The digital age has brought many wonderful advances, features and benefits to the world of wedding photography. With digital technologies, and proper training, I can now create same-day wedding slide shows, quickly post images on-line, handle all of my own retouching, apply wonderful effects to my images and create wonderful books and albums.  And in one sense, digital photography has saved me (and my clients) some expenses in that I don’t have to buy film or have proof prints made any more. In another sense, however, digital has ended up costing me a bit more.

I still have my film cameras from the late 1980s and the work just fine and I would trust them in a heart beat to do the job if needed (I’d also trust myself to get the shot on film even though I cannot see the image on the playback screen). But with digital, I am now on my fourth camera in the last seven years and these cameras are much more expensive than my film cameras.

The real cost of digital, however, is the time commitment I now make to my images. In the past I would just drop off my film, have properly exposed and color balanced proofs made, edit out the ones I didn’t like, have my clients pick their favorites, have the lab make enlargements and my album company mount the enlargements into an album – not as much hands on for me. Today, I am editing many more images, I am backing up images, color correcting my own images, uploading my images and designing my own digital album layouts. Now I do like the added control digital gives me but it does take a lot more time, and if I am going to continue to eat, pay rent, have a car, buy health insurance, advertise and pay for all of these wonderful toys, then I have to charge for my time and talents (as should any professional).

Where I see great dis-service in the wedding photography world is the photographers who don’t want to follow through with those extra services to provide better images within a professionally designed album and the brides who think they are getting a “deal” by hiring a photographer who simply hands over a disc.  Don’t let seeing your wedding images that evening or having a disc the next day fool you, quality wedding photography is about creativity, photographic skills and service, not the hype and flash of  having instant wedding images.

I have always said that capturing the image is only part of the story. Presenting the image, be it beautifully framed for the wall, or designed into a storybook album, is equally as important. I know all too well from research and discussions with brides that (unless they are a graphic designer) do not have the time, patience or skill sets to edit hundreds of images, color balance them, apply proper effects or retouching, design a pleasing layout and have a book produced that is of the quality deserved by these once-in-a-lifetime images. This is what we professional do.

Now it is true that I operate Albums for You, an album design, print and bind service for the bride who has decided to work with a “shoot and burn” photographer. As much as I would love more album business, I would much rather see photographers offer the full service of tending to their images from beginning to end with thoughtful editing, quality controls, creative design and a beautiful book that a couple can cherish and show off for the rest of their lives.

For the bride-to-be, I cannot stress enough the importance of hiring a full-service professional photographer who will create for you a finished album. Sure you can still have a disc of your images, but don’t short change yourself and do the dis-service of not working with someone who will provide you with that storybook album. The short-term savings will most certainly lead to long term disappointment when all that you have from your wedding day, is a shiny plastic disc.