I was so excited to ship out my first wedding DVD of the year this week – not because it was done, but because I love the packaging so much! I searched for a long time to find packaging that integrates well with my brand and I am so satisfied with what I found.
This handmade DVD case gives a natural, earthy feel with it’s green hemp casing as well as with the cream cotton ribbon. I love how it also gives off a slightly elegant feel – since it will be holding a DVD of photos that will be treasured for years – yet stays an extension of my brand and color palette without stamping my logo onto it.
Each one of my 2011 wedding clients will receive this, holding their very own DVD(s) of wedding images.
If you missed the first two posts in What Happens to Photos After the Wedding?, you can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
Thoughts on Balancing Art and Professionalism in Business A while back, I read an article on this same topic (workflow) here, written by photographer Anne Ruthman. A slightly lengthy (but worth the read) quote we loved that sums up her article:
“It’s a delicate balance- trying to be an artist and a business person at the same time. The artist mentally is quite obsessive and perfectionistic. The artist hates being bothered in the middle of being intensely focused because it can ruin a creative streak. The artist wants to simply shut out the world around her so that she can enjoy every little creation as it’s being made. The artist works on something until its done, not until the timer has run out. The artist has a lot of pride in her work and would be horrified if it were to be out there unfinished.
“Yet, we also have to be business people. We have to meet our clients needs and keep them happy, even if it doesn’t always give us the freedom to do what makes us happy. We have to set deadlines and meet them no matter what happens or else we lose our client’s trust. We have to answer emails and return phone calls in a timely manner so that our clients feel valued and respected. As a business person, we WANT to do all of these things because we care about our clients, and because without our clients support, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do!! We love our clients and we want to give them the best of everything. It’s just a delicate line we must walk every day, always trying to stay in balance….”
We loved the paradox in the middle of this quote, “The artist has a lot of pride in her work and would be horrified if it were to be out there unfinished. Yet, we also have to be business people.” Essentially, Kelly and I work well together in this business, because I embody the first half of that thought/quote, while Kelly manages the second half of it so well. While we would both consider ourselves artists as well as businesspeople, our personal strengths are unique. Over the years, we’ve become more adept at this balancing act, but are still (always!) learning.
We then send that pared down set of images out to our color-correction lab and it takes up to two weeks for them to return the images to us (they’re usually in a short queue, not because they work on them that whole time). Because most weddings are shot in a variety of lighting situations, each image may have different corrections needed – and we’re big on consistency. If you’re thinking of printing your photos in an album, you’ll also really appreciate this sort of consistency in lighting. This is all done in Lightroom, and we shoot all our images in RAW which allows for the highest flexibility in editing. One note: up until the middle of last year, we did this step in-house. Since we’ve been more clearly defining our strengths and goals, we’ve realized that this is one area we’re comfortable out-sourcing, since it is higher in basic technical skills rather than creativity/artistic ability. Though we’re fully capable of doing this, we are equally fully confident in our choice of editors, and do not feel that it subtracts from our brand/style in any way. It also allows us a bit more time to pour our efforts into other creative areas in the business.
Step Five – Creative/Final Edits (5-10 hours)
From there, we work through the photos in both Lightroom and a little in Photoshop, deciding which ones – and how – to edit; we make sure they look as flattering and yet, consistent, as possible (within reason; there are always different lighting situations that make some photos less flattering than others). Ultimately, with this medium, it’s a creative/artistic process and the final product is subject to our best, professional discretion.
Step Six – Upload Images to Blog & Gallery (6-8 hours)
Lastly, the images are uploaded to a a blog post as well as your own password-protected online gallery for viewing, sharing & ordering. This can take up to 8 hours, depending on the amount of final images and if our internet connection goes crazy or not (it’s never fun when that happens…), because by this step we’re soo ready to show the images, but we just have to be patient. :)
In Summary
If you do the approximate math, this all totals to around 3-4 weeks. We, personally, quote six weeks for delivery of wedding photos, because this doesn’t even include things like emails, phone conversations/consultations, writing blog posts, other weddings and sessions, as well as those sessions we’ve already shot that are at a earlier/higher priority in our working queue, and taking a day or two off from work (i.e. what we call “weekends”, though it may not actually fall on a weekend)! You can read Part 3 here – some thoughts on balancing art and business.
Recently, I have been telling a lot of people about my editing process and so I thought I would write it out for others to read here. It’s not uncommon for clients to wonder what actually happens to their photos after the wedding day, and I’ve had other photographer friends ask about my workflow. So here’s my response to those two questions in a three-part series of posts… sort of melded into one (and with some photos throughout for those of you who, like me, get bored reading a long post without any images).
I always photograph weddings with a second shooter (it’s almost always Kelly). Together, we end up shooting between 2000-3000 photos (a lot!) on the day of the wedding. Here’s what all happens to those images:
Step One – Back the Images Up (3-5 hours) It takes approximately 3-5 hours to upload all the images and back them up to a few different on-site hard drives and off-site storage locations. This is one of *the* most important things to us… something we are always tweaking in order to safeguard the photos as much as humanly possible. As photographers who have been shooting weddings for 5+ years, we understand how crucial basic elements such as back-up storage as well as back-up equipment are. Unfortunately, we learned the hard way with one of the first weddings we ever shot (for a friend, five years ago) when we *almost* (thank the Lord, only almost) lost images due to a hard drive failure. That being said, we make it a point to have each original image file in at least three locations (one off-site) before we ever delete the images off the memory card. And we’re nervous until they’re all fully copied. Are we freaks about backing-up? Yes, slightly totally.
Step Two – Cull (3-6 hours) Once they’re all on hard drives, we look at every single photo and we then, one by one, cull that number down to between 450-700 (deleting duplicate, blurry, closed eyes, or otherwise unflattering images). Why do we take so many to begin with? A few (of many) reasons: people blink, lighting varies, there are multiple people in some shots (and it’s tricky for everyone to always look great in each photo!), we like having a selection, and lastly – to make sure that we have fully captured the important details. Culling usually takes between 3-6 hours. Kelly is our culler. =)
Step Three – Sneak Peek Photo (1-2 hours)
We choose an image to post to our Facebook page as a favorite “sneak peek” photo for the couple and family/friends to see. (If you don’t already, you can follow us on Facebook if you’d like to see those updates.) We completely understand that it’s hard to wait to see the images, but it makes your life easier not having to look through thousands of photos – and our couples tell us that it really is worth the wait!
You can read Part 2 here – where I explain our post-processing details and Part 3 here – some thoughts on balancing art and business.
Taxes, you gotta love um… Not because they are fun, or enjoyable, or anything even close to that, but because in the process of filing them they force you to compile and analyze how you spent your money in the past year. And this is a good thing. So if you earn money as a photographer, and haven’t done your taxes yet for this year, or if you ever plan to do taxes again, you should definitely watch this short video:
And if you would rather read this info than watch the video, you can do that here.
Now, off to do my own! I always am perplexed at why I wait so long…
I was so excited to ship out my first wedding DVD of the year this week – not because it was done, but because I love the packaging so much! I searched for a long time to find packaging that integrates well with my brand and I am so satisfied with what I found.
