g.e._masana

I always over estimate delivery time because print & bind is out of your hands and you don't know what delays may be encountered. I've also had it happen where I get the album and I don't like something they did and have to return it for repair.

 

But also, when you over estimate but then deliver quickly, that makes you look like super uber photographer in your client's eyes and it sure beats under estimating delivery time and then realizing it's going to take longer.

 

But for the clients at hand, I'm afraid the die is cast. Answer their calls, don't give excuses and keep your cool and bear with it until it's delivered. It's nice to know that you're so wanted.

 

But here's an idea anyway: ask mom if it's possible that, instead of getting multiple calls from everyone, if they could nominate one person to be your contact (like the bride), that would help make your communication with them much more efficient. Otherwise what happens is mom calls, you tell her something, but the message doesn't get passed along, so then the bride calls asking the same thing, yadda, yadda.

Just a thought, but, why not find some good images of a couple of flying doves and photoshop them in? This isn't news photography where you can't fake details. This is about creating images. Personally, I may do something like that and then happily inform the bride and groom of how I saved the image after Mr. Video accidentally blocked the shot.

Speaking of scams, anyone heard of this one? Some outfit calls themselves the "United States Treasury" and they claim that their "economy is in trouble". They want me to send them a portion of my income by next April! Yeah, right.

Tripods can slow you up, but if you're going to use one, make sure that's acceptable to the church too. They may have a policy regarding setting those up too. I just hope, for your sake, that they're also restricting the guests from using flash as well, otherwise, your exposures are going to be subjected to their stray flashes. And if they aren't restricting any one else with a camera but you, let's all get together and file one large mass discrimination lawsuit. But I digress.

 

You can rent a lens instead of buying one. You can also use a monopod rather then a tripod, which would be quicker to set up and get out of the way. In your camera, comp the exposure up, say, two thirds of a stop. You could lighten the exposures further in Lightroom if you need to, so, shoot RAW to get all the data you need.

 

"just shoot for the moments when the couple are very still, like when exchanging vows?"

 

More like at the end of any sentence when there's that natural pause. That works for readers, exchanging vows, the officiant speaking, you name it. When they exchange rings, you also have that slight, brief moment right after they slide the ring onto their beloved's finger. And shoot tons more then you normally would to compensate for the blurry images that will occur and increase the odds of having some clear ones. Refocus between shots too, just as a safety measure to insure that you didn't mistakenly focus a little off and now all the subsequent shots are off. And keep on eye on your exposure levels throughout the shoot, and do chimp some to make sure that it's looking decent.

Don't believe everything a wedding photographer says.

"I include my studio logo and web address on the disc artwork as well, and in small text, I put a brief description of the contents of the disc"

 

I also have a blurb about me on the back of the DVD jacket, along with my headshot. Preferring not to print myself, I use a firm that creates packaging for DVDs that does short runs.

"Not being a marketing guy, after taking a look at the web site for them (cjlewis.com), I just have to laugh -

for something that is supposed to be the best thing out there for marketing you business, it has to be one the

cheeziest web site designs I've seen."

 

It sure is. But you know what? He's not trying to attract web site designers or win any awards for having a

pretty site. His site is intentionally like that to involve people in reading through the different blurbs. Did

you look through his site at all or did you see the site and at first glance, move on? Just wondering. Getting

people involved in one's marketing material is a good first first step in obtaining paying clientele.

WalMart? They got rid of their layaway plan back in 2006. Even so, if you wanted a refund, it was subject to

termination and cancellation fees.

 

And were you to purchase a gift card from WalMart with which to buy product in the future, if you then wish to

refund it, they don't give you cash back. It goes as a credit back to your gift card.

 

And that's a retail business with multiple locations that does tremendous cash flow. A one-person or two-person

local area service business is an entirely different business model.

 

Jeffrey, the couple put in the money to be applied to a product purchase. That was the deal. It's up to them to

perform on their end of that deal, If they don't, then it stays by default as a credit.

 

>> These people have already lied to me about the "bride" going to Tennesse, which is relevant, because it shows

their character >>

 

It's really not that relevant. Your policies have nothing to with what you assess the customer's character may be

like. Lies or not, everyone is under the same rules. Don't get me wrong, it's certainly something you'd take note

of in your dealings with them. I wouldn't believe a word that comes out of their mouth.

 

>> Funny how people state they love their images but I do not receive orders? >>

 

My point exactly! Talk is cheap.

 

Anyway, if this is your livelihood, what you need to pay your bills with, then the number one rule is: You can't

let people mess around with your livelihood.

 

>> I would have contacted them every month maybe 4 months after the wedding to remind them >>

 

Yeah, it must be fun being a bill collector.

 

The fact is they don't need "reminding". They seem to remember very well indeed that they have $500 with this

photographer. They even fabricated a divorce story to run around it. It's obviously on their mind.

