Wedding photographer questions

[cycosis]

Me and the Fiance are working out our plans for a 2017 date and I'd love to hear this group's feelings in regards to fair compensation for a wedding photographer. I'm very much an advocate of "pay your artist fairly" but I have no background experience for this service.

We are looking at Canmore as our destination so are we on the hook for their transportation/accomodation/food? Or is that built into a photographer's package?

We have also seen packages from $3,000 all the way up to $10,000! FML!

How would as photographer like to be approached? Should I ask your package info or be up front with our budget?

[taemo]

ask for their package info, if they are not local photographers to your venue you are responsible for the cost on their transportation.

dont know accomodation or food, either so basically talk to the photographer first.

[ExtraSlow]

Start getting some info now on typical packages.
In my opinion, photos are pretty much the only thing you keep from your wedding day. It's worth spending a little more on that instead of other shit like decorations.

If you have a firm budget, do be up-front about that. Also, for prime dates, many photogs book 12 months or more out, so start looking right now.

Good luck buddy.

[msommers]

Yes you feed them, it's usually something during the day and a meal at the reception. If it's out of town you'd be expected to pay for accommodation and transportation costs.

I think you need to discuss (with your fiancee first) if you want engagement photos, additional books, photos, files, discs etc.

I've never shot a wedding, but from what I hear it's one long ass day. From 6am to midnight almost non-stop. Plus all the hours of going through thousands of photos, editing the good ones in a timely fashion. 99% of wedding photographers aren't ballin' out of control doing it, so keep that in mind when prices do come up. Some have an assistant as well who typically doesn't work for free.

Once you guys have discussed exactly what you're wanting the photographer to do, and get as a keep sake (prints, books etc), then you can approach a photographer and say, this is what we want on this day. Can you do it. It makes it much easier for everyone else.

I'd hazard a guess that most wedding photographers have packages that are available on their website, but offer some flexibility on what services they do and the reflective pricing.

Oh and congratulations! :)

[ExtraSlow]

One thing, that often costs extra, but I think is worth it, is to get the digital files of the edited shots.
That way, if you want to make your own thank-you cards from vistaprint or whatever, you can do that pretty cheaply. Worth finding out what this costs.

Also, if cash is tight, a lot of places you can hold off ordering the wedding album for six months or so. My wife and I had our ordered so it would arrive for our first anniversary. Was kind of nice to have something new to look at later.

[Mitsu3000gt]

Find one that will give you printing rights and all the edited full-res digital images on a flash drive. Do all the printing and album work yourself through other companies, that's where a good portion of the cost comes from. You will notice some of those really spendy packages even give you an iPad with all the images on it, it's totally unnecessary. A couple of my friends got married recently and that's what they did - no nonsense, decent price, etc. Got the images printed they wanted for next to nothing, had a professional quality album made for a couple hundred $, threw a few up on Facebook, and they were more than happy. IMO that is the way to go these days, but you and/or your fiance may think totally different.

Everyone has their own opinion on this, but I don't think I know a single person who has more than 1 or 2 photos of their wedding day displayed, and haven't looked at their wedding album even once since the wedding day. A good number of people I've talked to regret spending big money on photos. Make sure the photos are *really* important to you before spending a lot of money on them, or maybe just opt for a basic package that leaves you with fewer images or something, which is more than you will probably ever use anyway. If you're going to display a handful of images around the house and leave the album in a box in the attic, you certainly don't need 200-500 photos and a $1K album. Again, everyone's different, just passing along observations from people who have gone through the process.

Also these days, anyone with a $500 DSLR and kit lens thinks they are wedding photographers, so make sure you take a good look at past work, references, etc. to make sure they actually know what they're doing. Equally as important, make sure their personal shooting style matches what you are hoping to see in the results.

You can probably find a Canmore wedding photographer so you don't have to pay for transportation. If not, it's only about 45 mins from Calgary, the transportation costs shouldn't be that high. I've seen photographers get in on the buffet, but I imagine that varies, especially if it's a plated dinner. Not a big deal either way.

Be upfront about your budget, nothing wrong with that. What wedding photos are worth is so subjective that it's hard sometimes to come up with a budget. I wouldn't spend $3K on photos personally, but I know people who spent $10K which I also think is insane.

[cycosis]

This is a lot of helpful stuff guys. I appreciate it. Lots of good talking points to bring up

[jacky4566]

Additionally if you have some friends who are the photographic type, ask them to take pictures for a much smaller compensation. This is only in addition to a proper photographer but if they are getting a $100 they will pay much more attention.

