Wedding Photographers, Then & Now

[tlitody]

5000 images. So you put them on a CD for the bride so she can look at them.
5 second an image to load it and view it. So that's 5000 * 5 = 25000 seconds which equals 7 hours to just flick through the images. And so how much time is your post production taking on each image? 5 minutes an image? that's 17 24 hour days. Should be obvious that anyone doing this is a complete amateur who is conning the bride by giving bad advice or just pandering to stupid requests for thousands of images.
If you can't communicate the days story of a wedding in 50 pictures you are not a good photographer.

 

[gavinlg]

5000 images. So you put them on a CD for the bride so she can look at them.
5 second an image to load it and view it. So that's 5000 * 5 = 25000 seconds which equals 7 hours to just flick through the images. And so how much time is your post production taking on each image? 5 minutes an image? that's 17 24 hour days. Should be obvious that anyone doing this is a complete amateur who is conning the bride by giving bad advice or just pandering to stupid requests for thousands of images.
If you can't communicate the days story of a wedding in 50 pictures you are not a good photographer.

You'll find that an average digital wedding shooter probably shoots around 1000-3500 shots per wedding, and then cuts at least half to 2/3rds of them into selects, and then the bride will choose which she wants out of the selects. Usually it's under 300 photos in total, most of the time under 100.

 

[Roger Hicks]

5000 images. So you put them on a CD for the bride so she can look at them.
5 second an image to load it and view it. So that's 5000 * 5 = 25000 seconds which equals 7 hours to just flick through the images. And so how much time is your post production taking on each image? 5 minutes an image? that's 17 24 hour days. Should be obvious that anyone doing this is a complete amateur who is conning the bride by giving bad advice or just pandering to stupid requests for thousands of images.
If you can't communicate the days story of a wedding in 50 pictures you are not a good photographer.

Yeah, but the stupid request comes from the person with the money.

Looking at every image for 5 seconds? Hardly. Post production at 5 minutes an image? For all 5000? Hardly. And 5000 pics is a tight fit on a CD. As Gavin says, there's a good deal of (very quick) editing before the client sees anything.

How many weddings have you shot? Especially at £5000 (6000€, $7500) a time? There are plenty who charge that. I'd be astonished if they shot 5000 images, but equally, depending on how they're working, I'd not be especially surprised at 2000.

What is 'the story of a wedding'? And how is it told? The seventeen syllables of a good haiku can say more than a bad 1000-page novel. But a good 3-volume novel can say more (or at least, more about more things) than a haiku.

I'm ever more hesitant to tell anyone exactly how to do anything, barring purely technical information ("Don't put the fixer in before the developer") and ideas/inspiration ("Have you tried...?") Telling 'em they're flatly wrong, or worse still, insulting them, is rarely much help.

As I said earlier, I've shot very few weddings, and always as gifts; but I've known enough high-end wedding photographers, some a good deal richer than I, not to question their methods. Or at least, not to try to tell the rich ones their business.

Cheers,

R.

 

[sig]

Well said Roger!

 

[tlitody]

Yeah, but the stupid request comes from the person with the money.

Looking at every image for 5 seconds? Hardly. Post production at 5 minutes an image? For all 5000? Hardly. And 5000 pics is a tight fit on a CD. As Gavin says, there's a good deal of (very quick) editing before the client sees anything.

But thats the point. The numbers being banded around these days are ridiculous. Cut the viewing time or number in half and you are still looking at 3 1/2 hours. That's ridiculous. Edit 2500 images down to 300 and that takes time. Then 5 minutes post production in each of 300 images is 25 hours. That 3 solid days of post production plus all the addditional time of sending to print and constructing an album etc etc. The numbers just don't make any kind of sense. Fact is most albums are 30 to 50 images and you simply don't need to take 3000 images to get 50. That's 1 in 60 sucess rate. So much for the decisive moment if you need to take 60 images to capture it. It's spray and pray pure and simple.

