rayt

April 5, 2013

Don't ask us, ask the individual. Or better yet tell him that you are going to charge. As to what you charge that is entirely up to you based on the amount of work and how you value your services.

February 25, 2013

<a href="/photodb/user?user_id=3835189">Marcus Ian</a> I feel putting the label on the DVD helps protect it (since the data is most vulnerable upon the top surface) from physical damage"

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Actually that is not quite true with DVDs. With CD's the reflective layer required to read the disk was the top layer and that layer was easy to damage. With DVDs there is another layer of plastic over the reflective layer that is much more resistant to damage. DVDs are more vulnerable to damage from the bottom as large scratches can obscure the media. Large scratches on the top of a DVD will generally not affect a DVD unless the scratches are very deep. Minor scratches on top would wax a CD.

For this reason I always provide a DVD. Much more durable than CD. Thumb drives while certainly a consideration, suffer from limitations such as storage length, small size resulting in physical loss and the ability to be overwritten.

There is no perfect choice for every client. DVD is my preferred choice but I can produce CDs, thumb drives and even prints.

December 19, 2012

<a href="../photodb/user?user_id=5233527">John Deerfield</a> , Dec 18, 2012; 11:22 a.m. scribed: "@ Raymond, to each their own. I would much rather try to have the correct white-balance prior to pressing the shutter button."

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I very much agree with that statement. To each their own. Find what works for you then run with it. There is no perfect way for everyone.

December 18, 2012

One is learning to use the manual white balance on your camera.

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Why bother setting white balance? It is just one more setting that has to be fooled with under changing light conditions. To get it spot on takes time using some sort of target or the lid from a can of chips. I prefer to use RAW format and just keep the camera white balance on daylight. The white balance setting in the camera only affects the JPG preview on the camera and provides a starting point for the RAW developer software. Other than that the white balance is ignored by the camera for the RAW format.

The only possible advantage is that the histogram may be slightly more accurate. But not enough to matter with the latitude you get with RAW images. The less I have to worry about when taking images the less complicated the entire process becomes.

August 29, 2012

I was doing a wedding a few years ago, on the lake. They couple wanted sunset images. Timing is critical. Well the time was fact approaching and I was getting antsy. Asking people where the bride was, why wasn't she here, etc. Found the mother and said unless the bride gets here quick we will lose the sun. Yeh, I was acting like I was in large and in charge. I was important, inflated ego, etc.

Suddenly several cell phones starting ringing and people were rushing to leave. Some were in tears. I though oh great, the bride or groom cancelled. I mumbled something to others that by gosh I was still going to get paid. Then one gentlemen took me aside and explained to me that the bride had been killed in a car wreck.

My ego quickly deflated, I felt like a fool and it was justified. Lesson learned. Suddenly the lighting was not important. Gave the family their deposit back and sent flowers to the funeral.

A few years later on I got to photograph the other daughter's wedding.

July 27, 2012

Once the bits have been flipped, other information stored in the bits, the information is gone. Formatting a card only rewrites the directory information, it does not wipe information on the card. If a particular space on the card has been overwritten any previous data is gone. Bits cannot hold multiple values. You can format and recover. Images from years past are just data on the card that has not been overwritten. Nothing amazing about it.

July 27, 2012

The letter sounds like an email I received from South Africa indicating that I owed money and unless I paid up I was going to get arrested. Just in this letter the English is only slightly better.

The letter is not from an attorney. The photographer should just ignore it and go on his way.

July 27, 2012

Or you can just use the character map program in Windows to get the copyright symbol in whatever font you desire. Easier than remember obscure number sequences for me.

June 16, 2012

The color balance of the lights from the hardware store will not match the strobes unless you gel your strobes. I would not gel the the lights from the store as you will probably cook your gels.

If you have four lights use one to blow the background, one for a hairlight (hope you have the space), and then two for the main lights. Should work quite well.

Why do you need a white background? You could argue aboud making the dresses stand out but what do you do for a white dress? I would think that any reasonable neutral background would work quite well.

