vlad khavin

<p>PocketWizards or RadioPoppers. I use PocketWizards. They fire remote flashes in manual mode, and are extremely reliable.</p>

<p>William,</p>

<p>The ability to post pics directly from zenfolio onto facebook is not so much a tool for you to post them, but rather a way for your brides to post them. YOU should post them onto your business page manually. But when THEY use zenfolio's little button to share photos, what happens is exactly what you said. It posts it as a status, and in that status also provides a link to your zenfolio page. I totally agree, I do not want to post my wedding photos for clients on my personal facebook page, since this is also where I share random stuff with friends... like pictures of my daughter and the like. Sorry for the confusion. What I would do is...</p>

<p>1) As Maria said, encourage brides to fan your business page on facebook</p>

<p>2) Post a small sampling of the glory shots from their wedding as a gallery on your business page, and tag them in it so that it spreads to all of their friends. Do so manually, and not through zenfolio. These images would have your studio logo on them.</p>

<p>3) After facebook pics were posted, provide the bride with access to their proofs on zenfolio, and urge her to share them with that little facebook button right from zenfolio. That will include a link to the rest of them, and you can market it to them as a convenience feature.</p>

<p>Hope that helps!<br>

Vlad</p>

<p>William,</p>

<p>I think the key is to post photos on facebook before you hand over digital files to clients. That way, your photos are up and spread virally before your clients can post anything without crediting you. (I've noticed that this is not intentional. They don't mean to slight us usually by not giving credit... it just never crosses their mind. They're happy to have their pics and want to share them.) What I do... (or have recently started doing anyway, and need to get better at doing more consistently) ...is post some of the glory shots from a wedding, mostly of the couple, up on a facebook page. As Melissa said, tag the clients in them, and all of a sudden, all of their friends can see those photos, and see where they came from. I've done this a couple of times, to try it out, and every time I've done it, I've gotten a wonderful response from both clients, and their facebook friends.</p>

<p>Also, since you are a zenfolio user, zenfolio lets people post photos from their gallery right up onto facebook. What's nice about this is that when they do that, a link to your zenfolio site goes with those photos. So effectively, the client posted a few of their favorites, and there's a link to your zenfolio page for people to see (and buy if they so choose) prints of them.</p>

<p>And yes, the plan is to leave those photos there indefinitely, unless facebook limits the number of photos. For what it's worth, I don't know that they do.</p>

<p>Rebecca,</p>

<p>Personally, I come to a wedding expecting that there will be guests with cameras. But generally speaking, I don't see guests with long white lenses. If I do... and they have not introduced themselves to me, I introduce myself to them. As long as they are not bothering me (in the sense that they are not constantly standing on my heels and shooting over my shoulder, or yelling for the bride and groom to look at them) then I don't mind. Or at least I tolerate it. If they become a nuisance, I mention it to them. If that doesn't do the trick, then someone in the bridal party tends to handle it. Point being, it would not hurt to introduce yourself. Especially if you've met the photographer before. If he knows you, knows what you're doing, and knows up front what your intentions are... he may not mind. Just be prepared in case he does mind. In that case, I would urge you to respect it. Point is, he is more likely to mind if you don't approach him early on, and just say hello, and let him know what you want to do.</p>

<p>I've gone as far as helping guests who have approached me, and respected the fact I am there to do a job while they are there to enjoy and celebrate by not distracting my subjects and not shooting their own copy of every one of my posed shots. I would rather have an ally for the evening rather than an enemy who is going to tell their friends and family what a horrible person I am because I didn't let them take pictures.</p>

<p>Hope that helps,<br>

Vlad</p>

<p>I'm a Zenfolio user. I won't claim that it's perfect... but it's the best that I've found after doing a long search. One of the things that I really like about it is that they expose an API that can be used to integrate their galleries into your website. This is not for the faint of heart, but it can be done and works great. (I have, outside of photography, many years of IT and development experience under my belt, so this didn't scare me.) My website is entirely based on WordPress (not that you could tell just by looking at it) and I wrote a little plugin for it that interfaces with my Zenfolio account. My clients go to my site, select their names out of a list, and it takes them to their Zenfolio proofing site. That dropdown is fed from Zenfolio, so I do not edit my site when I upload a client's pictures. They just appear in the list. The point of this is that clients can tell their friends to go to my site to see their pictures, in turn, driving traffic to my website.</p>

