Down by the park in Lees Summit

A couple of weeks ago, we met Kara and James in a small park in Lee's Summit, Missouri, to take some engagement pictures. What a lovely young couple, so full of energy, ideas, dreams. We were hoping to be able to use the Volley Ball court, since Kara is really a great Volley Ball player, but of course, it was already in use. We're hoping to come back some time soon and do some action pictures. In the mean time, it's amazing what you can get with such a lovely couple.

Wedding photography? easy!

I just got done with one of the most challenging weddings I've done in years. That got me thinking, about how people, both customers and photographers, who want to start shooting weddings, don't usually have a clue what is involved in doing a decent job at shooting weddings. For one, most people think it is about having a camera. It's not. Nowadays cameras are fancy, so people think they just point, shoot and voilá. Great pictures!


Um, no.
Just to give a better idea, I'll describe the process I followed for this specific wedding. Granted, each wedding requires a different approach, based on the place, the time of day, the weather, the couple's taste, the particular idea you have for their wedding, the venue, etc.

This was a summer wedding, indoors. It was at a venue I love: Town Pavilion in Kansas City.
It's a gorgeous place. Since I've been there, I knew it was huge, dark and has four story ceilings. Gray ceilings.

The bride wanted to take some images outside. The forecast was 98 degrees and sunny. The time for the outside pictures, around 2pm.

So, the day before the wedding, I spent the whole day recharging about 50 AA batteries, camera batteries, the quantum battery and the Vagabond for the monoblock flash I intended to use for the outside pictures to kill the sun and have decent images. Also, to light the rotunda at Town Pavilion.

While going back and forth checking batteries, I was modifying the set up I use to transport gear.
So I was building a mobile cart with a light stand, to easily and quickly move the whole battery package, stand, umbrella, and many pounds of gear without having to do and undo every time we moved to a different location. (we shot at a total of nine locations)
I also made sure I had maps from every location, driving directions, made sure my assistant was ready to go, formatted memory cards, cleaned lenses, camera sensors, tested all flashes, remotes and wires.
It took me about eight hours to do all this. This wasn't the first time I had to do with this wedding. Previously, I did three engagement sessions for the couple. One last winter at the skating rink where I was taking pictures inside the rink trying not to get killed by the people who actually had skates on them! Then two sessions at the Overland Park Arboretum, another gorgeous venue we love.

Then, when gear was done, I mounted and matted the couple's signature image, a favorite one of our brides, which they display on an easel at the reception for their guests to sign.

Anyway, that was my Friday. Went to bed around 1:30 am, just thinking I had everything ready, car was in good shape and trunk with the gear packed.

Saturday came way too soon. Shelby, my assistant, came up at 8:40am, we went over the day and the plan, got a quick snack and got there right on time.
Weddings are fast stressful events. You got to hit them running. Started taking pictures right away, while setting equipment up. So we got the"getting ready" pictures started, got a good spot to hang the wedding gown up and took some more, then while Shelby kept taking candid shots, I went back for the rest of the gear, and then took off to take pictures at the groom's house, while he was getting ready.

Guys pictures are usually fast. They don't care about posing a lot, nor having lots of pictures. It's mostly about the bride. So once done, went back to Town Pavilion, right in time to get the images of her slipping into her dress, and take some amazing and emotional pictures. After that, it was time for the groom to see his bride for the first time, barely had time to set up my lights, and took some images there. Then went to the roof top for some amazing images with the city buildings, bridges and the river as the background. It was already very hot, and setting up gear was difficult. It was really windy on floor 37, so we tried to move fast.

Then off to the trolley. Trolley was packed and we went to three different locations( Union Station, The Westin and Kauffman Gardens) where we had to go out first, set up lights, do all bridal party and couple pictures, pose people, make them smile under their tuxes at almost a hundred degrees, pack up and move to the next location.
After all that was done, go back, get the rest of the gear and head up to the church to set up lighting for the formals. This picture was taken at the Westin Crown Center Hotel, where they nicely allowed us to use their waterfall for pictures.

