Something to keep in mind when hiring a Photographer

A friend of mine and fellow photographer, Annemarie Mountz, sent me over a link, this morning, to a very interesting article that deals with how all photographs are manipulated in one way or another.  The reason I'm posting this link is because the article is not only very informative, but it gets to the core of a topic that I've wanted to write about for awhile now.

As with all art forms, you generally have three levels of involvement.  You have your "enthusiast" who has an appreciation and love for the medium, and even dabbles in it for fun, or as a hobby.  You have your "amateur" who takes it a step further by becoming more involved in the inner workings of the medium, buying better "tools of the trade" as it were, reading up on how to be more proficient in their craft, and even going to the point of entering competitions or showcasing/selling their work to friends/family.  The final level is that of "professional".  Simple put, they do it for money.  They've invested huge sums of their time and financial resources to fully learn their craft.  They have the better equipment, knowledge and experience, and they live and breathe their medium, 24/7...it's what they do.

But I want you to think about those three levels in a different way when it comes to photography.  This analogy will work for other art forms as well, but since this is a blog about photography, we'll stick to that. :)

Think of those three levels in terms of 1) create, 2) capture, and 3) finish.  It's really as simple as that.

The enthusiast does one of those three things.  If you said "capture", you get a gold star.  They pick up their camera and just take the picture, without any thought about creating the image or finishing it.  If you look on Facebook, about 90% of the images you'll see there (outside of professional pages) are those classic enthusiast pictures...you know what I'm talking about.

The amateur does two of those three things.  Sometimes it's create and capture, and sometimes it's capture an finish.   It's a step up from the enthusiast, and you can often tell the difference when you look at this kind of image because it looks like there's been some kind of thought to the picture...that's the "create" part coming into play.  Perhaps it's an image that's been converted to black and white...that would be the "finish" part.

A professional does all three steps, to one degree or another.  They create, capture, and finish their images, to give the greatest possible visual impact of the scene before them.  The linked article goes into this in much greater depth, and I encourage you to read that article when you have the time.

The reason I bring all of this up is because the lines have been blurred quite a bit in the last few years as to what professional photography is anymore.  Because of the advent of digital photography, social media, and the many photo sharing web sites, there are a lot more of the enthusiast type images bombarding us every day.  I have to laugh because it used to be that years ago we'd all dread having to sit through some family member showing us pictures from their latest vacation or outing, yet how many of us look forward to doing just that on a daily basis by looking at all of the pictures that all of our friends post on their Facebook walls?  The flip side of this is the watering down of quality that people expect when they view photographs.  If all you see 90% of the time are those kind of pictures, it's what becomes to be expected, in many cases.

One of the latest trends in photography are enthusiasts and amateurs trying to enter the ranks of professionals, especially on the wedding side of our business, but even more so in other facets of portrait photography.  Some will show up to your event, and just burn you a disc of raw images and hand them to you at the end of the night, without any finishing to them at all.  The finishing part of the photography trinity is the part that they, sadly (or maybe happily?) leave out.  In this fast paced and sound bite world that we live in, it's no wonder that the finishing process is often the most neglected.  It takes time to finish an image...it takes a LOT of time, actually.  A typical 10hour wedding day may take as much as 30-40 hours of total finishing time, from editing, cropping, color correcting, creating an album, and all the other finishing touches.  Trust me, I would love to be able to photograph a session and be done with it in the same day, collect the paycheck, and then move on to the next gig...but that's not what a true professional photographer does.

How would you feel if you went to the store to buy the latest music CD from your favorite band, only to find out that what you purchased are their first demos?  Or what if you bought a home and you found out that it only had the rough electrical and plumbing installed?  Or if you bought a car, but when you went to pick it up all you had was the frame and four wheels?  You'd be mad and upset and you'd probably feel cheated.  Professional musicians, or home builders or car manufacturers would never do that...so the question is, then, why would you do the same with your memories?  Why would you pay someone to only do 2/3rds of the work?  Think about it.

To illustrate the point, here's an image that I took this past weekend.  The first image is right out of the camera.  The second image is what I saw before I snapped the shutter, and what I wanted the finished image to look like. Now go read that article, and it'll all make more sense to you! :)

http://www.creativepro.com/article/all-photos-are-manipulated

Why Does Good Wedding Photography Cost What It Does?

Here is a great article that I've been trying to write on my own for about 10yrs now...but it's so well written, and so to the point and accurate that I couldn't improve upon what was said, so I'll just link to the article.

When I first started out, back in the early 1990's, I felt exactly the same way as the couple that wrote this piece....but I soon found out that being an artist and being a businessman were two totally opposite ends of the spectrum.  The artist in me wants to be able to photograph everyone I possibly can, at whatever rate they can afford to pay me.  The businessman I need to be tells me that I can't stay in business doing that...so there's a constant struggle between the two, even until this day.  One thing that I have learned (the hard way, of course) is that if I'm not a good enough businessman to generate enough income to keep my business afloat, then NO one benefits from my abilities.