<p>If you are curious about that aspect of it, feel free to drop me a line, and I can explain in more detail.</p>

<p>FlippingBook is pretty awesome! I use it to proof album layouts for brides pretty often. Very easy to use, and yes, excellent support.</p>

<p>Matt,<br>

When you save your JPEGs that you're uploading to Smugmug... are you embedding the color profile? It's an option in the save dialog. If you're not, try doing that and see if that fixes things with posting your images online.</p>

<p>I pack all of my gear the night before. It stays inside my house until it's time to leave. My second shooter meets me at my house, and we load all of the gear into my car (his, and mine) and immediately get into the car and go. I, too, live in a nice neighborhood... but nice neighborhoods are targets for thieves. Insurance is great... and an absolute must... but it's not something you want to deal with the day of a wedding. I couldn't imagine rushing around the morning of a wedding trying to replace stolen gear.</p>

<p><img src="http://www.show-me-blue.com/shows/Katelyn-Mark-Photog-Faves/images/katelyn-mark-63.jpg" alt="" width="580" height="387" /> <br /> Katelyn & Mark<br /> 5DmkII, 85mm f/1.8, available light (ISO 100, f/3.5, 1/250)<br>

Converted to b&w, sharpened, and vignette added in Lightroom 2</p>

<p>Chad, consider the possibility that if you do not wear your belt and have to return to your main stash of gear to swap lenses more often than once or twice, you will be more of a distraction than if you wear the belt in a small church. To echo what Nadine said; if the belt looks presentable, then wear it. If you are concerned about all of the bulk on you, you might also consider removing some of the lenses off of it and keeping only the ones on it that you are most likely to switch to.</p>

<p>I wear a belt at the ceremony. For me, the benefits of having what I need at hand outweigh the issue of appearance. I think people realize that you are a professional and you are working. So long as you are not knocking those lens cases into things as you move around, and you move around as quietly as possible in general... you should not have a problem.</p>

<p>I use them, and have been very happy with their product. Nice thick paper, and a very nice coating on them if you go for the UV. They do occasionally hit a snag which delays things... but all in all, dealing with them has been a positive experience for sure.</p>

<p>Jorge,<br>

For a lot of the questions you are asking, there are no absolute answers. There is no way that I, or anyone, can tell you what lens to use; the answer is "It depends. What kind of pictures would you like to make?" My guess is that you will want to use something on the wider end of the spectrum if you can be up close to the stage.</p>

<p>I can tell you this. It's going to be tough without a flash because you can not rely on it to freeze motion. Stage lights are continuous, obviously, so motion blur becomes a problem. (Assuming you don't want motion blur, of course. There are some spectacular pictures of dancers that have the stage sharp and the dancer is all motion.) If you are hand-holding your camera, and you can not use flash, you are going to have to shoot with the fastest shutter speed that you can use and still get a decent exposure. This means that you are going to need a fast lens, but the tradeoff is that you then have to be spot-on with focusing since you lose depth of field by shooting wide open.</p>

<p>There are folks here that have a lot more experience photographing theater and performances, I'm sure... but what I would do is set the camera to M, and the metering mode to Spot. I would meter on the brightest side of a dancer's face, (open up my lens as much as possible, and adjust the shutter speed accordingly) so that the brightest part is 1 stop over. If that made the shutter speed too slow (say... below 1/60 with no flash) I would bump up the ISO. I'm purposely not giving you concrete numbers. Since I have not seen the venue and don't know how bright their lights will be, I can't tell you what combination of f/stop + shutter speed + ISO to use.</p>