We've been at it for already seven hours, and the most important part hasn't even started. We haven't eaten, have not even sat down. We get to the church to find out that we're behind schedule, so everybody is stressed out and have to do formals in about 40 minutes with a huge bridal party and a huge family on both sides. Once we managed that, had to pack up gear, because the church didn't allow flash, so we had to shoot all natural light. It's a good thing we have fast lenses and good cameras at high ISO's. After mass, the bride wanted some portraits by the stained glass, so we set up again at the church and took some portraits. Went on fast to get to the reception before them, and yes, set up lights again.

Now, Town Pavilion is HUGE! So we had to set lights on the third floor, second floor, and dance floor level, make sure nobody tripped on them, and move between hundreds of guests in a very packed area. A note to myself: I need to grab a different kind of bag for this scenario, my backpack is just too bulky.

We did the reception pictures, toast, first dance, dollar dance, bouquet tossing, garter tossing, candids, rings close up, a bunch of special picture requests for people we didn't even know, got in the dance floor to get in the middle of the action. I got to eat something at 10pm, right before we left around 11pm.
For all these different scenarios, we needed a lot of gear, we needed to know how to use it, set it up FAST, have back ups, work as a team and very important, keep our cool when things got stressful. At the end everybody was happy.... and we were so exhausted!!!!

Now, I look forward to editing the images. With just 2599 images to go through, sort and edit, should take me another 10 hours. Then, time to design the wedding album.
But now, I'm taking an painkiller for my back and legs.

That's why I really believe most people don't get all the effort it takes to get those images. It's countless hours of preparation, planning, strategy and passion, just to get a final product: A beautiful wedding album that the couple will hopefully keep for many, many years and show proudly to their families for generations. It's history in the making and we're proud to help show it.

You can see more images of the wedding in my website. click here.

Why is wedding photography not cheap, anyways?

When I meet with potential customers, I always have many things in mind: Are they cool? are they going to have fun at their wedding? Is she going to be a Bridezilla? Do they know what a reasonable price for photography is?
I want to touch on the last one a bit more. It's something I don't totally get myself. I see adds, websites or people tell me about $500 wedding photography packages. Obviously, that's not my range. But I wanted to know how that works, because even though I tried and tried I didn't get it.
I mean, How can you invest 12-14 hours at the wedding, 2-3 at rehearsal or engagement session, 7-8 on post processing, hire an assistant, get the right gear, back ups, insurance, and pay $350 for a decent album while managing to charge $550 to the couple?

So I went to Craigs list and found an ad. $550 for the rehearsal, the wedding day and an album.
I emailed the photographer a week ago, but I haven't heard from her. (funny, isn't it?) Then I remembered my colleague charges pretty much the same. He goes, spends some 8 hours and at the end of the day, he gives the couple a DVD with unedited images.

That got me thinking,
I mean, takes years to get decent at your craft. it takes lots of money to get the gear. Sure, you can get a DSLR for $400 nowadays. but I'm talking Pro gear. Lenses, strobes, stands, remotes, tripods, bags, back up for all of them, a good computer, several back up hard drives, calibrating software for monitors, website, domain, advertising, insurance, photography association fees, education, books, magazines... the list just goes on and on.

So how does a photographer manage to have such low prices?
Well, I've seen a mixture of factors.

Time: as my friend told me "I burn a DVD on my laptop and I'm done" he also refuses to meet with the couple before or after. just adds overhead.He also saves all the post processing time.

Gear: Keep it low price. Entry level gear, and just the bare minimum. I even know people who advertise themselves as professionals who borrow cameras for their shoots.

Overhead: If you shoot from home, you save money on studio rent. If you have no insurance, you save. If you shoot solo, you save on assistant salary. If you do it part time, you don't have to pay your health insurance out of photography. If you don't buy insurance for your business, you save that too, just pray nobody trips on your light-stand or your camera falls. If you don't advertise on the Knot or Perfect Wedding Guide, you save $700 a year.

