators trucks, etc., etc., etc. … you know the scene. </p>

<p>Many of my colleagues took note of my documentary still work, and some started bugging me to photograph their wedding … which I did on my own terms. It all snowballed from there and I had one heck of a run for well over 10 years of shooting weddings and events.</p>

<p>I also had a health issue due to a very bad knee from a sports injury which I was able to manage for some time, but became less and less manageable about 5 or 6 years ago … it was replaced last year. I also have a slipped disk in my back due to that knee problem. </p>

<p>All I can do is offer my observations and advice:</p>

<p>The wedding photography business is no longer the booming business is once was. The entire gestalt of it has evolved due to more people doing it, less people buying it, and people buying it later in life than in past. The economic downturn also had an immediate effect on wedding photography. It also has been profoundly impacted by the newer generation's immediate need Facebook/Twitter "here today/gone today" mentality, and the proliferation of highly capible tools requiring less skill (not no skill) to produce what many now will accept for their wedding photography (right or wrong).</p>

<p>This can be off-set with catering to a specific target audience that 1) does know the difference in skill levels, 2) has the money to indulge 3) and where you as a photographer may have a certain connection with (like I did with my advertising and communication industry colleagues).</p>

<p>Were I you, I'd immediately look to the industry you have experience and contacts with and solicit work there. That you are one of them can go a long ways.</p>

<p>I managed my knee and back issue by altering the way I went about a wedding shoot. I rarely shoot alone. I always use a roller bag. I have a hand strap on my cameras plus a shoulder strap. I use a mono-pod as often as possible. And as of late I am experimenting with much smaller cameras (Sony A7) for the general shooting tasks at a wedding where you are carrying around a camera for hours on end. I selected a camera that has an articulated LCD so I do not have to get on my knees or bend as much. </p>

<p>All that said, no one here is exaggerating the physical punishment that a wedding can be, and one aspect of that is the nervous energy and tension that accompanies a wedding shoot which can be just as exhausting. I ran major ad agency creative departments, dealt with tough clients, and did much work at break-neck speed with millions at risk … and managed the stress quite well … trust me, this is completely different. A wedding is structured chaos with no crew to mitigate it … you are doing it all yourself. </p>

<p>One other thing to consider is that this industry is moving toward a fusion of still and motion work, and the cameras are enabling all that. Since you already have that skill, maybe it is something to consider?</p>

<p>- Marc</p>

<p> </p>

<p> </p>

[seamus_cohen]

<p>Hi everyone and again thank you!! I have a to run a couple errands then will reply... Thanks</p>

[craig_shearman1]

<p>I'm just curious, but why not continue working as a DP but on smaller jobs where you can work a day or two here and there. Maybe a commercial instead of a feature? That way you wouldn't be putting in any more hours than a wedding, would be doing it in a field where you're already established and likely make just as much money if not more? Or maybe be a unit still photographer? I know film set days are long, but so are the weddings worth shooting.</p>