 

[NathanJD]

Wedding photographs are a product and the customer provides the demand. When a trend in a particular direction takes hold, those making their bread and butter must adapt to fit. Yes, there are those who are able to 'specialize' and produce what we as photographers are aware is a finer and more exclusive product but in the 21st century 'bang for your buck' is more important than having a refined product. I would suggest that those who do take somewhere along the lines of 5000 images simply batch apply auto correction settings and then maybe choose a decent amount of showcase images to pay closer attention to.

While it would be nice for the general public to admire the beauty of a handful of exquisite images in the way that we do, sadly the majority do not and instead their concern is coverage.

I've only shot one wedding professionally (and I use the term loosely) and I did it for free because i wanted the experience more than the money. We shot the preparation, the service and the obligatory family shots and didn't hang around for the post-party and took 500 images between us. It was exhausting and at times a little frustrating but it was a good experience to have had. Conversely, I attended a friend’s wedding last year and took the M2 and 3 rolls of HP5+ for no real reason than to satisfy myself although despite being humored on the day for shooting with and ‘that old camera’ I produced images that the bride and groom prefer to those shot by the designated photographer.

It just goes to show that in a lot of instances people don’t know what they want until they see it and in most cases they will go off and ask for exactly the wrong thing.

 

[Roger Hicks]

But thats the point. The numbers being banded around these days are ridiculous. Cut the viewing time or number in half and you are still looking at 3 1/2 hours. That's ridiculous. Edit 2500 images down to 300 and that takes time. Then 5 minutes post production in each of 300 images is 25 hours. That 3 solid days of post production plus all the addditional time of sending to print and constructing an album etc etc. The numbers just don't make any kind of sense. Fact is most albums are 30 to 50 images and you simply don't need to take 3000 images to get 50. That's 1 in 60 sucess rate. So much for the decisive moment if you need to take 60 images to capture it. It's spray and pray pure and simple.

I'm not disagreeing for an instant that the numbers are ridiculous, or that (like you) I can't see how the hell you can make it pay. Nor can I see how anyone can face the excitement of checking 2500 pics of someone they don't know.

I'm not so sure about 'spray and pray', though, because there's an old photojournalistic assumption that you never know when you're going to get your last good picture. It might be the first insurance shot, or it might be the tenth of (say) the bride and groom at the altar. There's no sense in shooting obviously inferior shots, when you're reasonably confident you have at least two good ones to choose from, but even if you've five good ones (better each time, you hope), the sixth is worth shooting if it might be even better.

In other words, a photojournalistic wedding is completely different from the traditional all-posed affair, where most people look as if they have been badly stuffed (some will be, of course, later). Often, there's one picture from a very similar set that jumps out at you: a particular smile or gesture or juxtaposition, whatever. If it's an all-day shoot, from preparatory shots to the end of the reception, it's probably (I don't speak from experience) quite easy to shoot 2000 digital shots.

The only wedding I shot digitally was for some neighbours, friends but not close friends, and I think I took about 250 pics from their arriving at the Mairie (if you want a religious wedding in France you have to have a civil ceremony first) to the break-up of the reception (not the dinner afterwards). Frances shot about 4 rolls of film. If we'd known them better, and been shooting all day, I can (just about) imagine hitting 2000 shots, with 10 rolls from Frances (360 shots): close enough to 2500.