<p>I hope what I just said makes sense? Good luck!</p>

<p>Why? It's funny, I seem to get asked this question a lot; sometimes by family, and often by clients during a

meeting. I shoot weddings because despite my initial misgivings about any sort of people photography, I was

volunteered into shooting an event for some graduate student friends of my wife a couple of years back. I said I

wasn't sure... she pouted... and there I was, shooting what would otherwise not be shot at all beyond the few

point & shoot cameras that would have covered it. Despite myself, I fell in love with it. Before that day, my

subjects of choice were nature things; trees... rocks... wildlife it could be had on a schedule that would work

with my day job as IT guy... but I learned something that day. You'll never get a smile from a rock, and a

couple that was just married doesn't need to be told to smile. (Usually. I had this one couple... but that's a

different story.)</p>

 

<p>Weddings are... special. Very very special. It's one of the few events in life where if you see someone

crying, it's a safe bet that it's because they're happy. (Usually. I had this one couple... but that's a

different story.) I could, of course, go out and take pictures of sad people, or angry people. I don't have to

go far for that; just as far as the closest city with homeless people. But there's enough sadness and anger in

the world, and I don't feel the need to add my documentary of it to the countless other documentaries of such

things that already exist. I find that I do not enjoy capturing people at their lowest, because it brings me

down. And if I want to be sad or disturbed, I'll just turn on the news. I don't want to say that weddings are

the most important moment in people's lives. I would have said that a year ago, but I have a nearly

four-month-old little girl now, and when she was born... I think that trumped my wedding day in momentousness

(probably not a word). None the less... weddings are a time when people are very happy, and often show that

emotion very vividly. I've found that I really enjoy capturing that emotion, whereas before I captured images

that only evoked one, and I don't know where else I could get that kind of emotion out without posing a couple of

models and asking them to fake it.</p>

 

<p>I also enjoy having a client call me after seeing the proofs of their wedding or an album, and thank me. I

enjoy letting them relive their wedding day through another set of eyes. And I enjoy being appreciated. I've

done IT for ten years now, and I can count on one hand how many times I've come into contact with someone who

uses the software I write, and I can count on one finger the number of times someone told me that they

appreciated what I did. That's why I shoot weddings. Because people appreciate what I do... and because it has

a bigger impact on people than what I would do otherwise.</p>

 

<p>Anyone that thinks weddings are easy has never shot one. Some weddings are harder than others. And it's not

that I have such a huge number of weddings under my belt now to say this with the authority of some of the

seasoned veterans here... but I haven't shot a wedding that has made me question why I'm doing this. To me, it's

what I should be doing.</p>

Namu,

 

I totally second what David said; relax and take a deep breath and don't work yourself into a panic. Then, before the wedding, have a talk with the primary and ask them what they would like you to cover.

 

Equipment-wise...

 

1) Your 30D is fine. I've shot with it as my primary body (though I've since switched to a 5D), and the pictures come out just fine. Yes, you can have better quality captures, noise-wise, with other more expensive bodies, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with what the 30D can produce.

 

2) Your lenses are going to give you a bit of trouble if the church is dark, but it's absolutely something that you can deal with if you are aware of what they can and can not do. Because they do not have consistent maximum apertures at all focal lengths, you will have to adjust exposure unless you are shooting in one of the automatic modes. It's best to shoot in Manual mode, but if it's between getting the shot and being in M mode... you get the shot. If you find yourself getting frustrated with exposure, switch to P mode until you collect yourself a bit.

 

3) Your 580EXII is going to be your best friend at the reception. While it would REALLY help at the ceremony, many churches do not allow flash, and even when they do, you may want to leave the flashing to the primary photographer except for durring the processional and the recessional. When at the reception, point the flash head up at the ceiling (hopefully it's not some odd color), and pull out that bounce card. You can use the better bounce card, or use the one that's built into the 580EX. (Since you said it's new and you don't know how to use it very well yet, on the flash head, at the top, there is a little plastic screen that you can pull out. When you pull it out, a white card pops out. You push the clear plastic screen back where it came from, and you keep the bounce card out.) You can move that bounce card up and down to throw more light at the subject or less. If they are very close, bump the bounce card down. If they are far away, move the bounce card up.

 

4) Batteries; since your flash is eating through them quickly, I'm going to assume that you are using non-rechargeable batteries. Rechargeable ones last longer, let your flash recycle faster, and are much cheaper in the long run. Do yourself a favor and buy some rechargeables. 2 sets of rechargeable batteries should last you through a wedding (in general) so I would bring 4 sets of rechargeables. You can put two sets into the battery pack, leave the normal ones in the flash itself, and when you notice that it takes the flash a long time to recycle, you can change the batteries in the pack to the other rechargeables you have with you.

