The posing trend.

When I shoot, either weddings, models, boudoir, kids or pretty much anything, I'm an advocate of capturing emotions.
You see, there's a trend to make people look perfect. Family members will stop a photographer to 'fix' the bride, to move the dress, to ask her to smile.
Truth is, the more people tell the bride or the groom what to do, the more confused they get.
They hired a photographer to make them look good, but their friends, family members or bystanders keep interrupting and giving them all sorts of advise. Most of it contradictory and confusing.
By the time we get to take a picture, the look in their faces is truly the look of confusion.
What happened with spontaneity?

Years ago, the trend was photojournalism. Although most people really didn't understand the concept 100%, there was a hunger for pictures that looked honest, non-posed, true to reality.

Hereby I ask:
What's of more value to people, A true emotion or a posed and daunted look?
I choose the first one.
Granted, a professional already thought of the basics of composition, light, technique and overall mood before he/she takes an image. But there's this element of intimacy that a couple has, that a true professional tries to bring out, instead of eliminating it with constant interruptions and posing. Some guidance is great. Telling people what to do every moment is not.

This is true even more with the flood of 'perfect' images that people pin in their pinterest walls, or gather through months of research.
People are so desperate to have those 'perfect' shots that they loose track of what matters the most:
Each couple is different. Their language and story is different. The photographer may not do the images you saw on pinterest. And... would you want to have the same images another 1500 photographers are doing on every wedding?
As photographers, we see the new trends and try to balance what couple's want with what we do.
The most amazing images I get from my weddings is when I have freedom to do what I feel like doing, just for that couple.

On the following image, the couple was getting ready for the 'official' image. They are not even looking at the camera.However, you can feel the emotion and excitement.

So here, some images that show true emotions, without been technically perfect. I value these more. And all were taken on the flight, just casually between other images one the list.

Love the true love these guys have in their eyes :)

 Often times, all it takes is to have the perfect setting. The rest just happens.

Why photographers need exclusivity. The Cousin saga.

A couple weeks ago, I shot a destination wedding. The place was amazing. A castle by a lake!!
I had quite an interesting experience there.  It's always so uncomfortable to have to ask somebody to please stop shooting over your shoulder, or just to move out of the scene.
Have you heard those horror stories, where the most important image from the shoot is lost?
Well, that didn't happen, but quite close!
See what happens when a cousin believes he's a pro-photographer...
Let's see who can figure out who is our dear Primo!

 Groom is ready to take his place down the isle, nice arch, stone and...Primo!

 We have father of the bride, Groom, Pastor, Bride, somehow DJ was also there and then...Primo!

 Primo is busy checking his images.

 What a lovely scenery in the background.

 Flower girl and Ring bearer, plus photo- relative.

 Some nice jacket and elbow.

 Primo didn't want to miss the shot.

 I bet his image looks awesome with me in it too :)

Primo also doubled as entertainer!

Al joking aside, these are some examples of why is important to keep things under control. Many Brides are now opting for electronic-free weddings due to this very reason. The number of images where all the guests are staring into their little electronic screens instead of looking at the newly weds is just breath taking. When your professional photographer has to continuously ask other members of the ceremony and guests to please move so he can get the shot, is just uncomfortable for everybody.
Our goal is to get you the best images, so help us and make sure somebody keeps an eye on all the uncles, cousins and friends who have a really nice camera and are so eager to become the next family pro.
Certainly, we can take charge and just ask the other people to stop. But then again, why ruin the most important day for a  relative if all could've been avoided?
Just my 2 cents :)

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:

Down at the Arboretum

Last week we went to the Overland Park Arboretum. Out in the middle of nowhere, this amazing garden, with lots of different ecosystems and feelings to it. Lots of bugs as well!
This session had to be split in two, since they close quite early (7:30) and there's just too many things to do here.
Jessica and Kyle did great and were so patient.
Jessica and Kyle's Wedding is on August at Town pavilion, another beautiful venue we work with quite often, so we're getting all the engagement pictures ready.
Here's a little teaser,
Enjoy!