Photography is a big decision, and you probably have loads of questions.
Here is a little game of Q&A to set your mind at ease.
True story, friend. The thing is, there are only a handful that will be a good fit for you, depending on personality, photographic style, budget, and experience. Here’s the short of it: We are nice to your friends and family. We are fun to be around. We are honest. We are great at what we do. We have been doing this for a LONG time, FULL-time (since 2001, yo!). We are not the cheapest around, but there is a reason they say, “You get what you pay for.” If we’re not the right fit for you, feel free to drop us a line and ask for advice; we’ve got lots!
Most likely! Check out our gallery of favorite & featured venues to see how we’re inspired by your venue. You can also search our blog, peep in on our recent clients’ proofing sites, search through our press archives, or just ask!
Shooting in new places is the funnest- drop me a line and we can come up with a quote to cover travel tailored to your wedding weekend plans, whether it’s in a quaint coastal town in Maryland or a sleepy beach casa in Mexico!
Absolutely. Check out our featured weddings for a more curated collection of storytelling imagery or our recent clients’ proofing sites.
Of course, and lots of it. We are fully covered. My first job was at an insurance agency- betcha didn’t know that, did you?
See above answer. We have backups of our backups, in both equipment during a shoot and data {triple} redundancy after a shoot.
The excellent kind. I should say though, it’s not about the equipment you use but how you use it. If you’re still curious what’s in my bags, check it out!
General rule of thumb for photographers: unless you’re in the hospital, you go to work. We’ve prepared so much for and invested so much in your wedding, both in time and heart, there isn’t much you can do to keep us away. If ((knock on wood!)) I do land in the hospital, many people have access to my calendars and will make sure that my second photographer or a peer will keep you covered. We are a very big but very tight community and we all watch out for each other!
I have a trunk full of very large, golf-sized umbrellas. Let’s have a little fun with those!
We wrote an article all about this, so check out our timeline guide here! When it comes time to photograph your family, we’ve got you covered. At your final meeting we’ll cover your family tree, family drama, and family shenanigans so we know exactly which shots are important to you.
I am always the primary photographer. Almost all of our packages include a second photographer, which we love having around to document an extra point of view. The photographers I have chosen as my cohorts on your wedding day are peers in my industry who are also full-timers and extremely talented so that both of us can work different aspects of your wedding day. Our style of imagery meshes well so you will feel that your final edit is a true collection.
We suggest having a second photographer on any wedding larger than 75 folks, or on weddings where you won’t be seeing each other until the ceremony so that there is someone there to capture your details and cocktail hour, while I create candid portraits of you and your VIP’s!
You can expect your wedding edit to be done in 4-6 weeks (it all depends on how far into busy season your wedding is), and portrait edits within 2 weeks.
We capture thousands of images on a wedding day, but only the best few hundred will be edited and presented to you (500-700). What do we edit out? There is a lot of light testing, blinking, and loads of captures before and after The Decisive Moment that simply don’t tell a story.
We love what the father of photojournalism, the legendary Henri Cartier-Bresson, says on the subject, “Photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression.” In 1957 he told Washington Post, “There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative,” he said. “Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever.” Don’t worry…. any outtakes or tweaky faces most definitely DO make it into the collection, as those are definitely Decisive Moments in themselves!
Nope. That would be an unfinished product; documenting the day is only part of what a professional photographer does. Not only do we, as artists, see beauty, fun, and emotion in a certain way, but often we capture it with a final artistic vision in mind. Know that it takes a lot finessing and experience in post production to get to just the right look that we intended when we captured the image, and your final product would not resemble our portfolio in the slightest if you were to interpret the RAW images yourself. You need special software for that…. but that’s a longer explanation than will fit in this little box :). If you are in a situation where you simply MUST have the RAW files, we can definitely chat to come up with a custom agreement; It will be beyond the scope of our regular packages.
No, because if they were, you wouldn’t get to see an edit for a year. We spend about 40 hours culling, color correcting, finessing exposure, cropping, cataloging, and backing up the images for your edit. Your proofing images will be quite beautiful- those are what you see in the proofing websites and often on our blog. We believe that each image that is special enough to be included in an album or made into a printed photograph should be fully finished though, so light retouching and any further adjustments for perfection are included as a finishing step.
Of course. Our wedding collections are inclusive, meaning that the edited high resolution images created on the wedding day are included on our Archive Drive, along with a license for personal use. We encourage you to post to Facebook, share with family, or make prints of your own. Portrait sessions, such as the Getting To Know You Shoot or Sexy Shoot, are approached a la carte and if the files aren’t included in your package, you can add them on at any time. As the creators, photographers hold the copyright of imagery, so selling the images, distributing to other businesses, or using them for business use is not permitted without a separate agreement.
Just like when you’re snatching up your main squeeze, book your photographer as soon as you know you’ve found the one! The hottest summer Saturdays book up 12-18 months in advance, and winter dates tend to book up 4-6 months in advance.
After we check each other out on our “first date” (a la consultation, phone, or video chat) and determine we’re a good fit, I’ll send you an electronic contract. Signing that and putting down a retainer will secure your date. After that, we can scheme for your Getting To Know You (engagement) Shoot (if you want one). The last thing we’ll do before the wedding is have a final meeting about a month prior to work on your timeline and shot list. Sporadic dates of happy hour cocktails or the like are not required, but definitely accepted!