Album: if you burn a DVD, you save anywhere from $100 to $500 on the album alone, plus the post processing time.

Post Processing time: If you just adjust contrast and coloron your 1000+ images, you are done in a couple hours. If you add filters, layers, crop, clone, dodge, burn, blend, correct, and do the whole nine yards, well, you're stuck in front of the computer for many many hours.

Experience: If your photographer has no experience, but a lot of passion to get into the wedding photography, because popular word is that that's where the big bucks are, chances are He or She will loose money, shoot your wedding for 10 hours, then spend another 10 on post processing and even give you an album, for $500. Just to get decent images for his/ her portfolio, so next time he/she can charge what should've to begin with.

To me, is a matter of what are customers willing to give up.

As in everything,
you get what you pay for. Is the couple giving up experience? or assurance? or back up, or post process? or all?

I just can't do it myself. I even tried for some time the shoot and burn approach. Thank god nobody ever even showed interest.

Something great can be around the corner

Last nigh, I was at the west bottoms with some other fellow photographers, on a meet up shoot.
It's so interesting to work with other guys interested in the same thing, and see how we all have a different take on the subjects, the light, the surroundings. Even how we work and the way we interact with models and customers.
So one of my colleagues had chosen this place, (picture above), with a nice long old wall, and had a bride lined up for pictures. I took a couple pictures at the same place while he changed his set up, but I wasn't feeling it. I went my ways, just being nosy and walking around, next thing I know was I was at this magical place, sort of abandoned garden of doom, with broken things, high grass and bushes, even a tree growing out of a wall. I knew this was the place I wanted to shoot at, just like that, around the corner of the other photographer's place of choice. This just makes sense, though: My colleague is into more classic-looking images, with soft hugging light and a nice safe feeling. Me? well, I'm just all about crazy concepts, nonsense, chaos, juxtaposition of contraries, drama. This is MY setting:


Now, I went to see what other photographers were doing, AKA crash their photoparty. So they had this model in front of this cool looking garage door. They even let me do some pictures with their setting. Again, although the pictures turned out nice (see below) I usually have a different approach. So, this time I didn't move the lights, didn't change the place, didn't do anything else but ask the model to sit down. That's it. why? I wanted a different feeling altogether, but the place was good for my idea, just needed some reinterpretation. So I came up with the bride sitting down between the weeds. For some reason, I love that picture.

Now, I want to recognize something a don't see often: Sydney, who didn't know me or the other guys for that matter, who was so gracious to work tirelessly with us, in such a place as the bottoms, at 10:20 at night, and putting up with all our crazy ideas, with the cutest smile in her face. all the time. Sydney rocks! This is Sydney:

Price of art

So, I went to this group's practice. Brazilian Capoeira. They're so amazing! Besides the whole concept, a martial art disguised as a social event cuasi-dance, the elegance of the moves, the interaction of the players, the respect and feeling they display while playing is amazing. It's hard to take pictures at an event like this. first of all, these guys move....fast and a lot. secondly, many times the background is not the best, so you have to get creative.

I chose lower angles for two reasons: would leave the trees as background, cutting out bystanders and buildings to a minimum. secondly, because it gives a sense of greatness to the players, which is what I wanted to convey.
The problem I didn't count on, was power. I set my lights, get readings and then started shooting. I had a quantum battery pack, plugged to my sb-800 flash, so I was good to go. and I went. actually, I learned why the newer brother of the sb-800 has a thermal cut off. to avoid overheating.

this is how my flash looked before I ended my shoot:
This is after I noticed some burnt plastic smell but disregarded it as maybe somethin unimportant:
My trustworthy flash wouldn't stop firing. even when it melted.
So, next time, gotta either use two flashes at half of the power, or use the bnigger strobes, such as the Alien Bees 1600, to keep the little guys from working too hard.

just saying.