 

5) If you shoot rapidly, some shots will have the flash at its normal power, others will have it with almost nothing. Try not to shoot in machine gun mode when you are relying on your flash.

 

6) 8Gb of memory card should be plenty.

 

7) Keep your ISO as low as you can while getting good exposure. By good exposure, I mean look at your histogram and remember this. It's better to have a well-exposed shot at ISO1600 than a poorly exposed shot at ISO100. Once you start adjusting exposure significantly in post processing, you see noise creep up. So make sure you are getting good exposure, and if you are not, bump up the ISO, but no higher than you absolutely need to get a good exposure at a workable shutter speed.

 

8) Have fun! If you are sweating bullets the day of, and you look it... it's not going to instill confidence in the bride and groom, guests, and the primary shooter. So, while I'm not going to tell you to not be nervous... try as best you can to be as relaxed as possible. Be friendly. And project the image of enjoying what you are doing. At a wedding, that last part should not be hard to do, what with all that happiness happening all around you!

 

Hope this helps, and best of luck!

I don't use this particular set of actions. However, if you are being instructed to put stuff into Applications (on a Mac), on a PC, you would put it in Program Files. So... if they are telling you to put something (the JS file) into the Scripts folds, and you installed Photoshop into the default location, then you would go into C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop CS2\Presets\Scripts

 

Hope that helps.

Jeff, I'm far from the most experienced voice on this forum, but I'll chime in here.

 

Monopod could be useful, though I never use one. It's one of those things that I never really incorporated into the way I shoot. If you are comfortable using it, then bring it, because it can't hurt, as Tony said.

 

For the formals, I would use a tripod if the location permits. Sounds kind of funny, but if you have to basically hang over a railing to get enough working distance, the tripod won't help, but if you can use it, it will probably help during the formals. After the formals, you can pretty safely just stash it in the trunk of your car, because you probably won't need it. Same for the monopod, unless you're really really comfortable moving through crowds with one.

 

Flash... I would suggest you pick up an SB-800. A good flash is a good investment, and when you have it, you will use it. If you don't want to shell out for one, then see about renting one. It's rather unfortunate that the timeline is so tight, but if you can swing it, I would get one. There are plenty of things to learn with it, but you don't absolutely HAVE to know every trick in the book in this particular situation. It's a smart unit. You will not be using it to it's optimal capabilities, but it will still be much much better than the pop-up flash on your camera.

 

Black and white conversions in digital should not require you to use filters on your lens. You can... if you are comfortable with switching them quickly... but I wouldn't. Shoot it all in color, and convert what you think will work better as black and white in post processing. This way, you don't have to make that call on the spot while you're shooting.

 

I'm not a Nikon guy, and I don't know all of the ins and outs of the SB-800, but... I hope this helps, and good luck!

Jessica, instead of using the erase tool, create a mask for the blur layer, and paint black onto it with a soft brush. This will hide the blur where you paint black on the mask. You want to set the flow of your brush down to something small like 2 or 3%, and build up the areas. That means you will have to brush over the same area multiple times to get the blur totally hidden. This will let you make smoother transitions. I would start with a larger brush, and paint black over larger areas that you want less blur on, then decrease the brush size and put some more black on more specific areas. If you are using a mask and you make a mistake, you can just paint white over your mistake on the mask and fix it; if you delete on the actual layer, if it's gone... it's gone unless you still have it in your History.

 

As far as the blending mode, Overlay will darken the image and do interesting things with colors and saturation. So will Multiply (at least with the darkening, I don't think it does the same thing with colors). Soft Light... I guess does to some extent too. Try just leaving the blending mode as Normal, and reduce the opacity for the whole blur layer to something like 20%, and go from there. Want more blur? Bump up the opacity... Less? Knock it down a little more.

 

You can use Screen and Multiply (which lighten the image and darken it respectively), but you will want to increase the amount of blur you apply to the layer quite substantially to get that dreamy look back.

