Often a consumer will say to a photographer, “Why should I pay ‘x’ amount for your 8×10 when it’s only $2.99 at a photo lab. Take a look at the two images below. The one on the left is what costs $2.99. It is a blank piece of photo paper that has been processed at a local photo lab. That’s what they sell. The image on the right is the same piece of photo paper with an image on it. What makes these two pieces of photo paper different? The image of course. What you’re really purchasing is the image not the paper.

What does it cost to have a photographer create this image for you? Let’s take a look:

Training. Good photography is not just clicking a button; there is technical training, understanding lighting, creative composition, experience and know how.

Gear. Photographers need to purchase the cameras, lenses, lighting, computers and software that let them create the images they do for you.

Time. Whether you travel to a studio or have a photographer meet you at your location, you are using your photographer’s valuable time. And after the image is captured, your photographer is spending more time, on your behalf, to download, process, retouch and order your photographs.

Creativity. Again, anyone can click a shutter button, but that is no guarantee there will be a beautifully composed image created.

Processing. The quality of print you get from a drug store mini lab is basically the bare minimum. A professional uses a quality lab with calibrated processors as well as quality finishing such textures, mounting and coatings to protect your precious images for decades to come.

Overhead. Why do you work where you do? Photographers choose to be photographers because they love their craft but also to make a living. The prints they sell also need to pay for their materials, rent, utilities, advertising, employees, taxes as well as their take home pay to pay their mortgage and support their family.

As you can see, there is a lot more that goes into the photograph on the right as compared to the blank piece of photo paper on the left. Without this, you won’t have your image. And, this is just the half of it. The other half is you and the memories that you’ve hired your photographer to capture. When will you get married again? When will your children be that age again? When will you celebrate that event again? The truth is never. The images you hire a photographer to capture are timeless. That’s why you hire a professional photographer, to document these once in a lifetime fleeting moments. Are they worth more than a $2.99 piece of photo paper? I think so.

The unpredictability of an outdoor summer wedding. Literally minutes before the ceremony it started to rain. The groomsmen hurried to put the chairs under the tent and the wedding planner, Chris Albrecht of Let’s Have an Affair, broke out the golf umbrellas for the everyone’s walk down the aisle.  Still a beautiful day and beautiful setting at the bride’s grandmother’s home in Chenequa, Wisconsin.

Keara and Sean had the perfect Wisconsin winter wedding except for one thing – there was no snow! Since we first met in June of 2010 as they were planning their December 2011 wedding, they had one major theme in mind, a winter wedding wonderland. With the unseasonably warm and dry December Southeastern Wisconsin was having, their plans were in jeopardy; fortunately we found a way to cheat Mother Nature.

For me,  their winter wedding planning actually started in February of 2011 when we took advantage of all of the snow to create a fun series of engagement photos. The fresh powdery snow of our engagement session was not to be for their wedding as there was barely a cloud in the sky and not even a dusting of snow on the ground.

Since their wedding took place in Lake Geneva, we knew we’d have a back up plan. The Grand Geneva, where they held their reception, has a ski hill. Thanks to a few days of cold weather the week before their wedding, the resort was able to make their own snow for Keara and Sean (as well as local skiers).

Despite the lack of snow outside, Keara created a beautiful winter theme inside with winter lights, bare branch centerpieces, LED lights and black and silver linens. The couple also added several personal touches such as Keara’s wedding gift to Sean.  She had Sean’s grandpa’s cuff links re-plated for him to wear for the wedding. As a special favor for guests, the two created a personal blend of coco powder for everyone to take home and make their own hot chocolate.  The evening was filled lots of love and stories about how the two met, fell in love and came upon that special day.  It was an energetic crowd too with everyone dancing late into the evening creating many wonderful memories.

Keara and Sean’s Slideshow

For this week’s photo I was thinking about my friends at the Professional Photographers of America Imaging USA convention being held in New Orleans. I wasn’t able to schedule being there this year but it got me thinking about the last time I was in New Orleans and walked through the 8th and 9th wards that were flooded out by hurricane Katrina.

In this image you see that thirty months after Katrina the citizens and volunteers were making progress but it was slow and labor intensive. Happily I know things have gotten better since I was there in 2008.

