You have my undying admiration, Puly. I have worked as a photojournalist, and adept at some tricky areas, but, after doing three weddings for people I knew and liked, vowed to never do another one.
The Nerve-O-Rama of the whole wedding scene was too much for me. Too much emotion weighing on the exact moment, with too many voices wanting it to be a perfect Fairy-tale. And , then, the Aftermath of decision over photos for the Album. Never Again for me!
Wedding photography is a great, unappreciated art.
I don’t ever need to hear the Electric Slide or the Cha-Cha Slide again.
To be fair, though, while the music at weddings is pretty predictable, it does get people on the dance floor. In the rare instance a couple chooses a non-conventional wedding playlist, the dance floor tends to be dead. I was talking to the DJs a couple of weeks ago, and they told me they had a wedding where the bride and groom insisted on nothing but R.E.M. being played the entire time. After about a half hour of complaints from guests, the couple backed down and allowed the DJ to play more conventional wedding music.
I had the same trepidation when I got into wedding photography. I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it or not. Many photojournalists don’t like doing it. I love it. After about 20-30 weddings, you become pretty used to the stress. It’s actually not all that stressful for me. I don’t ever worry about missing the shot. It’s really just getting everybody together for the formals and that sort of thing that grates on the nerves. Also, being a photojournalist pretty much prepares you for every kind of situation. I’m used to thinking on my feet and working around situations rather than scripting them to my liking (except for the formal shots, which, as I said, I try not to keep looking formal, but do try to make them clean). It really has made me a much, much better photographer over the last three years I’ve been doing it, in a way I don’t think newspaper and magazine assignments wouldn’t have done.
Wedding photography is great because it hones your skills in so many ways. You work as a photojournalist, a portrait photographer, a product photographer, a landscape photographer, an architectural photographer, etc., etc., etc. There is just so much photographic variety. And it’s the best feature shoot. There’s so many moments, so much emotion.
And the best part, as opposed to traditional photojournalism (other than the fact it pays much better): People actually want you there. They’ll do almost anything you ask them to do. They want you to get the shots. I’m never pushy, and am always gaging clients to see if they’re getting tired of portraits or whatnot, but they will always cooperate with you if you’ve earned their trust.
It does take some time to get into the rhythm of it. The shoot is not the hard part. Shooting is fun. The hard/tedious part is the post-processing, paperwork, and business side of things.
I don’t have that much experience with Canon lenses, but, from what I’ve seen in my work, the lenses are brilliantly sharp. The 24-70 f/2.8L does exhibit some vignetting at wide apertures at the wide side of the zoom, but it doesn’t bother me. There is also some barrel distortion at 24mm, but, once again, it doesn’t usually bother me. Sometimes I will run photos through something like LensFix for rigidly geometrical shots at 24mm to straighten up the lines. But that usually is not an issue for me. It’s a crisp, contrasty, and tack-friggin-sharp lens.
At the end of the day, I only really need two lenses, a 24-70mm f/2.8 and a 70/80 - 200 mm to do the job. If I were forced to, I could do a good job with just one body and a 24-70 f/2.8.
The non-wedding pics are to “sex up” the website a little and reinforce my photojournalism background. I’m always looking for personal projects, and it’s really difficult to do so, since so much of my time is spent dealing with wedding photos, and when I’m done with that, I just want to relax. A while ago I did a series of black and white flowers as a self-assignment, and just recently I’ve started to get into more abstract architectural stuff like this and this. But, yes, it is a little difficult sometimes to keep it a hobby. I take about 80K-100K images a year and I get a little lazy with pursuing my personal work. It’s a matter of finding the right subject. I do not belong to any camera/photography clubs, just several professional associations (WPJA, PPA, WPPI).
One of the big regrets of my small wedding was that I did not pony up a few extra $$ for a wedding photographer. We have wonderful memories and the wedding was just what I wanted, but some nice photos would have made it even better.
The question I have for you is how do you determine prices? Do you have different packages that you offer? Same for your freelance work…do you charge X amount or do the clients have set amounts they pay for whatever… (ok, so make that questions.)
Any experience with high-grade Bridezillas? Split families? (Where you had to take 13,438,938 pictures so you could have enough that didn’t have feuding exes in the pictures)?
I was a wedding planner once for about <this> long. Never again
Your pictures are wonderful. I love the candid shots where the people don’t know they’re being photographed. I see some staged ones, and I’m sure they are required, but I like the candid ones better…especially the shot of the guys watching the football game on TV before the wedding.
