Blog is back

I had turned off the blog for a little while but now am ready to fire it up again. I have been looking back over the last wedding and portrait season to evaluate what worked, what could be improved, and where I want to go with it. I am starting to get a sense of my style and the work I enjoy. I think there is a lot I can offer clients in terms of making nice images of them and their love ones. I believe this is important work and hope during the coming year to tune my product more to fit the needs of my friends and clients. It may sound obvious but I want to be creating something clients want.

I do photography part time at this stage and originally focused on portrait work, then during the last wedding season started getting experience in that field. I am now preparing for the coming year (still part time, I enjoy my day job) and see my self as a family photographer, which is really both those areas. Perhaps our first contact is when I get commissioned for your wedding, but I also want to photograph important milestones in family life so keep an eye for that type of work too, I hope to show it more. Looking forward to it.

Happy photographer, happy clients

It is a funny thing going down a well trodden path like wedding photography. There are expectations by clients and expectations by others in the market that are hard to see past. Overall I have noticed there is a lot of pressure to be like everyone else, to be average. I dont think that is a bad thing, but it does mean eventually everything comes down to price. Being about price is not a good thing if I am trying to work toward being remarkable. It limits the time I can spend on things, the materials/tools I use, the deliverable, and the type of market I target.

I guess it might seem a bit out of turn to say, as a new person starting out in wedding photography, but I dont want to be average or delivering just enough to keep clients happy and get the money. When I look at people who inspire me it is not typical/average people. When I look at my work and say it isn't good enough yet, it is not because it isn't good compared to my local market, but becasue it isnt where I know it could be after seeing the possibilities from others work. I am exhibiting in the next wedding expo in Hamilton at the end of June. The deadline has really got me thinking about where I want to go and how to get there. The type of bookings I will take, the product and service I offer will mean committing for the next year to a certain path... and I am not going to average.

I have a couple of months to work the details out before the show but the jist is that I want offer a good solid product, and then sneakily over deliver with a remarkable product and service. Everyone says that I guess, but to make sure I do it I am thinking I will limit the number of jobs I take so that I can spend more time preparing and doing the post event work to take the deliverable up a few levels. This coming wedding season is going to be a time of learning for me, and getting skill up to the next level so I will be charging a relatively "average" rate, but am intending to treat each client to the full service. It sounds counter intuitive and I think what I have in mind will turn many clients away, but I also think if I take less jobs, do amazing work on each, then that will take me forward to where I want to be faster that the tradditional paths... time will tell :)

Oh, and if you are like me then lets make contact to encourage each other.

Facebook images

I get the question now and then about why I put pictures from a session out on Facebook over a period of time, rather than all at once in a gallery. The reason is to do with my time commitments. I also have a full job I love, family, and other things that require my time. This result is me having on average about 1-2 hours per day for photography. If I shoot a wedding, it might be 5 hours of shooting time and roughly 20-30 hours of editing depending on the deliverable required. I like to put a little something up on my Facebook page everyday so this means I post one of the images while I am editing the session each evening after the kids are in bed.

I guess I could do a big post once a week or two, but personally I think Facebook works better in little regular nibbles. Perhaps if I was working as a photographer full time then I would have the volume of jobs and processed images to be able to put up finished sessions in one go, I am not sure? I am still trying to find the right balance between moving my wedding photography forward in a sustainable way and my other commitments, perhaps that means to post less frequently. It is a tricky balance and I don’t know the answer to it just yet?

Desmond and Lisa

I had a fun couples session with Desmond and Lisa down by the river. These are just a nice relaxed way to get some beautiful images for them. We tried to go for some natural type of shots showing them larking about :)

Frances's style shoot

Frances recently had her hair and makeup done, got dressed up, and we made some photographs. It was a a nice relaxed fun session and she was a super model.

One thing I have been wanting to try for ages was an outfit flying material coming off of it, and she had the perfect dress to give this a go. Quite keen to give something like this a go again, but in a more dramatic location, or perhaps a studio.

Paul and Cristal's wedding

What a fantastic wedding Paul and Cristal had in Rotorua. A classic car, everyone dressed up and a fun time with family and friends. Here are a couple of hightlights from the wedding day.

Hair and makeup style shoot

I got to participate in a really fun style shoot recently. It involved three hair and makup "looks", provided by Kylie-Ann and Maria. This first lovely model is Shafiza. For her I decided to go for a nice clean head-shot to show off the makeover work. If you click on the photo then you will see a few more stylised images including a really nice classic black and white. 

One cool thing about style shoots is I get a chance to control the lighting a bit more than is customary at weddings. It can be done but I have found it takes a bit more setting up so is hard to work into the timeline on a busy day (might be fun to do a bride and groom like this though?) 

Trash the dress - Emma :)

So yay, my first trash the dress session, wahoo! The set you will see if you click on the image is from Emma's shoot. It started with hair and makeup, then some nice relaxed pretty shots before we hit the paint/water, heh heh. I think I will just let the pictures tell the story so click on the one below to link through to the gallery.

Posing people

I think I am having a bit of a photographic breakthrough right now. Funnily, it has happened because of a few experiences that initially were a bit discouraging.

What looks good/beautiful and how do I make it happen

I have been pretty lucky with my wedding partners to this point. They have generally been super talented at posing and getting people to naturally look good photographically. As the second shooter I have had a passive role while they directed the subjects. I would look for and respond to what was happening, but not really think about "making" the shots happen. So it is an interesting transition as I start to take on the main photographer role, I now need to direct. I have been finding most people want to be told what to do and how to act in front of the camera, which is my new job.

So now that I am in charge I am finding myself posing in a cliche way. I have tended to go to safe poses that I think they will like or that I have learned from wedding trainers, rather than what I naturally find beautiful. Its OK, the images look good, but it is hard work and I can do better.

Sooo what to do...

The trouble is, I don't know how to develop this skill (knowing what I like, and getting those images). I recognise amazing images when I see them in front of me, but how do I create it (fast for wedding's too). Here is one idea. In the last couple of days I am doing an exercise in my mind. I have started looking really closely at people around me and trying to visualise how that person would look amazing in the place I see them (mostly walking to and from work). The second part would be to imagine what I would say to get them to move into that pose. So this begs a question, what does it mean to "look amazing". I think the answer is a personal thing but need to think about it and get a strong sense of it or I wont be able to help create it.

I don't have the answer (although I suspect it is image emotional content rather than classical physical beauty), but I see it as an important thing and am working on moving through this problem... ask me again in a year :) I feel like I am on the brink of an exciting period in the "way" I shoot, yay

Lighting Practice

I had a chance to do some lighting practice last night. It was fun to try some thing out without being under the pressure of a wedding day. The model was Stacey and the season was the Snapshot (local store) lighting demonstration. This was a chance to tryout gear and techniques to see if I am interested in purchasing it for my own wedding workflow. I was really pleased with the results.