I shoot DNG and process in Lightroom. While they're loading I can be doing something else (after 5 minutes set-up time). Then, running through the DNG files in Lightroom means that many pics can be dismissed in a second or less. Even the ones I like are unlikely to occupy me for 5 seconds. Post processing shoud be negligible if I've got the white balance, exposure and framing right. I really don't think it's quite as time consuming as you suggest, though (once again) I agree that it's time consuming. It's probably quicker, though, to put 200 (or more) final pics on a CD than to present 40 wet-processed proofs.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Livesteamer]

This reminds me of 1976 when, as an active college photographer for yearbook, newspaper and other, I just had to have a motor drive under my Nikon F. Wall street camera charged me $400 for a used F 36 and I burned a lot more film but it did not increase my number of good shots. I am finally learning there is something healthy of only having 36 shots and making them count. Joe

 

[bobbyrab]

One thing that is being missed here, usually a couple do have an album with say 50-150 prints depending on the type of album, so a couple in the past wouldn't and couldn't have had a nice image of most of the guests [say 120 people] at their wedding included in their album, however now a lot of the viewing is done on a computer monitor by both the couple and friends and family, so most couples are delighted to have coverage of their guests, details, table details, getting ready, arriving, ceremony, drinks, dancing, speeches, formal groups, oh and some of the couple themselves. A challenge to do in 50 images me thinks. With the utmost respect to members here, and I think the forum has a high standard of work, but unless you've shot weddings over a period, in a variety of places and with variable lighting conditions, then you haven't got a real idea of what your talking about i'm afraid.
There are regular posts here, where someones been a guest at a wedding, taken a couple of rolls of film and are happy with a handful of them, some are quite nice but they're often dull and unflattering, but the consensus seams to be what a delightful alternative for the bride and groom to the undoubted rubbish the official photographer will have produced. I've been doing this for fourteen years, film and digital, so I know both and how things have changed, and I wouldn't normally get involved in these discussions, but do tire of the, 'must be crap if you shoot more than 60 images' brigade.

 

[tlitody]

One thing that is being missed here, usually a couple do have an album with say 50-150 prints depending on the type of album, so a couple in the past wouldn't and couldn't have had a nice image of most of the guests [say 120 people] at their wedding included in their album, however now a lot of the viewing is done on a computer monitor by both the couple and friends and family, so most couples are delighted to have coverage of their guests, details, table details, getting ready, arriving, ceremony, drinks, dancing, speeches, formal groups, oh and some of the couple themselves. A challenge to do in 50 images me thinks. With the utmost respect to members here, and I think the forum has a high standard of work, but unless you've shot weddings over a period, in a variety of places and with variable lighting conditions, then you haven't got a real idea of what your talking about i'm afraid.
There are regular posts here, where someones been a guest at a wedding, taken a couple of rolls of film and are happy with a handful of them, some are quite nice but they're often dull and unflattering, but the consensus seams to be what a delightful alternative for the bride and groom to the undoubted rubbish the official photographer will have produced. I've been doing this for fourteen years, film and digital, so I know both and how things have changed, and I wouldn't normally get involved in these discussions, but do tire of the, 'must be crap if you shoot more than 60 images' brigade.

I'm not suggesting that you can do it in 60 images but rather 300 should be plenty. 10 rolls of 35mm max and less if the bride only wants an album of 30 images or you are doing some MF as well. That can be edited down to 150 for proofs from which they can select. The numbers are then sensible from everyones point of view and they can always order one offs from that 150 if they so desire. The ridiculousness is in shooting 3000 to 5000 images. Have you ever looked at 5000 images of yourself in one go? You'll be bored before you get to 500 and probably have seen enough after 100 (unless you are self obsessed which may be the case for some). But no one seems to consider this when touting big numbers. It's called over selling. It's a cheap marketing ploy. Brides beware.

 

[bobbyrab]

So you've got 150 proofs, that doesn't leave you a great deal of room to get shots of the guests given there are 120 of them, perhaps you'll cover them with a few big group shots. So if you limit yourself to 300 images taken, as a point of principle would you refuse to use any for detail shots? Have you ever actually photographed a wedding as the main photographer or is this all just in theory.

 

[Roger Hicks]

So you've got 150 proofs, that doesn't leave you a great deal of room to get shots of the guests given there are 120 of them, perhaps you'll cover them with a few big group shots. So if you limit yourself to 300 images taken, as a point of principle would you refuse to use any for detail shots? Have you ever actually photographed a wedding as the main photographer or is this all just in theory.

