tigercosmos

<p>I am starting from scratch. I am a shoot and burn who needs to transition to full service. Too many brides after the wedding need help moving digital images to print. I'd love to have more control over the final product to make brides happy while also boosting referrals. Nothing like a bride's ability to show the final prints and albums to her bridesmaids to help gain new referrals. They all really love the digital negatives on the DVD - but now what?<br>

<strong>As part of this transition I am now looking at two things: providing wedding albums and prints in my packages. </strong><br>

So the journey begins - picking out an album service - great print & bind all in one (not sending prints around) as well as the best printer for both color and another for b&w as well as those LR2 effects: Selenium Tone, Sepia, Cyanotype. I have no idea how these effects impact the printed product.<br>

My choices thus far:<br>

Album printing and binding: Art Leather (looks like they have their own software to design as an option to CS3)<br>

Whitehouse Printing: All B&W Prints and special printing - someone said they do the best job at a reasonable price - they are not West Coast Imaging but an affordable option.<br>

Costco Photo: All color images (really impressed with their color prints and cost)<br>

On last thing, I found this book on Amazon, Photographer's Guide to Wedding Album Design and Sales, by Bob Coates. Any reviews out there? Is this book worth a look?<br>

<strong>Looking for any input/advice from those seasoned full service pros - if you ever were a shoot & burn how would you make the transition today?</strong></p>

<p>Anyone check out this book? I am thinking about purchasing it. Any reviews out there?<br>

Photographer's Guide to Wedding Album Design and Sales by Bob Coates.</p>

<p>This is a great discussion. I am now going to actually watch those CS3 Julieanne Kost's videos I bought a year ago as well as read CS3 by Kelby. <br>

I need to start providing wedding albums and this has been a recent need as I am finding my shoot and burn joy days are ending as too many brides need help bringing the images to print.</p>

Strange highway pictures?<div></div>

<p>I was thinking matted album, beautiful Italian leather... The album itself a masterpiece. No picture cover, possibly simple and elegant emboss or letterpress.<br /> Thank you John & Neil. I'll check out these sites.</p>

<p>Have the D300 for a year and never cared to learn how to use live view. Nothing like getting tack sharp focus through the view finder and confirming with play & zoom. Not sure how this would be practical in live view. Not sure what people are talking about with having any focus issues with this camera and needing to look at it on a screen while in the capture process.</p>

<p>What are the top album manufacturers? Looking for premium wedding albums that have a classic and elegant look and feel. Not interested in best look for the money or mass productions you may buy at Target, etc. What would you consider the best? Thank you!</p>

Great work April - just checked out your blog site. Tiger

Absolutely fantastic. These guys are the best for lenses and they have expanded to camera's and lighting. The site is simple. There are local pick-up locations in the SF Bay Area. Max Shevyakov is great. I use these guys regularly. Less expensive than your local pro rental place. Great customer service. The president of the company will contact you if you have any questions! I even reserved and had to cancel and they did not charge me. Great customer focus.

Merriam-Webster: participating for gain or livelihood in an activity or field of endeavor often engaged in by amateurs.

Parsons

The choice between an accredited college and a a school like Hallmark depends on what you want to do with photography. Someone with amazing talent, drive, and basic promo skills will success with or without any formal training. For most of us there are two paths - the GWC path or the professional path. Talent helps but if you are surrounded by lots of amazing talent and are seeking a position in the industry the accredited college will at least get you an interview if you have the portfolio to go with it.

 

Own your own studio and shoot weddings, family portraits, garage glam: GWC - Hallmark... and get it quick

 

Be a professional photographer: industry professional - photojournalism, commercial, etc... Brooks, Cal Arts, Parsons, NYU, SFSU, and such... and put in the time and focus on building a stunning portfolio.

 

I took the GCW route as photography is a 2nd job... but first love.<div></div>

Wow! Great work. I enjoyed it. I suppose the client could slow it down but I like a fast slide show.

