DnN Photography

I thought this would be a good opportunity to discuss how important it is to think about selecting your photographer.

Several accounts I have come across several people who have recently been married (1 year or so) and still have not received their wedding photographs! CRAZY!

It is hard to decipher through the many sudden "professional photographers" out there, which ones will not only produce great results for your special day, but knows how to keep up with their afterwork!

So many people can go out and buy a camera these days, but it doesn't mean they know how to fully use a camera in different environments. Some photographers only know how to shoot outside, and some only know how to shoot studio. For a big event, it is more secure to know a photographer who can shoot well in any condition and can problem solve. Non-professionals, who have a regular job (that is not photography), usually doesn't have time or discipline to go through all the photos taken as well as edit them, simply because it is not their primary job. If you haven't received at least any proofs within 2-4 months, then that is already a bad sign that your photographer is not able to keep up with all the work they are doing.

Professional photographers have a lot more to do than just shooting on that one day. It is a misconception that you spend thousands of dollars on your photographer for one day of work. You are not paying your photographer for one day's work! Not only do we, or most of us supply a number of high grade equipment and lighting equipment, that each cost a few thousand, we have to spend prep time making sure all of our batteries and back up batteries are charged, that we have several memory cards that are empty and ready to go, and that all our bags of equipment are packed for the location we are shooting. Then the shooting actually begins (which is the easier part of our job), it is fun, but long as we are standing/running/laying on the ground throughout the event. After the big day of work is over...we pass out. Once ready to begin the editing process, we must upload all those photos, and guess what, we need an awesomely powerful computer to keep up and store all the pictures we take. That is not including all of our hard drives we must back up in case our computer crashes, so that you still have pictures instead of an "I'm so sorry, but my computer crashed and lost all of your wedding pictures" card in the mail. Then selecting, and reselecting the best images can take several hours before we actually pick out ones that we want to really edit. Yes, all photographers edit pictures, it is not "cheating," it is merely enhancing an already good photograph into becoming something even better since a camera only has so much technology and photoshop has even more. Editing one picture alone in photoshop can take 10min - 2hours, sometimes more! Depending on how hard your photographer wants to make your pictures look great will determine this. It is always best for us as photographers to get the best shot in camera as possible, otherwise we would be so backed up editing "bad photos" because we need to make them look decent that everyone would be waiting a few years to receive their pictures!

So when you choose your photographer for any big event that you really care about receiving pictures for, make sure you choose someone who knows what they are doing, and especially does it for a living, not as a hobby! You may save yourself from spending any kind of money with nothing to show for it but a sad face! Now that you know some information, lets not let this happen to you!

Natasha