adam_nance

Hey guys, when Jen and I shoot a wedding, we come back with maybe 1500 shots

spread on several flash cards with all sorts of wacky names DSC_2049 etc. I'd like to

be able to rename them all in chronological order with the last name of the groom

and a 4 digit numerical tag. Nance wedding 0001, nance wedding 0002...nance

wedding 1500.

How do I do this?

Sorting the photos using Windows Explorer by "Picture taken on" puts them all in the

right order. (Photoshop 7 has no similar sort function that I can find.)

I'd like to use Photoshop to rename them all because PS provides great control over

the naming. But I can't get them in the right order in the PS file browser.

If I use Explorer to rename them "Nance Wedding" they come out Nance wedding (1),

nance wedding (2), Nance wedding (3)...Nance Wedding (1500).

When I open this folder in the photoshop browser, these get out of order... nance

wedding (1), nance wedding (10), nance wedding (100), Nance wedding (1000).

This has been driving me nuts! There must be some simple way of dealing with this

that I'm not aware of. Anybody got any suggestions?

Thanks!

-Adam

From Webster.com...

inconpicuous: Little known variant of the word inconspicuous. used mainly in

informal communications by people who try to type too fast and don't proofread what

they write.

The biggest difference to me between weddings and other events is that at weddings,

we pretty much know what we're supposed to take photos of, we know who we're

taking photos for, we know who the VIP's are, and we know how the photos will be

used. With other events, things aren't as simple.

Make sure to talk with your client and find out what/who he/she needs photos of,

what they will be used for, and what messages they should send. Keep in mind these

images might be used in newsletters, on the web, and for advertisements in any

medium. (Well, any medium besides radio, I suppose.) :)

I did a charity auction a month or so ago, and they used a photo of volunteer food

servers laughing together in a recruitment piece looking for more volunteers. I

obviously don't take a lot of photos of the hired help at weddings, but in this case, a

photo of these servers was exactly what they needed.

The technical details should be no different from a wedding reception. Whatever

works for you normally should work fine in this case.

Also, folks who don't like having their photo taken are sometimes (a little) more

patient with photographers at weddings because they know the deal and expect to

have their picture taken. At other events, these folks might get a little pricklier. It's

obvious, but worth repeating: try to be as inconpicuous as possible.

Hope that helps a little.

-Adam

My wife tells me our introductory materials to Pictage have arrived in the mail. I

haven't looked at the details yet (still at work), but I thought I'd post to see what other

folks had to say about them. I thought for sure I'd find a post on this by searching,

but couldn't. We haven't signed up yet, but we're strongly considering it. I think Bill

Clark uses 'em. What are the advantages/disadvantages you've found, Bill? Anyone

else?

Thanks!

-Adam

Off-topic:

If it's dark outside and light inside, you're essentially surrounded by mirrors. You'll

obviously need to keep your shots at an angle so you can't see yourself and can't see

your own flash, but also don't forget to use those mirrors to your advantage.

The mirror in the bride's dressing room might be the most over-used prop in the

history of wedding photography, but there's no arguing about whether it can be used

to startling effect. Use the reflections to get interesting effects and to shoot

interesting angles.

The bride and groom staring out over a lit skyline with their backs to the camera and

their faces reflected in the glass is the simplest idea I can think of. The photos on

your site are terrific, so I'm sure you'll have much better ideas than that.

Best wishes,

-Adam

Nadine, I suppose this could use a bit more clarification...

My photographers showed up at 11:00am and left at 11:00pm on Saturday and we

had hired them to shoot our rehearsal celebration the night before from about 4:00

to 11:00 or 12:00. We had two photographers for twenty hours in two days. On the

wedding day, they charged $3,500 for "all day" coverage. If I had asked them to stay

longer, they would have--they were GREAT guys. But it would have been downright

inhumane. The DJ kept playing music until 2:30am. This would have been a 15 hour

day for the photographers, and that's too much to ask of anyone. I think we got an

exceptional deal with a 12 hour day, and the excellent photos bear this out.

Many many wedding photographers leave before the reception ends. Either they

leave because they have a four or six hour package and their time is up, or they leave

because they think they have sufficient coverage of the day. I think DJ's that take

photos (and more and more DJ's are offering this service) arise to fill a need in

wedding photography. Most wedding pros simply don't shoot the late night dancing

pix.

Now, let me say that since I've been shooting weddings for hire, I COMPLETELY

understand the reasons the pros leave. By the time I've shot 12 hours, I'm exhausted,

I've got 700 photos on my camera, and good shots are fewer and farther between

because most folks are drunk. If I charged an hourly fee (which I don't) it wouldn't

make sense for the couple to keep my wife and I around taking photos. But a DJ (who

has his eye on the dancefloor the whole time anyway) has to stay until the music is

done. Why not take some photos?