In fact, it's not just individual guests. Often, it's the combinations that are most important. At the last 'big' wedding we shot, a very important picture for the bride's father, and his mother, and me, was a picture of the three of us with his mother in the middle and Hayes and me either side of her, her arms around our shoulders.

In the 1960s I was at boarding school and spent a LOT of time at Hayes's house, and then and for years afterwards, June was almost a second mother to me. As the picture was taken, she was saying, "Didn't the boys do well." She died a couple of years ago...

This is something else the hired hand can't know. All he can do is shoot as many likely looking conversations and combinations as possible.

Cheers,

R.

 

[swoop]

5000 shots on a wedding shoot is not uncommon today. Very little thinking by the photographer. Most pop shots one after the other. I was quite amazed at a recent wedding.

Was I working that wedding?


I recently did some wedding work as an assistant/ 2nd shooter. Mostly because I need the money after dropping my M9. Anyway, the photographer I work with, I don't know what her deal is or if she's one of those photographers that offers a minimum of pictures to her clients, but I was sitting down as dinner was being served. I just got done taking a bunch of pics of people on the dance floor. And everyone left to go eat. And she comes up to me as I'm sitting saying she needs me to be taking pictures. I'm like WTF. I say "of what?" and goes "people." Everyone siting down eating, there are no pictures to be had. No one wants to have their picture taken while eating, and no one wants to look at pictures of people eating. It's annoying to the subject, and it's gross to look at.

 

[Sjixxxy]

If you can't communicate the days story of a wedding in 50 pictures you are not a good photographer.

Love the quote.

 

[Gumby]

Fast-forward to 2010. A few weeks ago I attended a medium-sized wedding and the photographer took over 3000 shots.

... and then posted them to a web site for review, and delivered a CD. The world has changed!

 

[KenR]

My son got married almost two years ago. Going thru several volumes of proof albums to look for the 20 pictures for our "parent" album was not an easy task. Most were minimal variations clearly done by holding the shutter down for a second to get 4-6 shots of the same pose. If the bride was looking away in #1, she was looking away in #2-6 as well. A waste of everyone's time going thru this. Definately take an "insurance" shot, but four?

 

[Andy Kibber]

Everyone's an expert! 🙂

 

[tlitody]

I declined the last request of a friend to photograph their wedding. Bride to be was a graphic designer and insisted that it should be photographed on transparency because that was the best quality film you could get.

 

[John Lawrence]

I'm a member of one of the pro societies for wedding photographers, and a common lament from members is that couples are just not hiring pro photographers for their weddings in anywhere near the numbers they used to be. When couples were asked why this was, they replied that they couldn't tell the difference between the umpteen zillion shots taken by the hired pro and the many hundreds or so taken by Uncle Albert, Aunty Maud etc.

Isn't there an old saying, 'quality will out'?

John

 

[pachuco]

Was I working that wedding?


I recently did some wedding work as an assistant/ 2nd shooter. Mostly because I need the money after dropping my M9. Anyway, the photographer I work with, I don't know what her deal is or if she's one of those photographers that offers a minimum of pictures to her clients, but I was sitting down as dinner was being served. I just got done taking a bunch of pics of people on the dance floor. And everyone left to go eat. And she comes up to me as I'm sitting saying she needs me to be taking pictures. I'm like WTF. I say "of what?" and goes "people." Everyone siting down eating, there are no pictures to be had. No one wants to have their picture taken while eating, and no one wants to look at pictures of people eating. It's annoying to the subject, and it's gross to look at.

This is exactly the same experience I had as a second shooter. I was a second shooter for a very successful wedding photographer for about a year and a half and then quit because it was killing my desire to pick up a camera. You are always shooting and shooting allot. When the wedding party is forking over 6K or more for "Perfect" photos (and you charge for post-processing) it can be a viable business. Certainly not my cup-o-tea.