I can't begin to tell you how many calls and emails I get from prospective clients that rave about the pictures I have on my web page, or that have been referred to me by a good friend or another vendor....but when they hear how much of an investment they'll have to make for my services, they have to look elsewhere.  The reason for that, many times, isn't that the clients didn't have the funds initially, it's just that they didn't realize the costs ahead of time and didn't set aside an amount to cover services like mine when they were making their budgets.  I've heard repeatedly from many clients something to the effect of "I thought wedding photography should only cost "X" amount..." There is a lot of misinformation out there as to the true costing involved when someone takes up this vocation professionally, and this article is a great resource to consider if you're looking to hire a professional photographer for your next event....enjoy!!

 Why Does Good Wedding Photography Cost What It Does?

Why Hire a Professional Photographer?

We might as well cover this one right off the bat!

It's a very valid question to ask.  Photographs are still very much a part of our lives and they continue to be one of the most thought provoking, artistic, and evocative means of communication we have today.  Photographs are used daily in all forms of news media and in print advertisements to drive messages home to a waiting and eager consumer base.  So that's all fine and dandy on the news and commercial side of things...but what about portrait photography?

So we ask the question again: Why hire a professional photographer?  Pretty much anyone can pick up a camera and take a picture, right?  With the digital cameras that are out there these days and the current crop of smart phones that have some pretty sweet built-in cameras, why would you pay all that money to hire someone to do a job that, basically, anyone can do now? 

Before we answer that, consider the following.  Current statistics have shown that nearly 50% of all couples will not hire a professional to photograph their wedding.  Of the remaining 50%, 20-30% of those couples will ask a family member or friend to photograph their day.  In layman's terms, that breaks down to about 6-7 couples out of 10 will not hire a professional to cover their wedding.

And it doesn't get better on the family portrait front.  The current statistical average is 1.2 portraits per family that will be taken by a professional.  That's one formal portrait per family, for the entire lifespan of that family, with one out of every five families getting a second formal portrait taken.  Children get the better part of the photography bargain.  Most children will have 2-3 portraits taken in a formal setting, but that's usually only within the first two years.  Granted, that's not counting those wonderful school pictures we all love and adore, where they whisked us all into a big room, and the photographer gave us a whopping 7.4 seconds in front of a camera, and before we could blink twice we were then stuck with an image that really was nothing more than a glorified mug shot, for many of us.

We also live in the age of the smart phone, where everyone is carrying a camera (er, phone) around with them..  I would venture to say that there are more pictures taken daily, at any high school you go to, than were taken by the entire yearbook staff of that same school, years ago.  Photography is that much in the fabric of our lives..  If you don't believe me, look at your average teenagers profile on Facebook, and see how many hundreds, if not thousands of images they have of themselves in their galleries, all before they turn the ripe old age of 16.

Photography is, literally, everywhere...but let's get back to our original question...why hire a professional?

Truth be told, there are many valid reasons to hire a professional.  We'll save and tackle many of those for future articles, and give them more justice than just a brief mention here.  But there are a couple of main reasons that we'll discuss next that I'd like for you to consider.

The first of which is quality.  One of the drawbacks of everyone having access to a camera and taking pictures is the acceptance of mediocre or poor (at best) quality as the norm.  Take a look at those pictures your teenager is posting on Facebook, and tell me if you don't think quality has taken a hit in recent years. Just because everyone has a camera doesn't mean that everyone is a photographer, anymore than just because we have pots and pans in our house makes all of us world class chefs.  Having access to the medium, and excelling at it are two very different things.  And by quality I mean a couple of things.  First, pros have better gear, plain and simple.  We've got better cameras, better lenses, better lighting, and most importantly, we know how to use all of them in conjunction with the other, because of the experience we carry with us.  Quality is also about the final product...the framing of the picture, the subject matter, the emotions it draws out, the lighting and mood...all of those things go into and are considered, in an instant, by a true professional.  We are, very much so, story tellers, and that story will be told through the various pictures of your event, much like the pages and chapters in a book.  Oh, did I also mention the work that goes on after the event, to "finish" the photograph.  We'll leave that for a future article...so let's move on to a second point.

Photography is more about the "when" and "how" than the "what".  Anyone can pick up a camera and photograph the "what" of a scene.  You've heard the expression that a person who's good at photography is said to have an "eye" for it?  Actually, what's meant by that is simply that they know the "whens" and "hows" of a moment.  Moments happen in a fraction of a second, and a professional will not only know "when" those instances occur, but they'll know exactly "how" to photograph that moment.  They'll know whether or not to take a high or low angle, whether or not to use natural or artificial light (or a blending of the two), they'll know whether or not to let things happen, or to step in and guide things along...and most importantly...they'll know exactly "when" to press the shutter.  I can't begin to tell you how many times I've been photographing key elements of a session, and there will be others with their cameras near me (the smart ones know to stand close to me, because us pros do know the "how" of taking a picture)  The moment happens, I get my picture, and I turn to look at the others that still have cameras at the ready and have taken a picture long after the moment has past, in the hope, I guess, that their cameras have the magical ability to go back in time a few seconds to when the moment actually happened.  Usually that's followed by some colorful metaphors or "I missed it" from the crowd.

