jenseay

I did a bridal show in January 2006 and booked about 8 weddings as a result of it - plus 3 that are happening in 2007 (two sisters and a brother). I spent $600 for a corner booth and borrowed an LCD projector and screen from my school - I played a slideshow of my favorite 50-or-so pictures on a loop. My only other expense was my favorite picture enlarged to 20"x30" and framed, and placed in the corner of the booth.

I'd say the expense was worth it - I've made it back ten-fold, plus some.

~Jen

I opened this thread more for the responses of the pros here than for the question itself... I was ready to see a fight!

Dang!

Happy New Year to all... :-)

~Jen

Sometimes I say I'm a photographer, and I teach in my spare time...but the truth is that I'm a full-time middle school teacher with a many-weekends-a-year business on the side.

Of the photography business, I'd say that 50% of my time and 80% of my income come from weddings (I don't charge what I should for portraits).

Jen

I think my local Starbucks is going to start charging me rent soon!

Jen

I used my 5D with the flash and Lightsphere this year at both my family's house and my in-laws' house. Some asked what that "thing" was on my camera, and I told them I was a tip jar.

Here's the result... the top and middle left are my family, and the bottom and middle right are in-laws. I'm pretty happy with them... I shot about 300 in 2 days.<div></div>

They're probably waiting for you to reply, interested in their offer, before they start talking about what they want you to do for them (i.e. the money orders).

Jen

When I Google my name, my photo.net profile is one of the first links that comes up. Probably true for lots of us.

Jen Seay

Never mind! I went on the B&H website and got my answer. These are so cool...I want one!

Jen

For these hard drives with screens on them, can you view Raw files, or just Jpegs?

Jen

I LOVE SMUGMUG!

I just had to add that to this thread... Every time I've EVER emailed their help desk, I've always gotten a response from a REAL human being withing half an hour. They're wonderful.

I've been a member since January 2005, and there have been SO many changes and improvements to the site since I started, that I can only imagine what else they have up their sleeves. I'd stick with them - you never can tell what good stuff is to come.

I have considered uploading smaller pictures, but use the smugmug account as a sort of third backup for my photos (I currently have about 25,000 pictures on there...close to 20 gigabytes). Also, I'm worried that someone will order my pictures at a time when I'm not available to upload the full file, then they're stuck with a low-res picture and I'm stuck explaining what happened and re-ordering at my cost.

Jen

People find out about my website by word of mouth, and then hire me based on the work they see on the site. I do very little advertising (I'm in my second year of doing weddings, and did 30 weddings this year).

I live in a relatively small town, where instead of "six degrees of separation," we have about TWO. Everyone I've ever met knows SOMEONE I've photographed, whose picture is on my website. So word of mouth definitely works to my advantage (as long as I keep making people happy!).

Here's a wedding at the US Naval Academy. The photo highlights the chapel more than the wedding itself, but a cool shot, nonetheless. I won Honorable Mention in an architecture photography contest with this shot!

Taken with a Canon EOS 5D and a Sigma 15mm lens...

Jen Seay<div></div>

I think the 70-200 IS an essential lens... I use it at every wedding in a church, where I have to stay in the back. I put it on a tripod and get great images from there. I also use it during outdoor weddings, to capture hands as the bride and groom are putting rings on each other's fingers. It's great for capturing facial expressions during vows.

I got my 24-70 lens this spring, and don't know what I ever did without it!

I can shoot a whole wedding with my 5D, 24-70, 70-200, and 580EX flash.

Jen

I read once that Gary Fong shoots his weddings at 4 megapixels. Here's a quote from an article I read:

"I shot the cover images and the interior photos on Program mode with my Lightsphere II on TTL to even up the lighting," says Fong. "I use PNY 512MB cards with the camera setting at 4 megapixels JPG normal, so each shot is about 800KB. This file size may sound small, but after extensive testing, I've found it's optimum for wedding photography quality and workflow."

Wow...

Jen

I like the metallics, but have had the metallic material peel off the paper...what can I do to prevent that?? I don't want to sell metallic prints to someone, and have them come back to me a week later with a big old gouge in the print.

Anyone do metallic prints in albums? I had a request for that last week, but because of the sensitivity of the paper I'm afraid to do it.

Where do I get cool fonts like Scriptina? I've seen so many fonts that I love, but don't know where to find them. Can I buy them somewhere online? I want more fonts!!

Jen

I pay $99 a year for a site on smugmug, and have my domain name, www.jenseay.com, redirected to that site (until I get up the nerve to build a 'real' website, anyway). Currently, I have over 22,000 pictures on my site, including all the proofs from every wedding and portrait I've ever done. People I know who visit my site are immediately addicted, and know to check back often for updates.

It's been successful...I photographed 12 weddings in 2005, have 31 weddings this year, and have already booked a dozen for '07 - and I have way TOO MUCH business for my time - I'm a full time teacher, too!

Jen

In the photo on the back page of my albums, I stick in the words "Created with Care by Jennifer Seay."

Jen

Sole proprietorship here...

Jen

Stacy,

I am a full time teacher and don't depend on my salary from photography, so I don't charge what others here charge, but for what it's worth, I have never offered packages. My contract contains a checklist like you're talking about.

This system has worked out for me because 'shooting and burning' is less work than creating albums. I decided that next year, I want to sell more prints and albums, so my new "thing" is to charge an hourly rate that includes a 'credit' per hour of photography toward things like prints and albums. Next year, it will be $300 per hour, with a $50 credit/hour toward an album. And if they pay for 8 hours, they get me for the whole day (you're right about the 6 hour weddings - I've never done a 12 hour one at my hourly rate). The hourly rate includes the disc, online proofing, and a proof album.

Oh, and I second others on this message board...your pictures ROCK!

Jen

Thanks, everyone! You're always so full of answers... :-)

My 18 month old laptop is slow, despite the fact that I have hardly anything in my internal (C:) drive - every picture is loaded in my external drive. I opened the defragmenter and it said the C: didn't need defragmenting.

I like the idea of using a PCMCIA adaptor - I just want something that's internal, that I don't have to hang off of the computer by a cord in order to drop my pics into the computer (as I already have enough cords hanging from it, here on my lap in the living room!).

Take care...thanks again!

Jen

Hey Everyone,

I'm in my second year of photographing weddings (did my 21st of the year

yesterday), and I'm getting frustrated with the slowness of my (18 month old)

laptop in running more than one application at once (particularly PS +

anything). One thing I love about it, though, is that it has a convenient CF

card slot on the side, so I can just pop the card in and transfer photos.

So last night, I took a trip to Best Buy to look at new laptops. NOT ONE of

them had a CF card slot - the 4-in-1 and 5-in-1 readers contained slots for

everything BUT a CF card. Is the CF card slot obsolete? And if not, where can I

find a laptop that contains a built-in CF card slot? Any suggestions of models

(I'm talking PC)?

Jen

I joined smugmug in January '05 on the one-week trial and ordered a bunch of prints of different pictures I had uploaded - that was the deciding factor in whether I'd use the site or not. The print quality was really good....I now have over 20,000 pictures on my site (I use it as a second backup) - for $99 a year, that's not a bad deal!

Jen Seay http://jenseay.smugmug.com