His expenses are completely different from a professional photographer. With a

cheap digital SLR and no post-processing, taking a few dozen shots and mailing them

to the B&G on a CD is basically costless for him.

To answer the rest of your questions, I'm in Seattle, and the DJ did not charge extra

for this service. I've attached a photo that I just looked at for the first time in about

three months--and when I saw it a moment ago, my assistant had to come over and

see what I was laughing so hard at. :) This is the last song of the evening, "American

Pie" at 2:30am. I've got the microphone and the best man is wearing his tie around

his head. It's only a snapshot, but damn, I think it's funny. Sorry it's so big, I don't

have software to resize it at work.

As to someone choosing to use the DJ as photographer instead of a professional...

Why on Earth would anyone do that? I hired professional photographers and paid 5

times for them what I paid for my DJ. If I wanted the DJ's wedding photos, its a free

country and I would have hired him to shoot the wedding and then play the music.

"...in my experience, the DJ would not be taking any pictures at all that ended up with

the client, for fear of competition with the pro photographer..."

For fear of competition with the pro? If the DJ is in competition with the

professional photographer, then the professional photographer has other things to

worry about... namely: the quality of his/her photographs!

What I think it all boils down to is that anyone with a camera can take a picture and

there's nothing professional photographers can do to stop that. All we can do is to

be confident that our photos are clearly superior. If they weren't, no one would hire

us, they'd all just have Uncle Bob shoot their wedding with his 2MP digital point and

shoot with the 3x digital zoom.

Best wishes,

Adam<div></div>

I doubt this answer will have much impact at the bottom of such a long list of replies,

but I thought I'd chime in that what the photographer did was COMPLETELY

professional and ethical.

I chose my wedding DJ partly because he takes a few dozen dancing shots late in the

evening after the photographers leave. This is often the best part of the reception

and it certainly warrants being captured on film--these are memories the B&G will

want to savor. I treasure these shots even though they're simple snapshots, nothing

at all like professional photos.

Keep this in mind as you move forward: If my photographers scolded my DJ for this

and I heard about it in any way, I'd call the photographers and tell them they've lost

my future business and my recommendation. What happens at the wedding when the

photographers aren't there is NONE of their business. What happens while they ARE

there is none of their business as long as it doesn't interfere with their duties.

I've been on both sides of the wedding photography contract in the past year and I

believe firmly that WEDDINGS ARE ABOUT THE BRIDE AND GROOM, not about

territorial photographers worried that someone else might get better photos.

-Adam

The answer to your question is yes.

You will "scare away" some possible clients by not giving them the negatives. While

shopping for a wedding photographer last year, I would not have considered anyone

who wouldn't part with their negatives. But I doubt many local photographers lost

sleep over that.

What I'm saying is that one business model will work for a certain type of client.

Folks with fixed budgets, folks who would prefer to have total artistic control over

their own albums, folks who would like to send 4x6" prints to everyone in their

family...these are the types of clients who are likely to lean toward a photographer

who turns over the negatives and digital files.

At the same time, there are plenty of folks out there who don't want to order many

prints and who won't care a whit about reproducing photos for extended family--

they'd rather the family dealt directly with you--and they don't mind having your

artistic input into the album-making process. These folks might actually prefer that

you keep the negatives.

In any case, I'd strongly caution you to reconsider any business model in which you

"plan on receiving the majority of [your] profits through mark-up of the prints [you]

sell." I might be wrong, there might be plenty of folks out there who make a living

working this way, but it seems smarter to me to get paid up front for your services as

a photographer. Reprints are nowhere near as dependable as a flat fee structure.

Photographers working for flat fees and handing over prints and negatives can tell

you exactly what they will make next summer (assuming they have next summer

booked) and they can plan accordingly. Photographers working on reprint orders can

only hope for the best.

One last thing, if you're just starting out and doing budget weddings to get started, I

think the clients shopping for budget photographers by and large want control over

the prints and their negatives. This, like everything else in this post, is just my

opinion.

Oh, and another "one more thing"... In turning over the digital files, you could talk

with your clients about the local labs and internet services that do a good job at

cheap developing (mpix and shutterfly are my favorite online places) and steer them

away from the ones who do a crap job (I won't libel any companies by listing them,

but there are many). This might help to alleviate your concern about bad processing

ruining your images.

Best wishes!

-Adam

David,

What height would you set the key lights at? And would they both be at the same

height or different heights?

Thanks for the quick response!