I do this for all my friends and take about 500-1000 candid pictures, they love it! You will be surprised just having a few extra cameras can do.

#always the photographer, never the groom :/

[403ep3]

I got a guy that did my brothers wedding and he will be doing mine. Not sure if you're Chinese or whatever, but he does it for a flat price (morning till the reception and includes). Most will charge for a selected time and the price goes up from there. $2788 is what I am being charged. PM me and I can give you his contact info.

[Mitsu3000gt]

Originally posted by jacky4566
Additionally if you have some friends who are the photographic type, ask them to take pictures for a much smaller compensation. This is only in addition to a proper photographer but if they are getting a $100 they will pay much more attention.

I do this for all my friends and take about 500-1000 candid pictures, they love it! You will be surprised just having a few extra cameras can do.

#always the photographer, never the groom :/

Keep in mind if you are getting a buddy to shoot the wedding in *addition* to a professional, make sure he stays out of the pro's way. If they are bumping into each other trying to capture the big important moments, you may end up with nothing. Not saying your friend did any of this of course, but pro's tend to hate it, so just something to keep in mind.

[gogreen]

Honestly it's all over the map, and will really depend on the experience level of the photographer, the quality of their work and service, and subsequently how in demand they are. Some will post package details directly on their site, whereas many will just state the starting price for wedding coverage.

msommers is absolutely correct regarding how much work it actually is, so keep that in mind when comparing packages. It's easy to look at it and think they're making $XXXX for a day's work, but in reality you're paying for the whole process, in addition to their experience and talent.

It's pretty common for photographers to offer an option in their contract regarding meals. For instance, some will say that if you don't provide a meal for them at the reception then they'll need to take a break to get a meal off-site. I think it's also pretty common for a certain amount of travel to be covered, with a fee per km on top of that. Accommodation will vary was well.

Nothing wrong with having a budget you want to stick to. The most important thing is finding someone who you're comfortable working with and who can deliver what you're expecting.

Hope that helps, and congrats!

[max_boost]

I'm no artist but I can appreciate style. Each photographer is gonna have their specialty so I suggest going to their site/blog and check out their work.

This guy has awesome work. http://www.jtimages.ca/

[ExtraSlow]

Also, I would expect that if they are providing you with the high-res edited files, that they are spending at least 30 minutes time editing each file, and possibly much more.
So if you get a hundred files, that's more than a week of editing. Many packages are several hundred files. High quality photo editing is a pretty specialized skill, so I assume it costs a high hourly rate.

The cost of the photographers time outside of the day of the event is a HUGE part of the cost with any quality artist.
Someone who is just snapping away and running it though an auto white-balance program will not produce the same results.

I'm a firm believer that this is the most important expense of the wedding. I spent more on this than on the engagement ring, plus both wedding bands.

[D'z Nutz]

Originally posted by ExtraSlow
Also, I would expect that if they are providing you with the high-res edited files, that they are spending at least 30 minutes time editing each file, and possibly much more.

If they're spending 30 minutes or more editing each file, I'd question how good of a photographer they actually are if they need that much time to make a photo presentable.

But you're right on the other point. A lot of people think the photographer only works on the day of the wedding when it couldn't be further from the truth. Editing time definitely takes anywhere between a couple weeks to a month or more. There's also a lot of coordinating with the bride and groom to be prior to the wedding day.

[taemo]

^this, if you expect 30min edit time per high-res, then either the picture was really bad in the first place or the photographer doesnt know how to edit properly.
max they should be spending is 5-10min.
although if they are really into those high-concept shoots, then on 1-5 shots may take more than 10min to edit.

wedding is definitely time consuming, after the initial 4-10 hours coverage of the wedding, a photographer will then require equal or close to double the initial time for sorting, processing, printing the shots.


it took our photographer over 6 months to give us our wedding photos

[dirtsniffer]

My photographer wanted two hours pay to take an edit she did for a photo and apply it to a similar photo, was going to cost $100. haha fuck that.

[Danaldson]

A lot of valid points here. I have shot a few wedding before for friends for free and i am considering getting into paid weddings.

