input on wedding photography

[sarahf]

I want to start photographing weddings. I have done a few, but would love some thoughts from other wedding photographers. A few questions I have:

1) On average, how many finished photos do you give the bride & groom?

2) How do you handle black & white and other toned images? Do you edit them all in color and black & white, or just a few in black and white? I was doing color, b&w, and sepia tones for all their photos, but I am afraid this will be too much.

3)Also, there are alot of cool presets for Lightroom, however, they do slightly alter the real color of their dresses, flowers, etc... Has anyone had any clients complain that the editing wasn't the way the colors really looked?

I would love your input

Sarah

[benjamieson]

Hi Sarah,

I'm going to give you my input on this, though I'm in a fairly unique position and you may find others disagree with my answers. I'm shooting exclusively weddings for brides and grooms from other countries. I don't get to chat with them, get to know them, etc, I usually don't even meet them until 24 hours before their wedding.

Not sure that makes a difference to anything, but here goes:

1: For a full day wedding, from getting ready to end of key reception moments, my contract states I will deliver 300-400 final images.

I will always deliver more than 400. (Rule #1: always over deliver!)

All these images are colour corrected and have basic retouching done (removal of seagulls, overweight tourists in undersized speedos in the background, etc)

2: There will be images I've made that just scream for additional attention, be it a rendering in black and white or some creative processing that suits the image. I usually end up reworking about 20-30 images. I will supply both these and the original versions (still colour balanced)

3: While I have many Aperture presets (I don't like Lightroom) I rarely use them, as they are someone else's specific vision for a specific look for a specific image. Having said that I do, as mentioned in #2 above, rework a number of images which may involve changing the original colouring and/or toning dramatically for the final result.

I can safely say I've never had a client complain about my reworkings, and usually, if they are posting images on Facebook, these are the ones I'll see them post first.

I think that if you're working up an image to make it the best it can be, making each change with a specific goal in mind, then the end result will work and your clients will love them.

If you're running presets on images just because you have presets, then a) you probably shouldn't be, and b) you may find the client doesn't like the end result.

Just my 2 Bahamian cents!

Ben