-Adam

Also- If anyone has any good reading recommendations for this sort of thing, I'm all

ears. I bought "Wedding Photography: Creative Techniques for Lighting and Posing"

by Rick Ferro, and not only was it "light" on info and mostly useless, but the photos in

the book are actually terrible, so I'm hesitant to take his advice at all.

Hey guys, where do you put your remote lights for family and couple portraits in

churchs?

I took some family portraits last weekend at a wedding and used my bracket mounted

flash (SB-800) and another remote unit (SB-800) placed at a 45 degree angle or so to

the family on a stand about 10' high. Results were fine, but there's tons of room for

improvement. I had another flash and stand available, but wasn't sure what to do

with it.

When doing family portraits, where do you set your lights and and at what relative

intensity? There's obviously not a lot of time for screwing around with modeling

lights etc, the family wants to get it done with and get on to the reception. I figure

you must have basic gameplans that you stick to. What are they?

Thanks a lot,

-Adam

It depends if you turn over all files/negatives or just the finished, edited files and

keep the negatives.

Jen and I turn over everything, and our thinking is similar to Jeff Spirer's. The B&G

often choose different images than we would choose. They also seem to LOVE having

lots of photos to choose from. Then again, we only get the clients who want a ton of

photos because the folks who are looking for album-only service have plenty of other

photographers to choose from, so your market might be different from ours.

In our 6 hour package, we promise 600+ images. We color-correct and crop 200

prints and then hand over the other 400+ digital files. This works out to each of us

averaging at least 50 decent pictures an hour, with at least 20 of those good enough

to crop and color correct and turn over as proofs.

I think an easily achievable minimum print number helps the B&G to be confident in

what they're going to get. They also know that we'll take photos of a lot more than

just the cake cutting, garter toss, first kiss, etc. And the folks we book want photos

of everything. This doesn't work for everyone, but it works for us just fine.

-Adam

I haven't read all the responses so forgive me if I'm parrotting someone else, but in my opinion, the greatest difference is going to be that B&W negative film can catch 7 stops or so between light and dark, the ccd chip in the D70 can catch only 5. When my wife and I shoot weddings, we frequently convert our D70s' color files to B&W with excellent results, but we never go anywhere without a film camera loaded with B&W for shots where we know what we want from the light and we know the D70 just won't be able to cut it.

I hope that helps,

-Adam

I'm not at my home computer to come up with the exact process I followed, but I ran

Adobe's "Gamma?" which came with PS 7 and I was able to calibrate the red, blue and

green guns in my CRT individually and come up with an excellent color calibration.

Didn't cost me a penny.

-Adam

Warning: stupid digital newbie question...

I've read a lot about downloadable custom curves for my D70. I shoot a lot of events,

and I don't currently have the flash card capacity to shoot events in RAW. Can I

download a custom curve and use it while shooting jpegs?

Also, any downloadable curve recommendations?

Thanks!

-Adam

Our contract says three to six weeks, and right now, it's more like six weeks due to delays at our lab. We like to keep in touch with clients during that six weeks. If we drop off the film at the lab and delays are long, we'll shoot an email to the B&G letting them know that it's going to be more than three weeks and probably closer to six, and we'll include one or two of our favorite digital photos to tide them over. This seems like a VERY popular service.

When we got married, the photographers didn't say boo for six weeks (the contractual deadline) and when we finally called them after 6.5 weeks, they were like, "We were just about to call you..."

That's not the way I like to do business. My recommendation would be to pad your delivery date (three to six weeks instead of three to four) and then to make sure to contact the client before the three weeks is up. Many clients are so excited that the moment they enter the "window" of proof delivery dates, they'll be calling and emailing. You can preempt this--and make them very happy--with an email explaining the delays and a couple of attached photos for them.

Best!

-Adam

Dave,

Very nice indeed! Multiple off-camera flashes would have helped with the alter group portraits, but overall, your exposures are excellent. Good job on the garter removal shot. It would have been easy to lose the groomsmen with a faster shutter speed, and that would have been a shame.

The couple looks beautiful and they look happy = a job well done.

-Adam

Mark and William, thank you very much. The logic of your posts is exactly how I came up with the two figures of 1000x1500 and 1200x1800. I appreciate the confirmation!

Best to all,

Adam

Can anyone tell me what pixel dimmensions I'm safe cropping to for

clear images that will never be blown up over 4x6"?

The photos were taken at a recent wedding with a D70 at 2000x3000

pixels, and as I'm editing them, there are a number of shots that

might really get interesting if I crop dramatically. They'll be

printed by a local lab.