A third thing to consider is the personality and training of the photographer.  Being comfortable in front of the camera is essential to a subject's true self coming out, and a professional photographer will have the ability to put people at ease, and draw out the true inner person.  I have a lot of people that come to my studio that will tell me (usually it's the parents that tell me this) that they, or their child, are not photogenic at all, or that they hate getting their picture taken, and they really hate how they look in photographs.  Usually I'll say something smart, in a joking way of course, along the lines of "well, you haven't been photographed by me before."  But that is a very true and important statement.  And I do get it, by the way.  Many clients don't want to spend good money on something that they feel might just be a more expensive picture of them not smiling or looking good.  I mean, if you can look bad for free, why pay someone to make you look bad, right?  I get that, and totally understand where that line of thinking comes from. Those people, however, have never been in front of my lens before (or as one of my clients said, they've never been through the Meadow Lane experience..which I think is a compliment...) and many of those same people, after seeing their pictures will say something along the lines of  "I can't believe you got him/her to smile" or "I can't believe you were able to capture the essence of my son/daughter."  It's because we're professionals...it's what we do, many times, instinctively.

So why hire a professional photographer?  Because we can provide you with the absolute best photographs of your special day or event.  We have the tools, equipment, experience and personality to draw out the best of all of our subjects, time and time again.  In reality, it's only your memories that are unfolding in front of your eyes.  Don't you think those memories and moments deserve to be captured and kept forever, in the best possible way?

An Introduction is in Order

Welcome to my Informational Blog!

I sincerely hope that this site proves to be invaluable to you in answering any and all questions that you have regarding photography, and that it quickly becomes your "go-to" source for trusted and reliable information!

After nearly 20yrs and nearly 300 weddings under my belt, there's not much I haven't seen.  That would apply to other types of portraiture as well.  So although this blog will lean more towards the wedding side of my business, the basic principles and tenets will apply to all types of photography.

So why an informational blog?  That's easy!  Even in this "information age" I'm still astounded at how many couples have absolutely no idea what really happens on a wedding day...either out front or behind the scenes.  I mean, I'm really astounded.  All of the bridal planners, online resources, magazines and books out there do a great job of getting couples to their rehearsal (and even that is suspect), but then they leave them hanging off a cliff when it comes to the actual wedding day.  Even couples that have hired a wedding planner seem to have moments of "what do we do now?" throughout the day.

So one of my goals of this page is education, plain and simple.  You'll see things from the "other side of the fence" as it were, and from someone who's been there and done that.  I promise to always shoot straight...but please realize that that may sting you a bit, at times.  I don't like to pull punches, but at the same time, I'll treat everything with kid gloves.  Some of the topics might raise some feathers....but that's what's going to make it fun.  Remember, most of you are getting married for the first time.  I've been married nearly 300 times...so unless Elizabeth Taylor is reading this, I've got all of you on experience, many many times over.

In answer to a question you may be asking yourself..."Is a photographer the best person to be giving this information?"  your answer, simply, is: YES!  Think for moment about the vendor that will, no doubt, be with you the entire wedding day.  One that probably knows and has worked with all the other vendors that you've hired for your day, from your salon all the way up to the front desk clerk or the kitchen staff at your reception site.  If you said "my photographer" you get a gold star.  If you said "my videographer" you'd get a silver star, because they are around a lot as well...but this is a photography blog, so we'll just pretend that videographers don't exist or matter (photographers and videographers have a wonderful love/hate relationship)

So, getting back to the business at hand...your photographer has insights and information about all aspects of the wedding day...things that many have never seen or heard of before.  Your photographer knows exactly how long things really take, and not just estimated times or guesses.  They know of pitfalls and warnings to any scenario you can throw at them...and the best ones will be able to work with you to create solutions when things come up (and they will, trust me) and to make sure that you get the absolute best images of your event regardless of the circumstances that present themselves.  We're experts in making lemonade from lemons!

So sit back and enjoy the ride!  In case you haven't noticed this yet, I write like I speak...so it may get wordy at times...and there will be a lot of fun and silliness mixed in to keep things interesting, and probably some stories thrown in for fun.  And I may or may not use a few sports analogies along the way...but I'll try to keep those to a minimum...promise!

So are you ready to get started?  Are you sure?  Ok, then...Let's go!!

Our next article is is "Why Hire a Professional Photographer" and you can click here to go there now.

Drew Frank, Owner
Meadow Lane Photography