What is your all time favorite photo, either wedding or non wedding, that you took? And what’s the story behind it?
WOW! I already posted but hadn’t looked at your website…so let me say it again -
WOW!!
Very nice indeed. If Mrs.Phlosphr and I ever decide to get married to each other again - you know a renewal of vows type thing - I’ll call you and fly to chicago … how’s that? Great stuff!
Thanks for the link to your website. You do amazing work. I love the sense of humor and that so much of your work is in color. There seems to be a big backlash against color in certain photography circles. I’m a bit tired of black and white for the sake of black and white.
my question: how long did it take you to build up your business? was it all the MCI plan (friends and family) or did you get moving with your minimal advertising?
I’m a photographer in a small, rural town and I’m having a hard time reaching out and finding the right clientel. Word of mouth hasn’t worked so well so far. I appreciate your vote for Craigslist. that’s an avenue that I haven’t tried yet.
I have a question about wedding planners and commissions. Do you pay bridal consultants for referrals? If so, what is the percentage?
I recently started a national service that has a wedding component, and I keep going back and forth on whether I should have an affiliate program where I give wedding planners 10%.
In your experience, did vendors that gave wedding planners kickbacks do better (everything else being equal) than ones that didn’t?
Basically, prices are determined by simple economics: what the market will bear and what I feel my time is worth. I start at $2150 for my time and rights to images. Albums start at $1250. I hope to get closer to $3000 for the basics by the end of next year. The upper echelon wedding photographers charge from $10-$20K a wedding. The person who introduced me to wedding photography shot Eva Longoria’s wedding to Tony Parker last month. It’s an interesting business, for sure.
For freelance, I have basic rates (for magazine editorial, my day rate was $800/day back in the day [early 2000s], day being defined as anything up to 8 hours). However, many magazines and newspapers have their own pay schedule. Like anything, there’s a certain amount of negotiating involved. For anything else, I generally get a sense of what they’re looking for, what rights they want to the images, etc., and give a quote.
Oddly enough, I’ve never had any great drama in my weddings, except for the minister not showing up story. All my couples have been really great people, and I’m not just saying that. I did my best to turn down one client this year because something felt “off” about them (this was through a wedding planner, so I didn’t want to put her in a lurch and told her, if there’s any other photographer they’re interested in hiring, please give the job to them, but I was the only one.) That’s what’s great about this job–you can turn down clients if you want.
But, no, I’ve never had drunken fights, or even palpable tension in the air, and I’ve shot about 120 weddings by now (~60-70 for my own company. More on this in my next response.)
Truth is, I think color sells better these days. People love black and whites, but color leaps off the computer screen and grabs people. My latest work is even stronger with colors. Besides, I didn’t buy a 5D so I can make black and whites out of everything.
I shot my first serious professional wedding in 2004 as a second shooter for a company called Bella Pictures. Depending on where you’re located, they’re always looking for photographers if you have the equipment. http://www.bellapictures.com They’re a national studio founded by a former Chicago Tribune photographer and a couple of business investors. The guys who shot Eva Longoria’s wedding (Bob Davis and George Burns), both worked for Bella. In fact, the former still is a photo coach for them.
This was my plan: it would take too long, even given my professional credentials in the editorial world, to try to found a business without having the confidence, clients, and big wedding portfolio in tow. So I started shooting for Bella, which was awesome. At the time, they provided the digital equipment (I was still film) and sent me on about 20 weddings. The next year (2005) I shot 40 weddings for Bella.
In October of 2005, I decided I had enough weddings under my belt to instill confidence in the bride and groom and I had enough confidence I could do it. So I joined the WPJA (Wedding Photojournalism Association), put up some feelers on craigslist (my price was $1750 at the time, I believe), and I shot my first Pawinski Photography job in December 2006. By the end of January or so, solely through the WPJA and referrals from a couple of Bella brides, I had about 20 weddings booked. By the end of the year, I think I had around 27 weddings I shot for myself, and about another 10 for Bella. This year (I haven’t counted), it’s about 35 weddings for myself, and I have about a half dozen weddings on the calendar for next year.
So, I do no paid advertising. Just referrals and WPJA. It also helped that the first contest I entered for the WPJA I won a second prize in the ceremony category, which gives you a little gold star by your name when brides search your state for photographers. (http://www.wpja.com)