Are you going to shoot RAW? If so who is going to color balance the images? You could find a good color temperature before you begin and leave the camera on that setting making color balancing probably not necessary for each individual image. You will have the logistics of swapping memory cards.

You will, in my opinion, need some sort of radio slave to trigger the flashes. You don't want any cords with lots of people running around. Also sandbag your light stands.

Have fun.

June 12, 2012

<a href="../photodb/user?user_id=2019244">Bob Bernardo</a> questioned: What to you think?

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I was not sure if you misspelled "groom" or "goon". I have done weddings where both terms could have been used interchangeably. And yes, my typping scills are somewatt questionable at tymes.

June 9, 2012

<a name="00aU21"></a><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=2019244">Bob Bernardo - LA area.</a> <img title="Subscriber" src="../v3graphics/member-status-icons/sub7.gif" alt="" /><img title="Frequent poster" src="../v3graphics/member-status-icons/1roll.gif" alt="" />Responded: This way you can ask the bride and groon

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I know that was simply a typing error but in some way that is indeed funny.

June 8, 2012

<a href="../photodb/user?user_id=5381026">Paul Armes</a> questioned: "Raymond, I’m lost, at what point did I say that I would “leave the wedding”? You’ve mentioned that twice now and I have no idea where you are getting it from?

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You never did and I stand corrected. That was merely a error in assumption on my part. If you have the clause in your contract that there are to be no other professional equipment at a wedding, what are you going to do if you think you spotted some? Others have stated they would pack up and leave the wedding. I assumed too much.

That does bring up the question of what would you do? If you do indeed have the statement in your contract and some chap shows up with a 20K Hasselblad what are you going to do? Leave? Withhold Image? Throw a tantrum? :) If you are not going to do anything then why have the clause in the contract?

As for the “Control the situation” paragraph, slightly stating the obvious there. I can’t control someone who I am not aware is around me and purposely avoiding my line of sight. I would have expected in your 40+ years’, of no doubt extensive experience, you would have been able to understand this.

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If you are not aware there is nothing you can do. And if you are not aware then how do you know what equipment this individual is using. When I do weddings I am fully aware of my surroundings and who is around me. I ask them to refrain from taking images until I am done. My assistant is another pair of eyes that is also aware. I have encountered people who continue to take images and use flash. For those situations I ask them individually to cease. If they do not comply I remove the slave disable on my strobes. When their flash goes off mine do also and it will completely overwhelm their camera and destroy their images. Even preflash is taken care of as the camera will think it is brighter than it is and severely underexpose.

In the 40+ years I have found most people cooperative but not all. There are the jerks that, professional or not, will extend no courtesy. There is no right or wrong way to deal with them. It is going to happen. Does not matter what is in the contract about such individuals or behavior. You cannot refuse to work as your reputation will suffer. You cannot refuse to deliver the images as word of mouth will spread faster than HIV at an orgy.

In my opinion you handle such discourteous people, professionals or not, by ignoring them as much as you can and do your job. Price your work so that any subsequent print sales are not a factor.

I have been an Uncle Bob, unintentionally. Lesson learned. My nephew was getting married and his bride to be asked me to photograph the wedding. I agreed. Showed up and found another person with a high end camera. Asked what they were doing and they stated they were a friend of the bride and wanted to take some candids. I said fine but please stay out of my way when I do the formals. I did the ceremony and the formals pretty much ignoring her. On the way to the reception I saw her car. She had a photography company. The red warning light in my head became active. When I got to the reception I found out she was being paid and complained to the bride that I was interfering. So I ceased taking pictures and was quite angry at the bride. But I was more ticked off at the other photographer who lied to me. Had she been honest from the start there would not have been any issues.

This other photographer was totally unprofessional by failing to tell me her role in the process. She was unprofessional by complaining to the bride about my getting in the way when we had talked about this earlier. She was unprofessional by pointing her flash straight up and using the small bounce card built into the flash at a distance of 20 feet. She was unprofessional in failing to gel her flash to match the incandescent lights in the venue. She was unprofessional by arriving at the wedding late and missing many of the preparation images.

