Never Before and NEVER Again

Bilsen

To all of you who shoot weddings for an income -- MY GOD how do you do it? There is no way on this earth I would do a 10 hour high stress day travelling around, then review 600 or so frames, then PP 100 or so and set up an album all for $3,000 +/-.

The short story is that a friend called in a panic after losing her wedding photographer. In turn, I panicked, dragged in a friend who had shot a couple of weddings and off we went. Fortunately, we got it all done and the bride/friend was totally happy. When she asked what she could do for me, I told her "NEVER tell anyone I shot the wedding".

Here are a few from that day in October, 2010. The partial gallery (excluding candids and friends) is at www.pbase.com/bilsen/amanda_wedding.

met

JohnGalt_ny wrote: »

To all of you who shoot weddings for an income -- MY GOD how do you do it? There is no way on this earth I would do a 10 hour high stress day travelling around, then review 600 or so frames, then PP 100 or so and set up an album all for $3,000 +/-.

The short story is that a friend called in a panic after losing her wedding photographer. In turn, I panicked, dragged in a friend who had shot a couple of weddings and off we went. Fortunately, we got it all done and the bride/friend was totally happy. When she asked what she could do for me, I told her "NEVER tell anyone I shot the wedding".

At least you survived. It can be stressful, but it can be a lot of fun, too. I've only done a few just as people ask, but I've had like 4 more requests from people this year so I'm planning on picking them up and increasing my price. The one I did a few weeks ago, I shot over triple that number of frames and processed over 500 for about half that price.


As far as the images go - I'm not really digging the white vignette. It looks a bit heavy and I think it makes them look dated. Did you try a black vignette?

puzzledpaul

JohnGalt_ny wrote: »

There is no way on this earth I would do a 10 hour high stress day travelling around, then review 600 or so frames, then PP 100 or so and set up an album all for $3,000 +/-.

Well, even if the time was quadrupled, (to include all manner of messing around) there's plenty of ppl in the UK who wouldn't mind making this sort of money

Personally, I like the sound of something my younger daughter (23) recently said about 'photo coverage' for such events - just give all guests a disposable p&s film cam ...

pp

Matthew Saville

As Met hinted, I would lose the stylized processing. But I don't see whether or not you are asking for input, so I'll leave it at that. I try and keep things as "timeless" as possible with my wedding photography.

As far as the pressure / stress are concerned, well, yeah. Let me tell you, I don't think I could EVER be an airline pilot or something, that would just be too much for me. However on a wedding day, I dunno what it is but I just get pumped up and I do my best to rock the job. It is not uncommon to have horrible lighting conditions, zero time, and five other wedding guests standing over your shoulder with DSLR's as good as yours or better. But after a while, nothing really phases you.

It helps that I photograph theater on the side, actually, because THAT is some seriously challenging lighting. Honestly, shooting a play / musical / concert makes a wedding seem like a total walk in the park, from a technical standpoint at least.

Oh and for the record, to "PP 100 or so" is nothing... I cull and color correct thousands of images per week. :-)

=Matt=

Glort

I guess it's what you are used to .
I used to string for a studio and it was rare for me not to do a wedding every friday, saturday and sunday.
Most of the time the jobs I got had 700 guests or more. biggest I have done so far is 1200.
If I did a job that was 4-500 I thought I had it easy and if it was 250, I thought I was on a picnic.

At one stge I felt I was getting tunnel visioned in photography and went into a sales Job. I can sell and this job was far from high pressure but I think I didn't really fit in the industry I was selling in.
I remember doing this wedding in the middle of it that had 500 very excited Italian family and friends and standing on the church steps before organiseing them for a group shot.
The bride and groom were standing with me and asked how I was going to get all the people to do the shot. I stood there, Looked at them and said " Not a problem, I haven't felt so at home at work in months. "
30 sec later everyone was where I wanted them and 30 sec after that I was done with a bunch of shots to choose from.

I started doing weddings 27 years ago. Nothing has changed and when you have been riding the bike that long, it's all just water off a ducks back!

Bilsen

I guess it's all in experience. I'd have zero problem flying an airliner and my own real career has a reasonable amount of stress but I'm so used to it I don't notice anymore. In fact, I have a friend who's a diver, an idea which terrifies me. Last time we had an airplne vs scuba argument, his response was "If something happens I can swim, can you fly??"

I shoot models all the time for portfolio, comp cards etc. and never feel stressted at all. Then again, if it doesn't work, we can always reshoot which is a major difference.

I'll stand by my initial premise that you guys work awfully hard for the money and the idea of the cut rate $500.00 wedding is pure insanity to me.

zoomer

That is a funny story John.
You survived it, and the pictures look ok as well.
Once you get the confidence that you can handle whatever happens, weddings are pretty easy....you just go with the flow.

Agree that most weddings are not worth doing if the money isn't right....although I do a few for practically nothing every year for the right couples....I view this as a hobby I just happen to make money at so if a shoot sounds fun I just do it.