While they might not be on the radar for many of us, we should not forget the people of New Orleans or their devastation. We must also remember that change and recovery from a disaster of that magnitude cannot happen overnight. I do plan to go back and encourage everyone to do so. The people are great, the new homes are wonderful and the seafood is safe – enjoy!

Cake Slide Show

Often we capture the first kiss as husband and wife or the first kiss after a toast, it is a special moment. As a single image in time, the moment just before that kiss can be even more dynamic to view. We’re here, viewing this image, waiting in anticipation for this couple so in love to touch lips. Timing is everything when capturing the decisive moment.

From Tony Sleep: tonysleep.co.uk

“I receive an average of 2 proposals a week from people who have “no budget”  for photographs. Book publishers, magazines, newspapers, charities, corporates and start-ups nowadays all believe that photos are cost free, or that they are doing me a favour by offering to use my work and giving me a byline.

I no longer reply to such inquiries except by linking to this text.

Let’s be clear about a few things:

“No budget” is a euphemism for “we think photographers are mugs”. This offensive interpretation can easily be verifed by trying the phrase at your local restaurant, eg “I have no budget for dinner but I’d like to eat”. Adding a promise to tell all your friends where you ate will not deflect your head from the kerb as the manager throws you out.

Now imagine being a restaurant where  most people who come through the door try this on. The answer is NO, and I am being excessively polite.

If you didn’t really mean it and your “no budget” claim was just an opening bid, the answer is still NO. I want nothing to do with greedy opportunists who try to commence a negotiation with a lie. You have already demonstrated you cannot be trusted. You probably won’t be honest about usage, and will try not to pay.

And if you were one of those promising lots of better, paid work later, if only I can help you out now,  offer a contract else I’ll know you’re talking bullshit and the answer is of course NO.

You see I don’t want your stinking “exposure”, I want mutually beneficial, productive relationships with clients. I try to behave with  integrity, honesty and fairness, and I expect clients will do likewise. Exposure is the end of that process, not a means. Similarly with bylines.  I don’t require applause earned by being a sucker. If free matters more than good, ask someone else.

Like most people I work because I need to pay bills and support myself, my work and my family. The fact that I love what I do is why I have spent 40 years persevering whilst going without stuff most people take for granted. Vocation is not an invitation to disrespect.

Unsurprisingly I will not support parasitic business models that rely on exploiting photography, or me,  to extinction. With very rare exceptions (small charities run by unpaid volunteers that I choose to support) I have no budget for subsidising other peoples’ work and profitability. Supporting my own is next to impossible thanks to the current vogue for passing off exploitation as opportunity.

When I can afford it, I will drop a few quid into a charity box or give to a homeless person on the street. I regularly work for charities at a discounted rate. I look after baby birds that have fallen out of nests. I am a generous, kind and loving human being. But I  make an exception for salaried beggars who ask me to stuff a bundle of tenners in their pocket. They just piss me off. Especially when they insult me by telling me my life’s work is jolly nice but worthless.

I have had the most amazing conversations with numerous chancers who think decent photos are just some sort of serendipity that they should be entitled to freely earn off because electrons don’t cost much. One woman, a CEO of a £3.3m/yr organisation, explained that they like to use photos on their website because readers tell them that images communicate on a more accessible level than the text she commissions from her paid writers. So the value of photos was not in question. But she could not understand that perhaps she ought to use some of her £160,000 year website budget (I looked up their accounts on the web) to pay for photos. She could not understand that the photo she wanted to use only existed because I had invested time and money and learning in creating it. “Most photographers are happy to let us use their work for free”. Oh no they aren’t. They just didn’t go and look at her accounts and see that this woman was on £66k a year salary and ask why she didn’t work for the same rate she was shamelessly demanding.

Supply without payment is, of course, only viable for hobbyist photographers who don’t need an income from their photography. They have salaried jobs, pensions or private incomes, or perhaps suicidal romantic tendencies. I do not. They have a selfish attitude to destroying the sustainability of photography as a profession which they call “beating the pro’s at their own game”. Moreover a byline might appeal to their idiot vanity. I suggest you ask one of them. Alternatively find a new graduate or student to exploit – they are desperate and naive, and you have the opportunity to add to their crippling student debt by saving yourself a few quid.

If all this  means you can’t source the images you want, that is just tough. I can’t source free cameras, computers, software, food, housing, fuel, either. If it’s all so damn easy and cheap, go and make your own photos.