 

After a couple of calls, that couple will not pick up the phone when they see it's you calling. Note how they

haven't returned Jeffrey's calls. It's not an oversight on their part.

 

You've got a lot to learn, sir.

"Plus I am not sure why he lied about the "bride" having moved to Tennesse when she obviously didn't?"

 

To give credence to his "divorce" story.

 

The truth is probably closer to that they're still married, decided not to order anything more and make do with what you gave them, and are trying to get that $500 back.

The automatic modes average out the exposure to gray, so let's say that you're photographing an image of the bride and groom full length and that your next shot is a closeup of the bride's dress details. While the lighting conditions has remained static, the makeup of the shot has changed from a mix of whites and blacks and other tones to mostly white. The camera's meter relegates it all to a gray and you're therefore needing to adjust your exposure compensation to brighten the whites or darken the blacks, as the case may be, from shot to shot.

 

In manual mode, since the lighting conditions haven't changed, you're good to go without any further adjustments.You only need to make exposure adjustments when the lighting itself changes.

 

So you're actually having to do more "fiddling" when shooting in automatic modes.

I convert my RAW images to DNG (Adobe has a free converter available, or you can accomplish this in Lightroom), which uses about 25% less hard drive space, and save those along with the finished JPGs to an external drive (which will archive longer then DVDs).

She's refusing to deal with you. Any bride on the verge of her wedding day, as this one is, is certainly

communicating with her vendors in a somewhat timely fashion, typically in a favorable mood! You haven't been paid

you said, and so she's not invested in you, and it looks like she's moved on.

 

You obviously can't refund something that was given as a comp (that's why coupons for freebies say things in

small print such as "no redeemable value"), you did offer alternative options, and she's refused to accept them

or even counter-offer. She just goes ahead and pulls surprises. Then she disappears. Not really the mature way to

conduct business.

 

So you must move on as well. Send her a registered, return receipt letter documenting succinctly (without

lecturing! "Just the facts, ma'am!") that you did

offer options

although the session was complimentary, and the payment due date for the contract has come and gone without

receipt of payment, and despite your repeated attempts to contact her, she hasn't communicated with you, so you

have no choice but to see this as her breach of contract and therefore will not be performing your part at the

wedding.

 

In this way, you let her know that she's the one unlawfully terminating the contract, not you, and you're also

protecting yourself from the possibility that she turns around after the event and alleges that she expected you

to show and then sues you for alleged damages. You've also documented everything step by step in this letter in

the event you need to offer it as proof. I'm not an attorney, and this isn't legal advice. It's just that

you have a bad situation at hand and you want to protect yourself from it getting possibly worse.

 

Sorry you're going through this, but that's what makes life so interesting. There's all types of people out

there, and sometimes, they get married.

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"cutting off the fingers" is from a non-artist or amateur's mind set, same as it is for thinking that subjects

must always be centered, facing the camera and smiling and everything in the picture should be in focus.

 

But if you turn off the sound on your TV to concentrate on just looking at the images in the commercials, and

watching cinematography with that same eye, and the advertisements in magazines, you'll note that photographers

"cut off" heads and other various body parts, as well as compose off-centered images and other such stuff that

non-photographers would typically object to, even though their aim is to appeal to those very same people, and,

in many cases, the people signing their paychecks may be among them. Just like us.

 

But those are major reasons why our work looks different than an amateur's. We shoot with a different mind set

then they do. If that mind set conformed to or was the same as how they shoot, then your work would look just

like Uncle Joe's.

 

Speaking of mind set, it's not that you're "cutting off" anything, it's that you are FRAMING and COMPOSING (in

addition to using blur to create selective focus). What would it have been about the fingertips themselves that

would've added to the story? Nothing. In fact, rather than end up staring at her nails, our eyes now go to the

ring, which is central to the story being told.

 

What's also important is that you're taking your photography there by experimenting and pushing beyond what

you've been cultivated to believe are the limits of acceptability, which is why you're questioning that. The

question should be, "Why not?"

 

Recall the first era of movie making, when the camera was stationary and centered, and the production was filmed

as if viewing a stage play as a long shot straight on from the first row. Then along comes D.W. Griffith, the

director, who initiated using medium close-ups (he cut off their bodies! Gasp! What will the audiences think?),

close-ups (he cut off their necks! He's beheading people!), and over the shoulder shots - all still being used by

everyone since.

 

One of the most classic lines in film epitomizes how favorable Mr. Griffith's "cutting off" at the neck became:

"I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille."

 

Of course some will object. Do it anyway, you'll never grow otherwise. People will keep you in a box. Don't let

them. People are like the last crab in the bucket who will pull you back down so you can't get out. Look around

you, EVERYTHING you see around you, besides nature, is something that at one time did not exist and was only

someone's different, innovative thought.

