First Wedding

[dandaluzphotography]

Hi Guys,

A good friend of my family has asked me to take pictures at her cousin's wedding (I don't know her). They understand my level of experience but would like to give me the opportunity to gain the experience. They weren't going to have a photographer there anyway as it's a small event so they figured why not.

As far as the event itself, it's a wedding ceremony at city hall, then pictures in a park and then the reception. My plan is to take pictures with an on camera speedlite during the wedding, use my monolights on location in the park and then roam around the reception with the on camera flash for candid shots as well as use my monolights set up for more formal shots with the couple and their friends and family.

Anything wrong with the preceding?

Ok. So now my next question is about the finished product. I plan is to sit down with them and show them the pictures on my macbook and then they can pick the ones they like for me to work on. I plan to give them a CD with the finished pictures and a second CD with the original RAW files. They can print the finished pictures themselves or they can have me print them for them and I would just pass the cost on to them.

I'm sure there are some caveats I'm not aware of, so I figured I would post this here. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also, I'm charging the couple $500.00 for the day, plus whatever prints they want.

Thanks Guys!

Danny

 

[Robin Usagani]

My suggestion is.. just give them all the high resolution files man. Or just increase the price by how ever much profit you expect from printing. As far as editing, YOU are the artist. The worst you can do is ask them which to edit. That is very amateurish and also will cause you problems. Dont show them the bad ones. Dont use photos that are too similar. Just pick best of the best. Those are the ones you want to show your client. All these photos should be color corrected. Then go trough it again and pick the close up photos to do skin smoothing and cloning as needed. You are the artist, you decide which ones should be black and white. Dont bother giving them the color one as well unless they ask for it.

 

[tirediron]

Okay, here's my $00.02 worth (actually, I think it's closer to $00.02 1/2 with the new exchange rate): Once you've shot the wedding, go through and get rid of all the junk; there's going to be lots which are soft, incorrectly exposed, someone's eyes are closed, etc. Those are seen but no one by you and only for a short time.

Go through the remaining ones and look at them as groups (typically, you will shoot several exposures of the same scene) and pick the best one of each. If you come to a case where you can't decide, or feel that although very similar, there are two or three with potential, than keep them together. Once you've got all of the images processed this far, you'll hopefully be down to <100 images. Do a quick and dirty with Lightroom/CS X/or whatever your program of choice is to crop, straigthen, ballpark WB and exposure, and then create a gallery (jalbum is a nice freeware application and works well for this) and go through that with the clients. Since you're charging a fixed price, set a ceiling on the number of images you will fully process and tell them what that is before they start, so that they can make their final decision with that number in mind. Don't forget to ask them what print size(s) they want them done in.

Process, save as highest-possible resolution .jpgs, burn to disc, and there you have it.

I would NEVER give a client RAW files. That's like giving away your negatives. I also disagree with Schwetty, at least to an extent. I don't think that presenting a 'final choice' gallery makes you look in any way amateur. I certainly wouldn't just show them the contents of the memory cards either.

Good luck!

 

[dandaluzphotography]

My suggestion is.. just give them all the high resolution files man. Or just increase the price by how ever much profit you expect from printing. As far as editing, YOU are the artist. The worst you can do is ask them which to edit. That is very amateurish and also will cause you problems. Dont show them the bad ones. Dont use photos that are too similar. Just pick best of the best. Those are the ones you want to show your client. All these photos should be color corrected. Then go trough it again and pick the close up photos to do skin smoothing and cloning as needed. You are the artist, you decide which ones should be black and white. Dont bother giving them the color one as well unless they ask for it.

Thanks for the insight. I think this makes perfect sense.

Danny

 

[dandaluzphotography]

Okay, here's my $00.02 worth (actually, I think it's closer to $00.02 1/2 with the new exchange rate): Once you've shot the wedding, go through and get rid of all the junk; there's going to be lots which are soft, incorrectly exposed, someone's eyes are closed, etc. Those are seen but no one by you and only for a short time.

Go through the remaining ones and look at them as groups (typically, you will shoot several exposures of the same scene) and pick the best one of each. If you come to a case where you can't decide, or feel that although very similar, there are two or three with potential, than keep them together. Once you've got all of the images processed this far, you'll hopefully be down to <100 images. Do a quick and dirty with Lightroom/CS X/or whatever your program of choice is to crop, straigthen, ballpark WB and exposure, and then create a gallery (jalbum is a nice freeware application and works well for this) and go through that with the clients. Since you're charging a fixed price, set a ceiling on the number of images you will fully process and tell them what that is before they start, so that they can make their final decision with that number in mind. Don't forget to ask them what print size(s) they want them done in.

Process, save as highest-possible resolution .jpgs, burn to disc, and there you have it.

I would NEVER give a client RAW files. That's like giving away your negatives. I also disagree with Schwetty, at least to an extent. I don't think that presenting a 'final choice' gallery makes you look in any way amateur. I certainly wouldn't just show them the contents of the memory cards either.

Good luck!

Thanks for the advice. That's great input about setting a ceiling on the amount of pictures they will receive. I never even thought of that. That's why I post here!

One thing I don't really understand is why you don't give a wedding client RAW files. It's pictures of them that most likely won't be resold or anything similar. Can you expand on this?

Thanks,
Danny

 

[tirediron]

...One thing I don't really understand is why you don't give a wedding client RAW files. It's pictures of them that most likely won't be resold or anything similar. Can you expand on this?

Because if you give clients RAW files, they're very likely to have a go at editing them on their own and to make a botch of it, or, at the very least do a rather sub-standard job. When someone comes over and looks at their wedding pictures and asks, "Who took those?" They will give your name. The fact that the clients have edited them will probably not come up. If you give them edited, and cropped-for-print .jpg files, they're much less likely to mess about with them.

 

[dandaluzphotography]

...One thing I don't really understand is why you don't give a wedding client RAW files. It's pictures of them that most likely won't be resold or anything similar. Can you expand on this?

Because if you give clients RAW files, they're very likely to have a go at editing them on their own and to make a botch of it, or, at the very least do a rather sub-standard job. When someone comes over and looks at their wedding pictures and asks, "Who took those?" They will give your name. The fact that the clients have edited them will probably not come up. If you give them edited, and cropped-for-print .jpg files, they're much less likely to mess about with them.

Ah I see. Thx again.

Danny

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