You will encounter such people. It is the nature of the beast. Best way to handle it is to move on to the next adventure in my opinion.

June 7, 2012

<a href="../photodb/user?user_id=5381026">Paul Armes</a> scribed: "The post is not about the legality of any statements made in my contract. What I wrote in the post does not give full details of this clause, the terminology used or more importantly who decides what 'professional' equipment is. Furthermore, as a lawyer wrote the entire contract, I don’t see having any issue with any clause in a contract being enforced.

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This post is simply about professional courtesy."

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If that is the case why specifically bring up the clause in your contract? You may consider the equipment professional, but only a court can really decide. You leave a wedding because you thought someone's gear was too professional and you will be the one that gets sued.

If the guy was not a professional he has no obligation to show "professional courtesy". Personal "courtesy" perhaps, but no professional courtesy. I seriously doubt he was a professional (however you define that) otherwise he would not have taken images over your shoulder.

<a href="../photodb/user?user_id=938526">Craig Shearman</a> scribed: "Digital has nothing to do with this. Any of us who have been shooting pictures for more than 10 years know that Uncle Bobs have been around as long as there have been weddings and cameras. And to say "in film days the outcome of the images was generally not so good" is ludicrous."

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I stand by my statement. I have been taking images for 40+ years. P&S cameras even 20 years ago were simple fixed aperture cameras using perhaps ISO 200 color reversal film balanced for daylight. The flashes were small and beyond about 7 feet were basically useless. In a church lit with incandescent lights the backgrounds were blue, pictures were grainy because of the small negative size, motion blur from slow shutter speeds, all kinds of issues. There was no intelligence in those cameras as they had a fixed shutter speed and fixed aperture with the hope that the exposure could be fixed in developing.

Digital has changed all of that. High ISO's that were only dreamed about with film unless you really pushed Tri-X really hard. Automatic color balance, scene detection, automatic fill flash, digital motion reduction. All technologies that 20 years ago were only available to NASA. What you can do today with a simple and cheap P&S far surpasses anything that could have been done 30 years ago with the most expensive commercially available camera. And even with that most of the guests at a wedding take horrible images. I doubt they would have done better with an inferior camera.

People are going to take pictures at weddings. People will get in your way. People are many times not courteous. Get used to it. Control the situation. It works both ways. As the media director at my church I have been involved with photographers that were "professionals" that were most annoying and rude.

June 7, 2012

My contract states that I must be the sole professional photographer at the wedding and that no one else with professional photographic equipment is allowed to take shots.

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Who, or what, determines professional equipment? That alone makes your statement in your contract unenforceable. The statement is ambiguous. A professional can use a simple P&S to take pictures. I do at times because I just don't want to carry the heavy stuff. Does that make a cheap $129.00 P&S camera a professional camera? I have seen others at weddings I have done with much better equipment than myself that are not professionals. Does that disqualify my equipment as professional?

What is a professional photographer? Someone that makes a living taking pictures? Probably. But what about someone that is retired and just looking for some income and something to do? What about people that do weddings part time? Are they professional photographers? Perhaps if they got paid. What if they don't have a business license? What if the person does the event for free, such as an Uncle Bob who truly may make a living photographing weddings? Does not getting paid now remove any professional status from the individual?

Digital has changed the world. People will be taking pictures over shoulder at weddings. Back in film days the outcome of the images was generally not so good. But with the digital cameras of today that is no longer true. Even simple P&S cameras will take very good pictures in the correct hands.

My son is getting married the end of this month. They have hired a professional photographer to do the wedding. Which I think is great as I want to enjoy the wedding and be part of it instead of having to work. But what camera do I bring to the wedding. My DSLR with associated goodies? Or my cheap $129.00 P&S. If I bring the big stuff I may offend the other photographer. Do I care? Not really. I did not hire the individual and I should be free to take images at my sons wedding. If I bring the big stuff and there is a line in the contract such as yours, can it be enforced? I am not a professional at my sons wedding.