 

In the image, you're also cutting off the groom's head and their faces are blurred... now would you change that

because a bride objects? Find brides who "get it", who desire your style instead of those who would keep you in

the same box with Uncle Joe.

I print a 6x9 image with or without a border around it, on an 8x10 sheet. Keeps the image composition intact and looks artistic.

>> I assured her I had a back up system in place and I keep them indefinitely. (I am curious to know how long others keep the negatives).>>

 

I'd rather not be the crypt keeper forever and ever, as I have nightmares about some day being 90 years old and living in a house overrun with negatives or DVDs littered all over the place. And cats. So I'd rather have my clients keep their own files. And cats.

 

>> Can anyone give me an idea of what they charge if someone wants to buy the negatives? >>

 

I'd suggest you figure out what your average profit from reprint orders is, and charge something no less than that.

 

>> Her concern is what if I get sick and cannot do the wedding. ...but I don't think I am MORE at chance of getting sick than anyone else. >>

 

Get a photo buddy. But considering that there's both a bride and groom, as opposed to one photographer, the odds are twice as much that one of them could fall ill the day of the wedding rather than you. Have you asked her who'll take her place if she's sick that day? Ha, ha.

I think when people demand to see "even the bad ones", that is to say, that they are informed that the shots were blinks and bad facial expressions and otherwise rejects and still insist on having them, that those customers are looking to get every bit of bang for their money spent, whether it be good, bad or indifferent. It's a mind set, an attitude. It's not about the photography for them, it's about their expenditure and not feeling that they've been deprived of a single thing.

 

Other customers, when curious and questioning those missing photos, when informed that those are rejects, understand that like a live TV show, or movie, or published novel, or magazine spread, that there has been editing done because it's needed to be done and favorably, anxiously, anticipate the outcome.

 

I see the clues in your post that you were dealing with a money-centric customer: you throwing in digital enhancements, travel time and to boot, knocking the cost down. Was this all haggled by the customer? You're probably not out of the woods yet, I'd guess there may be some more to come from this type of customer.

You'll reap the advantage of it anyway, as there will be folks who type in .com instead of .net and get taken to your site instead of theirs.

 

Signed,

Gary Fong

(that's my new business name)

The problem IS your mom. She's the one that keeps directing the photographer back to what she (your mom) wants, and because the contract's with your mom, your photographer is up against the wall on this one when it comes to accommodating you.

 

It also sounds like your mom is NOT dealing openly with you on this at all, sorry to say: Your mom didn't even notify you when she received the mock-up for the album, you had to find out when you finally called the photographer about it. It's your mom who insisted you send back the photos you took out of what she wanted in the album. And I'll bet she's the one that first used the word "bizarre" to describe your choices and said so to the photographer and had the photographer sit down with her to accommodate her choices instead. So it's NO WONDER they're mostly photos of your mother and her family and friends, and hardly anything of you and your husband and friends. I feel so sorry for you, not so much because of the photos, but because of your mom acting this way!

 

Insofar as mouth hanging open while dancing (or "dance face"), the camera can only captures what happens, and that's what happened while you were dancing. The photographer cannot go up to you every moment while you're actively dancing about and living your wedding day and direct you to do this and that. You'll lose the moment first of all, and get real annoyed after a few times of that as well. Having said that, I do think the photographer should have a better skill at grabbing more photogenic moments, but that has to do part with what's there to photograph and part with the photographer's skill level, and skill levels are all over the board.

 

I know you trusted your mom on this but, to paraphrase an idiom, "one mom's ceiling is another bride's floor". Your mom's running this show.

 

What to do? Either work it out with mom (which doesn't sound likely) or spend the bucks to get what you want because mom's using up the contracted money SHE spent to get what SHE wants first before you're even being considered.

Jay, you're not a shyster. You're designing an "ultimate" album without any constraints and purely on a speculative basis. It's no different than presenting, say, 700 proofs, even though the customer may have contracted for 24, and requiring the customer to narrow down the 700 to those 24 pictures originally contracted for. You're giving them an option though for more, which is great! Plus, you're doing so on the album side rather than just the proofing, again, that's even more service! And if they like it, they have the option to purchase it. Are we in business not to try and generate revenue?

 

Gee, I go to a restaurant for a meal and they show me their desserts and ask me if I want something to drink in addition to the meal and I have those options. Nothing wrong with that.

There's a fair amount of self-promotion-hype in those articles profiling photographers. The writers don't really don't dig and research like a journalist would, they get their facts from the photographer and piece together the article.

 

I know more about some of these photographers, and so I see the spin they put on themselves in order to market their workshops and seminars. I won't mention their names. Read the articles with a grain a salt.

