jaimie blue

Would have listened to my great photography teacher when he said, "Don't give it away, as a matter of fact be the most expensive photographer."

Being born and raised in Las Vegas and having been a wedding photographer there, I can say, yes there is a ton of business. Private studios, hotels, and free standing chapels providing a wedding photography with ample and then some business.

Unethical, yes, and there is always Karma.

Parker Pfister, Schilling I love him too! He lives where I do and his studio is about 2 minutes from my house.

It is always a good business practice to charge for your work especially when it is going to be used in advertising. The director of the convention center should know better then to ask the b/g for their weddings shots to be used in advertising without paying you the photographer. I hope in your contract with the b/g there is something in there about 3rd party usage in advertising. Get paid, sell the images to the convention center to use in advertising, I doubt this director is in the business of promoting you, more interested in promoting the convention center, and I would think there is a budget for advertising. Re: what to charge, well I would charge whatever for web use, and more for print use, make up a price based on how many shots they want to use and what they are using it for.

You are the photographer, you are in control of your images and what a client sees, you are the editor.

I guess that was the plus shooting in Las Vegas, 100 dollar tips were common and frequent, almost every wedding.

Astrid I do like your composition and your angles and think you have a good eye.

Years ago before I ever shot weddings I was a photographer shooting other stuff. My friend asked me to shoot a wedding, I would never do weddings and I would never use flash that you put on a camera with a bracket or otherwise. I had one Nikon Fm all manual camera, 2 lens and no flash. I did her wedding. It turned out beautiful and now years later after about 350 weddings all the pro gear and the stuff I should know and her wedding is still the coolest I ever did. Yes you can pull it off.

Completely agree with Meg.

I worked for a commerical food photographer for 10 years. I know this is not the same concept but each shot took hours, had a food stylist, large format cameras, lighting, and nuances like bottles positioned, (not shown in shot) to reflect light, details, in the lighting. If we had 4 menu shots to do it took hours of the food stylist preparing, and literally alot of time to shoot, each shot was about 4 hours. There was a stand in plate and then once the lighting was arranged the real plate was brought in. Typically we spent 12 to 15 hours a day on food shoots. In all that I shoot now, food is the one subject I will stay away from and leave to the commercial shooters. I do not know what level of work the vendor is looking for but the way people get on this forum when non pros attempt weddings is the way my photographer felt about food styling and shooting, he would never do a shoot with only the chefs of their own food and would always insisit on a food stylist with the chef because the craft of food shooting to him required commercial lighting and stylists and expertise in food shooting.

I really love those two shot Marc, nice exposures.

I would stop the lens down, f2.8 for a bright sunny day is just to wide. I never use 2.8 for groups, and always shoot in manual mode to control the exposure myself. I do like ttl on the Nikon systems, but I use an SB800 and am not sure how the 580 is. I have shot weddings in the middle of the brightest day right smack in the sun, noon day sun in Las Vegas 110 and blazing bright with no shade on a terrace with white reflecting walls all around, a very pale caucasion bride and a very dark african american groom, and ironically enough she was smack in the sun and he was in the shade for the ceremony. Where I worked we shot in jpeg not raw and had to have our exposures spot on, but this was so extreme I metered for the skin tones in the brightest sun which was on the very pale bride.

Emulsion :)

Like where you are going with this, stay true to your vision too.

I love your compositional skills and the moments you are capturing. Seems like you are really connecting, and are a great photographer. Illustrative once again that it is not the camera taking the pictures. Charge for your work, your style emphasizes that you have talent. If people hired you they would get a unique collection of photographs that have caught real moments. In the shot with the girl and the dog, the dog has the funniest demeanor in that second the frame snapped. Take the position of art director in your shoots retaining your artistic sytle regarding your composition. Sell your work reflective of you as a photographer and what you expect to get paid knowing that you are producing excellent work.

In the scrapbook section there are some artisically bound leather books with blank pages that you could adhere photo corners too, I don't mean cutting shapes or adding caption, I am referring to the outward bound hard cover material books for leather bond and there is a wider selection with blank pages then when looking for nice traditional wedding books in general stores, the scrap book sections usually have alot of nice blank books that would look good with corners.

Heather nice to see that you still retain your enthusiasm in the face of critiques, and that you will take the advice. It is one thing being a low budget photographer and another doing photography for free. For many reasons one being you need to put a value on your work, even if you are just starting out, charge something but I would say stay away from "free."

Or maybe do your own thing and create a "scrapbooking" kind of album, sounds like you may be doing something like that for your cousin, in that case you can really go off the beaten path and start looking at creating crafting type albums which you can find all over, start something new with it.

I really love photo boxes and seeing 4 x 6 proofs/pictures in them but since you are going for albums you ask if photo corners are tacky and my answer is yes, but maybe you can do them as a retro look. Old photo books from the 30's, 40's, 50's, etc. used photo corners and maybe since you are looking for something different you can create a retro look album with the corners and tacky can become vogue. Have you checked out boxes and played with the total packaging of a very cool box, photos in them, taking them out, having the entire experience of the box.

You have the feeling but you need some technique regarding exposure, some of the shots are interesting, I would keep the art and learn some more craft.

Way too much.

I use to have this thing about in every shoot getting a couple of what I think are the great shots. Even if a shoot had a ton of really really good shots but no great ones I was mad at myself. Well IMO in your selection above you got a great shot, I love the angle, and compositon of the groom and the kid. Love it.

Did you try "Fast Signs" yet? They are amazing.

Truthfully if it was me and I was the photographer I would give you at least half off because I would feel responsible as the photographer. Unfortunately "nightmare" things do happen and you seem really resonable, and I would tell the photographer that $50.00 is not acceptable. I do not care how much the wedding was you should get a better compensation then $50.00.