70-200 VR is really your best only choice.

Unless you are actually printing the images do not crop. Cropping may make a photo look great on your screen but when you lose 10% or more of the sides in a frame after it is printed - well... make it easy on yourself and leave the cropping up to the printer.

Get a light meter. As mentioned above the Sekonic 358 is a very good model. Too many situation that will confuse your in camera light meter. It is the best learning tool and also is a faster way of learning the limits of your in camera light meter and how to make adjustments with your camera later on the fly.

 

If you shoot RAW the histogram is showing whites clipped that are not clipped because both the LCD image and the Histogram are a JPEG analysis. Having your light meter reading will show you the limits of your histogram and again how to deal with it on the fly when shooting RAW.

Color prints are easy - many choices - Costco uses the high end color printers that some of the smaller pro labs just cannot afford. Go with Costco for color prints. They use top of the line printers from Fuji & Noritsu. Top commercial color printers in the industry.

 

B&W is the difficult one. For museum quality there are places like like West Coast Imaging. B&W is really where you need to work with a custom pro-lab.

I love manual mode based on a light meter measure in shade and direct. Just take some quick measures ahead of time and recheck between and also use your histogram now and then as a quick check on the light within the frame. I shoot with a D300 & D200. The camera meters are sometimes close to correct exposure reading or way off. In manual you can adjust in about three seconds. When you nail exposure the extra flick or two of a thumb and finger is worth it. Just think ahead - you know where the action is going to be so dial it in for what you want - and have a goal of perfect exposure.

Not clear on why you state you shoot film only for formals for fear of film malfunction? A digital camera needs near 100% system functionality to operate - lose the power and you have nothing... mechanical - lose the power and you still have the ability to shoot by eye.

Yes Ivo!

Steve & Brook: Thank you for sharing your experience. I am a small one person show. I am located in the San Francisco Bay Area. There are about 1000 photographers per wedding couple in this area. I think any profile in this area would get lost. I checked out the site and their are pages and pages of photogs for the Bay Area. And like Brook advised - these seem to be larger studio based.

Art - The promo is for $135 a month. The Promotion provides listings on all 3 of the knot websites and the 10 Photo Gallery, an otherwise $2400.00 value, for $1620.00.

I received an e-mail from the knot offering: Limited Time Offer, The ultimate profile package to reach brides,

Interactive business profiles on both TheKnot.com and WeddingChannel.com, Each highly visible profile includes:

One four-color image, 45 word description and your logo, Your direct contact information, A link to your web

site... PLUS! A third profile on PartySpot.com, Added reach to Party Throwers planning a mitzvah, sweet sixteen

and more! Sign up today and receive 10% off the regular price plus nine **(9) images on all three websites FREE

with a $600 upgrade.

 

Has anyone had experience marketing via a profile on the knot? Any success from it?

 

Thank you,

 

Tiger

Three things about Leica: rangefinder, fast and beautiful lenses, the art of documenting life... nothing more and nothing less.

Until you get used to your camera (know when your camera's light meter will get fooled and what to do about it)

shoot with an incident light meter like the Sekonic L-358 Flash Master.

 

It is not always possible but when you can shoot subjects in the shade. The bride's dress is blown out above -

you used no flash... a good rule is to always use flash to fill in the harsh shadows created by a bright sunny

day. You should be shooting on your lowest ISO, a polarized filter helps on days like this to reduce glare,

provide contrast, and color saturation.

 

Think about your backgrounds - reduce clutter and distracting background - the Boys shot - subjects too far away

- distracting background - think about how to make this photograph more interesting - how the subjects better fit

their surroundings, composition is something you must learn by studying your favorite photographers and lots of

practice - as well as taking an art history class and visiting local art museums. Bride and nephew shot...

again, think about the setting, clutter creating a distraction on the mantle, composition.

 

It is great that you are shooting in manual - the best way to learn!

 

Good luck and enjoy the ride