 

Another factor that comes into play is that of being "fooled by randomness", which is that the photographer may sincerely believe that certain factors are responsible for his success when it's actually due mostly to serendipity. I recall, for example, watching a Denis Reggie videotape where he was interviewed and explains that his success was due to the fact that he photographs without directing the bride and that the affluent client prefers that, and I'm thinking to myself, "and the fact that you're in demand by the higher crust because you're the only human being that ever shot the Kennedys without anyone getting killed has nothing to do with it?".

Steve, what's really happening is that you're being given little white lies from the brides-to-be. In all likelihood, they didn't run out and book someone else... yet. But they're fending you off because they're not interested and you keep emailing them every few days. It's like when you ask a girl out and if she's not interested in you, she tells you she just started seeing someone rather than tell you "No - not interested!". Same tactic.

 

When you send them all the details as per their request, you satiate their immediate need and curiosity and there's no need for them to find out more about you. Oh, you think they should know all the nuances and behind the scenes of what makes your work special (and maybe they should!), but they're not interested in that. So, as some others have pointed out, what you need to do is to not give out the detailed information straightaway and instead ask for the appointment wherein all that information will be divulged.

 

Now, if all they're doing is recon work to just get prices, then it won't go any further because needing to sit down with you and will be anything they wish to get involved in. But if they truly are interested, then they'll want that appointment because they'll desire to find out more, because they need to know more. And that's how you separate the wheat from the chaff.

"G.E. - The church owns the building and they can restrict you from doing whatever they want. "

 

I understand that reasoning, I just don't agree that it's appropriate for the church to do so. If I own a building and then enter into agreements with couples whereby they use my building for their event, can you imagine what would happen if I had policies whereby I told their vendors that they were not permitted to perform parts of their job? In court, the Judge would say, "But you know that they're going to bring in photographers to take pictures of what happens there concerning their wedding, so WHY are you getting into that business if you don't want their photographers taking pictures in your place?"

 

Or how about this... say I'm the caterer and own a catering hall and it's been arranged that the priest is to come up to the mic to say a blessing and I tell him that he can't. Or that the priest is to perform the ceremony on the catering premises but I tell him he can't perform parts of it, or has to stand far away from the couple, or can't use his bible, or whatever... How would that fly?

In the course of business, expenses go up both in labor and material. There's an expectation that the photographer will complete the contract and make the profit he expected to make at the contracted price. However, the final order being placed late is out of the photographer's control and subjects the photographer to then produce the items at an increased cost and now make less profit. Who wants to do that? So there's typically that late clause in many contracts to keep you on time, hopefully.

 

But is it a reasonable difference in price or does it approach usury? We have to ask: How late is late? Were you late by days... or years? A 33% increase is quite a jump! I'll bet you can work out something better.

"The organ player must have had some really bad experience to react like that"

 

Let's not rationalize away poor behavior. I'd say that the organ player isn't mature enough and doesn't know how to handle himself. If he (or anyone) knee jerks reacts to situations they don't like, well, life has plenty of situations one may not appreciate, so what are you going to do? Knee jerk react like an immature little angry kid every time something doesn't go your way?

 

"What I find funny is one priest will lecture me on how the chapel isn't a photo studio, the wedding isn't about the photography"

 

"The chapel isn't a photo studio" is such a bogus argument. Tell that to St. Peter's when they have television cameras televising Christmas Mass.

 

The real premise is, and what the priest refuses to address, is that he's a vendor just like we are. They get money for what they do, just like we do. And it's the bridal couple that engages them, just like it's the bridal couple that engages us to be there as well. The bridal couple has engaged the venue, so, they should work together with us, not against us. They should extend professional courtesy, not "lord it over" us.

 

They are the host venue by bequest of the bridal couple and that means, legally, have accepted consideration for such and knowingly have put themselves into a position where the bridal couple will likely be bringing in other vendors that will be performing their contracts there, and they therefore have accepted that circumstance and its obligation. Can you imagine a caterer saying "The photographer's not allowed to take pictures on my premises!"

 

Furthermore, a church service is not needed at all to get wed in the U.S., it's optional, as a wedding is really a civil contract licensed by the government, without which you CAN'T have a church wedding because it wouldn't be legal, which in turn is exactly why all clergy-people need to obtain a license by the government in order to officiate a wedding. That's why they always end with saying "And now, by the POWERS VESTED IN ME BY THE STATE OF..."

 

Now, since the gov't is the authority and not the church, that's further reason why we're all equals and together in this, being legally contracted under the same set of applicable laws and with reasonable knowledge and expectation that there will be others who need to get their jobs done at the same time, and therefore all of us have equal rights to perform our functions without undue obstacle from the other. Otherwise, they're engaging in hampering our specific civil liberties and right to work by targeting us with any of their "rules" that do violate our civil rights (such as "you can only do this" or "you can't take any pictures during the ceremony" while the guests are free to do whatever).