There is a lot of ambiguity in your contract statement and you will have a difficult time getting any lawyer to even consider enforcing such a contract line. If you leave the wedding because you "think" there is another professional involved you will get sued by the person you contracted with to do the wedding. And that case will be easily won because you failed to perform the contract based on your assumptions which may have been incorrect. You would be unable to prove otherwise.

Some things in life are not worth wasting effort and this, in my opinion, is one of those items. And I may very well be twice your age (a simplistic guess on my part).

June 1, 2012

<a href="../photodb/user?user_id=5953294">Vail Fucci</a> asked: "John, how did you accomplish that effect?"

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Photoshop is your friend. Have the groom stand on a chair or box, then clone out the object using surrounding material. Notice the repeating pattern of the leaves.

Nicely done and a clever idea.

April 30, 2012

<a name="00aKM2"></a><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=4039845">Lindsay Dobson</a> on Apr 28, 2012; 02:15 p.m scribed:

You've asked for advice and my advice is to do your clients a favour and find them an experienced professional who knows what they're doing.

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And with such advice no one would ever get started. Everyone, even you, has a first wedding. Instead of telling the person "don't do it" advice of what to watch for, be prepared for and helpful hints would be more appropriate.

My biggest piece of advice is to relax and have fun. Stress will make you forget things and make mistakes. Brides, grooms and wedding parties are not much different than nature. Except with weddings things move. Exposure is exposure, DOF is DOF, camera shake is camera shake. The venue changes none of that.

Shoot raw and ignore the white balance setting in the camera as it has no bearing in RAW images except to give the RAW processor a starting point. Use a digital color balancing target (with black, grey and white) in at least one image for each different lighting situation. Color balance later. You also have more exposure lattitude with RAW than you do with JPG.

Attend the rehearsal so you know the flow of the wedding.

Try to anticipate and be in a good location when events happen (part of attending the rehearsal).

Things sometimes move fast so be prepared.

Don't shoot with odd camera tilts. If you want to tilt you can do that in post processing and if you do such, do it sparingly.

In group shots control the situation. A lot of other people will have cameras and people in the group shot will be looking everywhere giving that Marty Feldman look to the images. Everyone should be looking at you until you have completed your images. Then let others have their chance for pictures. You must stay in control.

Stay hydrated, drink lots of water or Gatorade.

Use smaller memory cards. If you lose a card you don't lose everything. If a card has an issue immediately switch cards and don't mess with trying to get it to work. Use high quality cards, Lexar is my preference.

Wear comfortable clothes and shoes. Bring a change of shirt/blouse if you sweat a lot.

Relax, relax, relax. The couple chose you because they have faith in you. Be confident, be assured. You can do this.

April 9, 2012

You could always reverse the whole process. Tell her that you know many big name photographers in the area and you will inform them that she steals images and that you will tell other photographers to never work with her because of her blatant copyright violations. State that if she leaves the image posted that you will not recommend her to any of your clients and recommend the same to your big name photographer friends. Inform her that getting any decent photographer to work with her again will be difficult and wedding planners are a dime a dozen and she should really rethink her decision.

March 19, 2012

I just copy the photos to my computer, then copy to my ITunes sync folder for photos, and then have the IPAD sync from the computer. I only use the IPAD for display purposes generally speaking.

I have uploaded images from my camera with the adapter for USB and my transfer speeds were about the same as my PC. I have done RAW and JPG. You may also want to upgrade to IOS 5.1 as that may have camera support. In any case, avoid RAW images and use JPG instead as JPG is easily supported by all the apps.

March 15, 2012

<a name="00a8iC"></a><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=5109219">Katrin D.</a>, You know, I park my car outside as well ... doesn't mean I want it stolen.

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True. But do you leave the keys in the ignition? The analogy does not quite fit.