Weddings are a huge love hate. It is an EXTREMELY long day. being at the grooms house shooting the crew getting ready for the day, traveling to the church, shooting at the church while respecting the church's rules on photography (I have shot wedding where i was only able to stand behind all the guests in the last three rows) traveling to the photo session with wedding party, then traveling to the reception and capturing more photos, while not eating much the whole day because you want to capture the best and most moments.

A ton of work, but very rewarding. by that i mean seeing the couple love your work. Be very clear on what you want from the photographer, and what your budget is.

And like other said, PLEASE understand that you are not just paying for the work done on the wedding day. Photography is more than clicking a button. Consider the price of equipment, Education, experience, insurance (if any), travel, time ect.

I hear this too often: your photos are look great! you must have a really good camera.... Its like saying: "dinner was great, you must have a really nice oven/stove"

As for editing time, I roughly take between 5-15 mins per photo, sometimes 30-1hour if its one of those "epic" moments. 30 mins for every photo is much too long imo.

[Mitsu3000gt]

No way are they are spending anywhere near 30 mins per photo unless they don't know what they're doing. If every photo needs extreme recovery or salvaging, they aren't anyone I would want shooting my wedding. Or if they are just that slow with PP, that's another problem altogether.

Color corrections, crops, straightens, obvious blemish removals, exposure tweaks, etc. shouldn't take more than 2-3 minutes per photo tops, if even required at all. You can also largely batch process shots taken in the same environment. There might be a handful of photos that get extra attention, maybe ones that the couple indicates they want blown up fairly large.

From the wedding photogs I've talked to, it takes roughly the same amount of time to shoot the wedding as it does to process the images, if not a bit more. 100-400 images make it to the clients from probably 1000-2000. Bit of time to cull the images down to the best 10% or so, then a few minutes per photo, you're looking at 10-20 hours for post processing max. If you're in an easy, well-lit environment, probably less time compared to a venue with difficult lighting. Obviously there is no single answer and everyone is going to work differently, some photogs are more trigger happy, packages vary greatly, etc. but that is generally what I have learned from talking to wedding pros. Custom album design might mean a few more hours. You can also outsource things like color correction, which would presumably speed things up even more.

Say the wedding photographer charged $3,000 and they spent 14 hours shooting and 20 hours processing - that's $88/hr before any expenses, which isn't terrible, but especially with inconsistent/sporadic work you can see how they wouldn't want that to be slipping too much further due to enormous editing times.

[BlueHaloGirl]

Look at hiring a photographer from Canmore, cut out the travel expense if your getting married in Canmore.
Ours was from Canmore and she was great, reasonably priced and we got an album and all pictures on a cd and memory stick.
I can't remember her name but I'll look it up!! She was very flexible on what we wanted. We had a friend take pics of us getting ready and then just had her for the ceremony and family pics at the ranch afterwards.
And yes it's usually good place to feed the photographer.

[ExtraSlow]

Thanks to the more experienced photographers for for clarifying how much time it takes to edit a photo. Apparently my estimate of 30 minutes per shot was too high.

Wonder what the non-wedding guys like eride and go4long spend editing those landscape shots?

[Eride]

Edit time for weddings really depends on your photographer and their workflow. The most experienced photogs know how to shoot a wedding to simplify their post processing work. I usually take 1.5 to 2 times the length of the wedding to put together my finished packages. Usually shoot around 4000-5000 frames with a second photographer with me and deliver between 700-1000 finished images.

For landscape, it really depends, I would say 5-10 minutes for an image that I'm really being careful with. With that said I do all my edits in lightroom, photoshop would increase that dramatically.

The advice I'd give you when booking a photog would be, make sure you see their whole package not just their highlight reel images. Make sure they capture and tell the story of your day the way you want. Most importantly make sure you get along with them well, you will be spending pretty much your entire day with your photographer. Meet them for coffee, chat with them and ask them questions and make your decision after that...

Some of my local favorites are...

http://www.dqstudios.com/---- amazing art but $$$$
http://twomann.com/---- Same as above
http://www.gabemcclintock.com/--- super unique style, no idea of his pricing but probably expensive.
http://www.cassiescamera.com/ Love her style and creativity
http://www.asiseeitphotography.ca/ Shelley is awesome. really down to earth and very creative!
http://www.abbyplusdave.com/ Awesome husband and wife team

Good luck!

[Penguin_Racecar]

My wife and I got married in Canmore and used Julie Williams - http://www.juliewilliamsphotography.ca/

Would very much recommend. She knows the area very well (as she lives there) and did an amazing job.