FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What type of equipment do you use?

I upgrade/replace my equipment fairly often, so by the time your event comes, chances are that I’ll have something newer and hopefully better than what I have now. Currently I shoot with Canon digital SLRs – two Canon 7Ds and a Canon 50D. I have 7 lenses, 2 Canon 580EX II flashes, 2 AlienBees B800 studio lights, PocketWizard wireless transmitters/triggers and a ton of other equipment.

How long before I get my photographs?

It usually takes 3-4 weeks to cull, color-correct and edit your photographs. Once the photographs are edited, I will create a web album for you and your family and notify you by email. Proofs take another 7-10 business days after all the editing has been completed. Album completion varies the number of photographs, album pages and the printing company. You can read a bit more about my editing process here.

How experienced is your second photographers?

I never hire a second shooter with less than 5 years of professional photography experience. Most of the time I try to work with photographers whose style is very different from mine – this way you can enjoy two different perspectives on your special event.

Will I see all photographs from my event?

Probably not. Between my assistant and myself we usually walk away with approximately 2000 frames. Do you really want to look through that many photographs? A few days after your event we’ll start going through the digital files and narrowing the selection down to about 400-500 really good shots. Those are the ones that will be edited and handed over to you on a USB flash drive.

Do you have liability insurance?

Absolutely! You should never ever hire a vendor who does not carry liability insurance. Besides, quite a few venues nowdays actually won’t allow vendors to work on their premises without liability insurance.

What about backups?

I have backups upon backups upon backups! I have 10 CompactFlash memory cards that range from 8GB to 16GB in size. Once a card is full, either myself or my assistant immediately backs it up to my laptop. At the end of your event we’ll back everything up to an external harddrive – by the time I get home I have your photos in 3 places. At home I back up your photos to a 2TB RAID array. At the end of each month I do another backup of everything to another set of harddrives that are kept offsite.

Why are photographers so expensive? I’ve seen ads on Craigs list where photographers will photograph my entire wedding for $500.00

This question has been discussed on numerous forums and blogs for years. Over the last 5 or 6 years, the cost of digital cameras has gone down significantly; nowadays virtually everyone can afford an entry level digital SLR. While most people who step up from a point-and-shoot to an SLR use their cameras to enjoy and explore photography, there are some who decide to use their new toys to make extra money on weekends.

Unfortunately, most of these weekend warriors think that weddings are the easiest way to make money. Corporate and advertizing photography jobs are difficult to come by without the right contacts, experience and an extensive portfolio. Brides and grooms, on the other hand, make a much easier target. More often than not they are so dazzled by the bargain price tag that they don’t even bother to check the 500-dollar-photographer’s portfolio and references. They don’t bother to ask about experience and equipment; $500 vs, $3,000 – $5,000 that established photographers charge is alas enough for brides and grooms to trust their wedding to a total stranger.

Every year I get three or four clients who trusted their wedding to a 500-dollar-photographer. This June a woman called me in tears – she met with me a year ago but decided to go with a friend’s brother who offered to photograph her wedding for $300.00. We met and she showed me the photographs and asked me if there was anything else I could do to make them better. As I started looking through the files in Adobe Bridge I realized that the entire wedding was photographed with a Nikon D40. The pop-up flash was on in all indoor shots and the camera never left the AUTO mode. I did the best I could with the photos, but there is only so much on can do with Photoshop. In the end, she put on her wedding dress, her husband rented a tuxedo and we spent a couple of hours restaging some of the scenes that should have been recorded on her special day.

Does this happen to everyone who hires a 500-dollar photographer from Craigs List or asks a relative or a friend to photograph their wedding? Probably not. I’ve met plenty of amateur photographers who take amazing photographs with the most basic of equipment. But photographers like that are few and far between; most of the time you really get what you pay for.

Mary of BirchTree Photography wrote an excellent primer on wedding photography prices – it is well worth the read.

Do you do destination weddings?

Absolutely! If your wedding is within reasonable driving distance and is farther than 50 miles of Pittsburgh, I charge $40 per hour of travel I am on the road. These fees cover my time, gas, mileage, meals, etc… If I have to fly to your wedding, you would be responsible for covering the cost of airfare, rental car and hotel. I also charge a $50 per day for meals and other minor expenses (parking, gas, etc…)

Should I hire a videographer?

It is surprising how many people ask me this question. When brides and grooms plan their wedding, hiring a videographer is usually the last item on their to-do list. It seems like brides and grooms want to wait and see how much money they have left in their budgets before making the decision on whether to hire a professional videographer or to ask uncle Bob to chronicle their wedding with a Flip.

When asked for advice on whether or not it is worth to hire a videographer, I always answer that if you are going to hire one, hire someone amazing. When I got married, I relegated the responsibility for hiring the videographer to my mother; as a result, we got 4 hours of unedited footage on VHS. Hiring someone simply because they have a high-end camera or worked in editing or television usually leads to a final product that no one will ever watch. Like with many things in life, with videography you really get what you paid for.

When hiring a videographer, ask to look at the final product, not at raw footage of a wedding. A good videographer can make your wedding story into a movie that will turn any Hollywood producer green with envy.

Don’t fall for videos with a lot of flashy effects and transitions – those gimmicks are available in any low-end video-editing software such as the iMovie or Sony Vegas; adding spinning and blinking transitions between video segments are usually a good indicator of lack of editing skills.

Over the years, I’ve worked with quite a few videographers – some do absolutely amazing work and create incredible memories that you and your children will cherish for years to come. Unfortunately, there are “others” who will turn your wedding day into a cheap reality show and you will be unlikely to ever watch your wedding video.

If you are considering hiring a videographer for your wedding, hire someone who is really good; I’ll be happy to give you names of a couple of true professionals.

Why do you have Tupperware on your flash?

By the way, I’m not kidding. Someone asks me that question at virtually every event I’ve photographed in the last couple of years.

Well, the Tupperware in question is called a diffuser – it softens the light from my flash and eliminates harsh shadows that are more often than not produced by point-and-shoot cameras. I have about 4 different diffusers and softboxes that go on my flashes, depending on the type of job I need to do. The one that looks like Tupperware is called the Gary Fong Lightsphere (http://www.garyfongestore.com/flash-accessories.html)