As for flash - gosh, anybody can take a screenshot if they really want the image bad enough.

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Again, true. But the resolution is typically low, about 72dpi.

The web is designed in such a way that if your desktop has access to an image on a web server, the source of that image can be found in the HTML code. Using that information anyone can get immediate access to the image.

It still applies, if you don't want the image stolen, don't put it on the web. If you must put the image on the web, watermark across the middle of the image, side to side, top to bottom, or corner to corner.

March 14, 2012

So, Bill, are you saying that I shouldn't be upset when a photographer takes my image, photoshops over my logo, and posts it on her website as an example of her work?

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I don't think that was the sentiment at all.

The issue is do you really want to get all upset and aggravated over it? There is little you can do that will not cause you a lot of aggravation. You can send a takedown notice to the owner of the website and the hosting company. Will that stop the image from coming up somewhere else? Do you have the time to check thousands of websites looking for your images? If the images are not taken down do you have the time and resources to bring a lawsuit? It will cost you thousands and you will probably recovery nothing.

Best defense is to not post any images on the web that you do not want stolen. Not posting anything is probably not fully reasonable in the marketing environment of today. Second option is to put a watermark diagonally across the entire image making it difficult to remove. Third option is to use Flash to display the image (Flash can be compromised so you still need watermarks) to make it more difficult.

Taking someone else's images is not right of that there can be no wavering. But is is really worth your aggravation? Only time I would pursue it is if a large company was making a profit from an image.

I have been in a copyright fight. I won. Got a substantial award. The award was only slightly more than my legal fees. So it was little more than a moral victory. Would I do it again? Nope. Was not worth my time and aggravation

March 12, 2012

Of course her posting the images begs the question of where she got the images to steal in the first place. Post any image on the web and it can get stolen. The only protection is to watermark any such images across the entire image. If you give a client the images on CD (or I prefer DVD) then you have lost control. And most of the clients of today want the images digitally rather than prints. You can't really stop such clients from posting on social media.

You can pursue finding such images and having the images removed. It takes effort and time. You could sue and get what? It would be difficult to prove monetary damages and do you really want to spend the time required to pursue it legally? If you get a judgement will you ever get paid?

You can contact the hosting service to have the image removed. You can also contact the individual and request the image be removed. Neither of which is guarantee that the image will be removed, or will not appear somewhere else.

You can just let it go. Chalk it up to experience. Quit mud wrestling with a pig because all that happens is you both get dirty but the pig enjoys it.

Something has to be done. But what? To do nothing will just make the problem worse, which it is already becoming. Digital has changed everything. I don't know the answer and cannot advocate what anyone should do as that is their choice. I don't have time, or the resolve, to be crawling the web looking for my images.

December 23, 2011

Bowens also makes radio triggers. They are small and work quite well. They are not integrated into any camera system being just radio triggers. Each unit can function as a receiver or transmitter. You have 4 channels and 8 groups within each channel (or all).

December 6, 2011

Bob:

Now that is original with men facing the wall. I may have to use that around here in East TN with some of the hillbilly redneck weddings I have done. So I am giving you official notice that I am going to use your idea.

December 5, 2011

This is an image from a wedding that I did in the foothills of The Smokey Mountains. This was everyone's favorite group image. It was not planned. Everyone was just standing around waiting for the bride and groom. I just snapped the image while I was standing around. The lighting is flat because it was cloudy and had just finished raining. In the background you can still some rain. This was not even taken with my primary camera but a Sony DSC-F717 that I had with me. No order to the image, no posing, just people being natural. They are all related to each other.<div>

00ZhKG-421867584.JPG.fca7213268dd2cb119e56ece66b98b10.JPG

</div>

November 3, 2011

has alredy (sic) been discussed in another forum.

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Yes, it has, thanks for pointing that out. My search turned up nothing when I checked. Guess I did not use the proper search terms. But it is relevant here because it is dealing with wedding photography. I don't scan all the forums looking for tidbits that are relative to weddings.

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Posts posted by rayt