shawn_mertz

<p>The best gift you can give any customer is to make great photos.</p>

<p>Weddings are a horrible time/place to learn photography.<br> The non-wedding photos on your website are very nice. <br> Churches can be very beautiful but challenging to photograph in. The exposure and white balance are pretty good. if you had stuck to iso 1600 you would be better off. There are noise plugins you can use to help with that. As long as you aren't making super big prints from these you are ok. <br> The bad news is the lighting on their faces is not good. Assume the lighting will always be bad. Lighting is as important as knowing how to use a camera. Study lighting, for now keep it simple just the flash you have been using. take your husband to a church and practice, study them, practice some more. Practice, practice, practice, just like dancers, athletes and doctors, never stop learning and practicing.</p>

<p>https://creative.adobe.com/addons/products/2028#.Vmd-V4TI69o</p> <p>this one is free</p>

<p>check the adobe add ons page. i think i saw something for $5.<br> also in photoshop cc filter>render>flame<br> sorry don't know if that is in your version too.</p>

<p>Your full wedding album has some good takes but many of them can use some work. You are to willing to accept what the camera gave you. Shoot Raw files. Don't be afraid to crop, and try lifting some of the faces out of the shadows. </p>

<p>you can use a gold reflector. It will add a touch of warmth to the skin but not the background. they worked well with film but i don't like what they do with digital.</p>

<p>I haven't worked on it much yet waiting for orders i hope. We went out for fun day with a dance studio. the bridge was just retired a few days before and open for walkers until they start tearing it down. </p>

<p>fall soccer</p>

<p>I have the Animal hair model Dyson. When i tried using it for Pavel's technique i had problems with Squirrels getting sucked into it and once a raccoon landed on brides face. That went poorly. So don't use the animal hair vacuum for this! <br> Stick to have someone hold veil and jump out of way as they release it.</p>

<p>assuming second shooter is part of your package, you should provide cards for second shooter to use, and collect them that night. You are the one that has the responsibility of delivering the photos to the customer. This is something you need to make clear to the second shooter when talking about the job. <br> That said i always give them copies of the pictures down the road so they can put a few in their portfolio.<br> 1. I want them to care about what they are shooting<br> 2. conditions apply they don't claim they booked it. they don't contact customer, they don't put any of it on primary website without talking with me about it.<br> 3 Advantage to them. they gain by having someone more experienced at weddings seeing every picture they take. now you can not just critique the photo, but coach them. you were with them and can talk in great detail about the day with the second shooter. </p>

<p>You might want to ask this in the film & processing forum. <br> since film is generally scanned for printing anymore you can do about 99% of what you can to a digital picture before printing it. <br> You may want to consider using one light far off camera axis as an accent, in flat light. a speed light will do you don't necessarily need a lot of power for this. just enough to raise the contrast on their face a little. Practice to discover what you like is important.</p>

<p>This bridge was ok to shoot on. </p><div></div>

<p>The fine is crazy high. Something like $ 25,000 each. Photography is protected under the first amendment, i wonder if it is covered under the 5th too.</p>

<p>Wedding photography is a craft or art, stick to your style as much as possible. If a potential client doesn't match what you do encourage them to look into other photographers and explain why. Starting out they might say they love your work but they really just love your price. Your sales talks need to draw out what they want and if a poor match you can back out. Ideally at the end of the process both the customer and photographer should be satisfied with the results.</p>

<p>I've been experimenting with getting back to my roots of heavy handed darkroom techniques.</p><div></div>

<p>i know someone using fuji's new light weight mirrorless dslr that is very happy with the camera and its lower weight.</p>

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<p>there is still some art leather stuff out there but not easy to find. try eBay craigslist and contacting wedding photographers in your area that are a little older, photos would stock the mats because it took long time for stuff to come in.</p>

<p>excellent point Michael. I hope i didn't imply anything should be given away. </p>

<p>Customers want the Files. Give them anything but full size not watermarked you will need to explain why, and it better be why what you do is better for them.</p>

<p>William cover that very well.<br> i think a mix of all the above is the answer. I will use my past week as example. <br> Much of my wb decisions are best on the end use, and how fast things need delivered. I did everything from internet news outlet to photo for a printed ad and a wedding.</p> <p>soccer daylight fading into dark. had to shoot jpg players going into and out of shadows Auto WB<br> later same game under the lights looked slightly green so i did a custom wb off a players white uniform this looked much better than auto. <br> next day 5 k race shot auto wb and auto exposure jpg as per the photo companies request.<br> later that day auto wb and raw at a wedding helping a friend. <br> Monday head shots for a commercial business. Custom preset made months ago for my moonlights. Shooting raw plus jpg. I used to give them jpg as proofs and then worked raw later but realizing they wanted srgb for internet display final project i increased jpg quality to highest and now use the jpg and raw is back up. 30 minutes later outdoor portrait for same company auto white balance and raw + jpg used a color checker card for reference later if i want it. <br> What a fun week of shooting it was. Different challenge every day. </p>

<p>The site is http://pass.us<br> I used their free trial a year ago. It worked the month I used it without any problems. </p>

<p>sorry i thought the image would upload. I don't want to name the company because I haven't used it for more than the up to 100 image free service they offer but I will if William asks.</p>