I use one. I actually switched to it from an over-the-shoulder bag that I used. What I have is the the Steroid belt with the Pixel Harness (which is a set of suspenders that also puts some of the weight on my shoulders, but evenly instead of on only one shoulder). I have much fewer than 7 pouches on it, but what I've found was that my back would really be unhappy with the shoulder bag, and is much happier with the belt system. The problem I was trying to solve with the belt system was not the amount of weight on me, but rather that the weight was unbalanced.

So there is a fundamental difference between being an employee and being a contractor. If you are an employee... then this photographer is providing a salary and benefits. If you work on demand and not regularly, and she is not providing you a salary and benefits, then you are a contractor.

 

I've seen two things be lumped into a non-compete clause... not advertising yourself as a provider of the same service as your employer provides, and also not working for their competition.

 

If you are an EMPLOYEE of the photographer, then I can see having a non-compete clause. If you are a CONTRACTOR, and have to sign a non-compete, then you are being given a really raw deal. Personally, I would not take it. This sort of arrangement may work for some people, but since you are looking to support yourself by second-shooting, this is not going to work for you. Unless she is providing you regular work and paying you enough for it to live on, it just does not add up.

 

There are other photographers out there that do not have such restrictive arrangements with their second shooters. I would seek out another photographer to work with.

 

As far as rates go; they vary. Your experience, the caliber of their weddings, their expectations as far as image quality, quantity, and editing are all huge factors. Geographic location and how weddings are priced in the area also govern how much you get paid. As a second shooter, I have been paid between 200 and 500 per wedding depending on who did the editing of the images afterwards and how long the day was.

Katie,

 

#3 looks great! One thing to keep in mind though, how will it look when it's printed smaller? This is something that my friend, a graphic designer, keeps stressing to me whenever I ask him about logos and such. It looks great on screen, but before you settle on any one of them, try printing it smaller, so that it fits on a business card, and see if you still like it. I think #3 will still look great on a business card, but you may want to check. Some of the intricate detail on the wings may be lost in print.

Folks, thank you very much for all of your responses.

 

As a couple of you suggested... I've been seriously considering the "just email me the image numbers you want in the album" approach, but I was wondering if there was something more sophisticated than that. The Pictage favorites is the concept I was after, or the ifp3 folders... So I think I have a couple of possible solutions to my problems. I checked out all of the sites that you've posted, and it's really given me a good amount of info to go on. So... thanks! Much appreciated.

So after doing a search on this form for posts about online proofing and reading

through a load of different responses... I still have this question. Hopefully

one of you can shed some light on it for me.

 

As I've seen in the older posts, there are lots of options, and most of them do

the same sort of thing, with different twists on the concept. They all seem to

offer thumbnails, and slightly larger images, and a shopping cart. Some of the

sites that offer online proofing also do order fulfillment... which is great!

But here's the rub; I offer albums. I would like the bride and groom to have

the option to select the images they want in their album... and then send me

their list of images so that I can then do the layout and order their book. It

seems like most of the online proofing solutions aren't really geared for that.

They either want to take some sort of order.

 

So I guess I may be asking a little too much here... The ideal situation is

that guests can go and view the images online and order prints. These can be

handled by the online proofing company (order taken, fulfilled, shipped... and I

get a check in the mail or some such). But I want the bride and groom to be

able to make their image selections online and tell me which images they want

included in their album, WITHOUT placing an order through the proofing site

because their album is already paid for as part of their package.

 

Maybe I'm overlooking something, or it may just be a simple workflow thing that

I'm not quite getting. Can someone explain to me how they use one of the many

online proofing solutions to solve this problem? I know people do it... I think

I'm just missing something.

 

Thanks in advance!!!

Wow... I read the article and it seems incredible that it's true. I mean, it's pretty clear that the guy was sick in the head, because what sane human being does those sorts of things? But damn...

Miller's (http://www.millerslab.com)

 

I actually just ordered a sample album from them. It was ordered on Thursday, and is arriving today. As in... I placed the order on Thursday, and it was done and shipped on Friday.

Shari, it really depends on the arrangement you have with the primary photographer. I have done both; edited, and just handed over the images.