A few keepers from 2 recent weddings

jasonscottphoto · March 13, 2012

1.

2.

(Just thought this was a cool church)

3.

4.

5.

6.

Mike Bishop · March 13, 2012

Following the link in your sig, I was looking though a bunch of your other photos. I do like a lot of what I see and overall the shots are well made. There are a few things that I think could really step up the photos a bit but then again, this may be the difference in 500 wedding photos vs a few good pieces for art. I feel it's good to point these out since they are some of your "keepers".

1. This photo actually bothers me, even as a new photographer still learning a lot about do's and don'ts. The problems is the escessive focus on the cloth background and most importantly, the lack of focus on the center diamond.

2. I love this photo because of the elevation of the camera. I really can't say anything else about it.

3. This isn't a supermodel but still she is a very pretty girl. I like the way she looks in this photo. Unfortunately All focus is on the man since he is placed in the middle and looking at the camera. His backup is the walkway/bridge/whatever railing to the left of the photo. I would have really liked to see this photo with the man placed more to the left in observation of rule of third instead of him trying to push the girl out of the photo.

4. Perfect background. I wanna type that again. "perfect background". Way to much flash in the front though.

5. Great feelings come from this photo. It has life to it. If I tried that photo it would have looked like garbage. Only thing I do not like about it is that some people can really have an issue with a golden photo and teeth to match.

6. This is another one I like. I personally like the lighting. The background is bright but the subjects are exposed at just the right level. So is that very well focused section of tree on the right. Cropping this out would have been nice. Adding it as a prop may have been fantastic.

It's kinda got me wondering. With 500 photos (according to your site), how many are typically edited? Are they all shot in Raw or do you use some great SOOC skills and leave it at that?

jasonscottphoto · March 14, 2012

Mike Bishop wrote: »

It's kinda got me wondering. With 500 photos (according to your site), how many are typically edited? Are they all shot in Raw or do you use some great SOOC skills and leave it at that?

My husband (photographer) shoots in RAW but then I use Lightroom for quick cropping, white balance, etc. But no serious editing unless someone places an order. He is pretty good SOOC.

Thanks for the comments

I agree with most of what you said. I just ordered a blow up of #6 last night and cropped out the tree. And after we took #3 we wished we had switched the bride and groom around. Oh well, live and learn...

Jeff_Milo · March 14, 2012

jasonscottphoto wrote: »

"But no serious editing unless someone places an order"

Its probably just me, but this comment bothers me & it seems to be the norm with most wedding photographers. Something I have never understood. When I present the galleries to one of my b&g's I want every picture from getting ready through the formals and the significant reception shots (first dance, cake cutting, toasts, etc) to be finish products and be ready for print without having to go back and edit. Maybe I am just to much of a perfectionist, but I never want to put out what I would consider unfinished work. I guess I feel like I would be cheating my clients to basically say I am only going to "finish" the ones you want to buy prints of.

jpc · March 14, 2012

I'm with you on this one, Jeff. I've always preferred quality over quantity; post less and process all of them.

smurfy · March 14, 2012

I really love her expression in three, and it's my favorite of this set. It would have improved it to have tried to minimize the visual size of her upper arms with either verbal direction or in camera cropping. Most brides hate their upper arms in photos like these unless we preemptively deal with the issue before taking the picture, but post cropping as a portrait orientation could also work. Mildly disagree with the above post in that I would not center the person you want the eyes to rest on in composition. The rule of thirds can be thought of as, "dead center = lifeless photo".

Six had potential, and the tree doesn't bother me, but it's just taken from too close up... As though their heads are about to hit a virtual ceiling. Backing up and putting their heads where the rule of thirds dictated, and saying, "No puckering!!!" with a kind laugh; would have made this one really nice.

TBradley · March 14, 2012

I really enjoy your editing, or lack thereof I should say! Most of the pictures are simply great, I too would of liked to see a bit less flash in #4 and I also agree with the comment made about gold tint on #5, but all of that could be easily fixed with PhotoShop! Great job, I'll be looking for more of your work!

jasonscottphoto · March 14, 2012

smurfy wrote: »

I really love her expression in three, and it's my favorite of this set. It would have improved it to have tried to minimize the visual size of her upper arms...