If all this offends you, best stay away from mirrors too.”

The three top features couples are looking for in their wedding photography are black and white imagery, a candid or documentary style, and having an engagement session (TheWeddingReport.com). I am happy to say that these are three features that I have been offering for years. I established myself as a wedding photojournalist specializing in black and white photography in the pre-digital era when I was required to work with multiple film cameras to ensure the best quality B&W images along with the requisite color portraits. Today, digital photography makes it easier to get high quality B&W and color photographs from the same digital file.

I have also always offered complimentary engagement sessions to all of my clients. These sessions aren’t just for providing couples a set of images to announce their engagement, they are opportunities to express themselves, get comfortable in front of the camera and build a rapport with me. I encourage everyone to take advantage of the opportunity.

The three hottest photo trends are photo booths, wedding trailers and trash the dress sessions. Realize however, that less than 20% of couples are opting for a photo booth and less than 10% want wedding trailers or trash the dress sessions. What is notable is that these items did see the biggest percentage increase in demand over the past two years.

Currently I don’t offer a photo booth service as my focus is to document a couple’s wedding day. I started offering trash the dress sessions in 2008. It is quite a bit of fun to go around town and take photos in non-wedding locations and poses but getting your gown dirty or wet is not for everyone. The wedding trailers are a lot of fun too and fit into the new trend of fusion video. I created my first trailer last year with the help of a videographer friend. We took my engagement photos along with video from the session and created a wonderful “save the date” video for the couple to post and send to family and friends. Click this link or check it out below.

These wedding trailers lead to what I think will be the biggest game changer in the wedding photography industry since the digital camera. Fusion video is here and it’s hot. I will always be a fan of still photography. I think it captures a moment and is a cue for memories unlike any video. But by combining a couple’s best images with select video clips and audio, you can produce a six to eight minute video slide show that is unlike any album or full length video. I am excited to begin offering these videos in 2012 and look forward to sharing them online and in your homes.

Keara & Sean’s Engagement from Darrell Boeck on Vimeo.

As a photographer, you’d expect me to tell you to spend as much as possible. Saying that won’t help you make an informed decision, so let’s look at some data.  According to The Wedding Report, the average amount spent on wedding photography with an album is $2,261. You can add extra things like parent albums, additional photos and photo CDs for $200-$300 per item.  Typically couples spend 7% – 10% of their budget on photography.  This fits with the average wedding costing between $20,000 and $30,000.

While this may give you a ballpark, but it doesn’t tell you anything about the quality of photography you’ll be receiving or the person behind the camera.  When looking for a photographer, I tell couples to look at three things: Photographic Style; the Photographer’s Personality; and lastly, the Photography Package.

There many different styles of photography these days. This is great as it lets you find the photographic style that best fits your tastes. Do you like more traditional images, more fashion or editorial images or more candid, documentary styled images? A good wedding photographer will be able to handle each style but will focus on one, pick the one that you like best.

Today’s cameras are amazing in what they can capture. But it still takes a person to properly compose, light and capture each moment of your day in a professional yet creative manner. I have heard too many stories from people who got quality photos but can’t stand looking at them because of the memories of the person behind the camera and how he or she affected their day. Make sure the person you hire is someone you will feel comfortable being with, someone who will listen to your needs and requests and who will treat you, your guests and the sacredness of your day with the respect you deserve.

Finally there is the package. These can be as varied as the personalities of different photographers. What is it that you want and need?  Having a skilled, experienced and creative photographer is the key to preserving the memories of your day. This might be an intangible now, but years from now it will make all of the difference. Don’t forget the album either. A disk in a drawer does nothing to help you remember your special day. Sure getting your disk of images is important, but it is merely insurance; printed and bound images are how you will be able to relive this most joyous occasion.

So how much should you spend on your photography? There is no easy answer. You can find fine artists and craftspeople at nearly every price level.  Look for their passion and intelligence. You want a professional and not a hobbyist. Finding the right one for you will take some effort but it will be well worth it when you’re sharing your images with family and friends at your silver and gold anniversaries.

The couple was just pronounced husband and wife.  Rose pedals were not only tossed over the bride and groom but were the featured flower of the day. The grounds and mansion make a lovely location for a more intimate event.

As a photographer this is one of the most joyous parts of the day – the stress of the ceremony is over, they’re officially married and it’s time to party.