Am I safe cropping down to 1000x1500 or 1200x1800 for shots that

won't be blown up above 4x6"? Does anyone have a rule of thumb for

minimun pixel dimmensions?

Thanks for your help.

-Adam

I'll chime in that a tux would often be innappropriate for the weddings I shoot in

Seattle (where plenty of grooms don't even wear ties). I think "dress like a guest" is

an excellent rule, and the person above who suggested dressing a little better than

the average guest is spot on. So in answer to your question, even if I was perfectly

comfortable and creative wearing a tuxedo, I would still refrain from wearing one to

weddings where I would stick out. I understand wanting to look your best, but it's

more important to blend in. If the bride wanted folks to show up dressed in tuxes,

she'd have had a black tie wedding.

-Adam

http://wpja.org might be a good place to start.

Best wishes!

-Adam

Peter,

Given the posts you've made over the past week, my advice would be to strive for one

GREAT shot. Concentrate on emotion for this one. Lots of wedding pros get the

exposure perfect every time but they aren't able to convey the emotion of the event.

There is usually a moment during the ceremony when the bride gets so giddy she

practically levitates right off the ground, or she reaches up to wipe a tear from the

groom's face, or they rest their foreheads together after the first kiss, or she waves to

her mom when the officiate presents the newly married couple to the crowd. Wait for

that one shot and be ready. That's the one that'll bring the couple to tears when you

show it to them. Jen and I just met with a client on Sunday who balled and hugged us

when we showed her the photos. It's the best feeling in the world. I'm guessing

you're young and haven't been married, but if you can capture the overwhelming

emotion the couple is feeling, you've done your job.

On the rest of the shots listed above, just don't screw 'em up. Put the camera on auto

if you need to. Take shots of everyone who does anything in the ceremony. Each pair

of attendants walking down the aisle, the flower girls, anyone who reads or prays etc.

For the rest of the day, take candids of anyone in tuxes and bridesmaid dresses, take

photos of the parents, take photos of kids (always a winner) and try to figure out who

the other important people are to photograph. Take the cake before they cut it and

while they cut it. Get a shot of the bouquet in the air and make sure to include the

single women tackling each other trying to catch it. :) Make a portrait of the one who

does. Take a photo of the people giving toasts and a photo of the couple crying

while being toasted to. Look for the things that make this wedding unique.

Photograph them. Photograph anything that costs money.

Emotion is the key. Before the ceremony, you're looking to catch nervous

anticipation. With the bride, this can be captured while the bridesmaids wait on her

hand and foot. With the groom, this can captured while his buddies tease him, punch

him in the shoulder, make raunchy jokes etc. During and after the ceremony, you're

looking to capture love and joy. Don't freak out about composition and exposure and

shot lists, follow the emotion and you'll be fine. Six weeks from now, if your pictures

remind them how they felt on their wedding day, then you're a huge success!

Good luck!

-Adam

Great photos!

As an amateur, photography has always been more than just taking pictures. It's

been a hobby, a passion, a challenge, an art, an outlet for stress and creativity, and

source of immense satisfaction. I can only hope that as Jen and I begin to charge for

our work, we can continue to have days (hopefully the vast majority) where it's more

than just a job.

Best,

-Adam

The thread last week about slideshows got me thinking: how do you work copyright

for songs when you make slideshows of your own wedding photos for clients?

My wife and I have done a number of free weddings for friends, and we're just

starting to get into the business aspects of wedding photography. We've always

made a slideshow of the best images set to a song of the B&G's choice. Now that

we're charging for our services (we're still charging only cost until we are 150%

confident that we can ALWAYS do great work) it occurs to me that we could get

slammed by the RIA for using songs we don't have rights to.

I know that some of you make slideshows set to music. Do you worry about the

rights to the songs? What if this is a free service we provide for our clients and it's

expressly intended only for personal use? Does that get us through any loopholes?

Also, what program do you use? We've been using Windows Movie Maker and it

doesn't show our photos in properly high quality for a professional job.

Thanks is advance for any opinions!

-Adam

PS- To preempt the party-poopers: I know I need to talk to a lawyer and of course I

will talk to a lawyer, but opinions and prior experiences from seasoned veterans are

still useful to us and we try to figure all this stuff out.

The Bambi Cantrell book is excellent. Buy it first. Another book I enjoyed was The Best of Wedding Photojournalism by Bill Hurter: beaucoup sample images from dozens of the biggest names in wedding photography.

If you're leaning toward a more traditional posing style, though, neither of these books gives enough posing information. I'm still keeping my eyes open for a good posing book. Some couples don't need detailed instructions on how to move their elbow/hip/chin/knee etc. But some couples do, and this is a weak point for me.

-Adam