Fixed via liquify in PS

(Refresh page if you can't see the change)

TBradley wrote: »

I really enjoy your editing, or lack thereof I should say! Most of the pictures are simply great, I too would of liked to see a bit less flash in #4 and I also agree with the comment made about gold tint on #5, but all of that could be easily fixed with PhotoShop!

I get where everyone is coming from with the gold tint comments, but those people have "golden" skin in real life... the shirts look WHITE to me and wouldn't they look off white instead if there was something "off" about the color in the photo overall?

TBradley · March 14, 2012

Well yes, I'm not saying the entire photo has a yellow-ish tint, more or less that the teeth do. I completely see what you mean, that is quite possibly just their skin tone! If it were me, I might touch up their teeth (wound't overdue it) just to enhance the photo, but that's just my opinion.

Matthew Saville · March 15, 2012

Jeff_Milo wrote: »

Its probably just me, but this comment bothers me & it seems to be the norm with most wedding photographers. Something I have never understood. When I present the galleries to one of my b&g's I want every picture from getting ready through the formals and the significant reception shots (first dance, cake cutting, toasts, etc) to be finish products and be ready for print without having to go back and edit. Maybe I am just to much of a perfectionist, but I never want to put out what I would consider unfinished work. I guess I feel like I would be cheating my clients to basically say I am only going to "finish" the ones you want to buy prints of.

The idea is simple- 90% of the images taken at a wedding just don't NEED more than basic color correction and cropping. And I'm sure you and everyone would agree- If you have to put more than 30-60 seconds per image into more than 10-20% of the delivered images, you're being VERY in-efficient.

I actually manage post-production for a studio and we have VERY high standards for our delivered images. We have exactly the philosophy you mentioned- we never put out "unfinished" work. And our standards for color-correction probably blow most other photographers away.

However, having said that, again 80-90% of the delivered images just need 5-15 seconds worth of color correction and cropping in Lightroom. Of course it will take longer at first, for anyone who hasn't post-produced a few hundred thousand images. But the bottom line is that you should be able to turn-around an entire wedding in 8-16 hours, depending on your standards for perfection. I know some may just have to "agree to disagree", but in my opinion if you put any more than that into the post-production of a single wedding, you're either working too slow, or editing too much.

I do usually pick a handful of my own favorites and do some more advanced retouching on them. Some images can take 5-15 minutes. But honestly beyond that, it's just good business sense to not waste your time, or the client's money. If I were to deliver every single image with such perfect editing that it's ready for a 30", print, that would cost me an extra thousand dollars or two of my time. That's money the client would gladly save to spend elsewhere, and all I have to say is: "if you have 5-10 favorites I'd be happy to do some extra retouching for you on those, included in your package price"

That pretty much puts me and my business, AND my clients, in the perfect happy place as far as ROI goes for both of us...

=Matt=

(Edited to add:)
I know there are indeed some business models out there that deliver nothing but SOOC images, and an album. Or just the SOOC images. Honestly, I think that's fine as long as the client knows what they're getting, and the photographer is damn good at shooting SOOC. I have long been a champion of the art of SOOC, and I honestly believe that there is no taboo or "cheating the client" involved. You get what you pay for. If you pay for SOOC images or lightly processed images, and expect that, then all you have to worry about is whether or not the photographer is any good at what they do...

Jeff_Milo · March 15, 2012

I agree with what your saying Matt, and I pretty much do the same thing. with the wonderful world of pre-sets and lightroom I decide quickly how I want the final product to look and spend between 30 - 60 seconds on each. My percentages are about the same 10-20% for the getting ready, ceremony, & reception. I do tend to spend more time on the formals and usually edit 60 to 70% of those, but with my particular business model it works for me.

My main issue is I have seen a lot of SOOC stuff lately that frankly isn't very good (not referring to any of the pics above, I think these are in many ways quite good) and photographers with the mindset of not editing anything unless they are going to sell a print. Which in my mind is a disservice to the client

A few keepers from 2 recent weddings

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