Month: August 2019

I Like Photography Because It’s Perfection

Inspiration

In a boundless world full of life and people and action and movement happening in an endless constant every instant, my task feels simple: fill a 2 x 3 rectangular frame, and capture. It’s entirely my choice what to fill it with, and the possibilities are delightfully endless. You can add–or subtract–anything your heart desires. Color. Contrast. Intense, sharp drama. Sparkle. Beauty. Excitement. Sweet, nuanced emotion.

When you’re holding the camera, you’re in charge, which means you have complete control of the orthogonally shaped box where 22.3 Megapixels will be swiftly preserved in multitudinous quantities. I painstakingly pick what’s special and what sits inside my picture. I create the rules. I choose the light, the tone, the angles and the presence or absence of any and all form. Then, later, I alter and meddle until it’s exactly what I want, until it’s precisely how I envisioned it in my head. It can be an exhaustive undertaking.

I’ve done it for so long that it’s now familiar on an instinctual level; I know how I prefer the smallest details in minute ways I could never verbally convey. It’s ambling into a room and surveying the light like it’s a tangible object. It’s immediate, automatic previsualization for composition and the slight, specific angles I hold the camera, in a manner that doesn’t even always make sense to me–but sometimes you just know, and it just feels right. It’s the way I can work my Canon with my eyes closed (and, once, inebriated, but I’ll save that story for later).

I drag the bundle of pixels into Photoshop and begin my surgery. Observe the mess and mayhem. Begin work. Spot remove the imperfections. Adjust the color balance, smooth things out. Scrutinize. Carve out the important pieces; let the rest melt away. Make it clean. Precise. Intentional.

I find an absolute perfectness in the chaos of it all: the way the human face and figure will never be exactly symmetrical. How ordinary light can create enchanting and extraordinary photographs. The way nothing can be replicated ever again. The feeling you get when all the elements come together faultlessly and are captured exactly as you envisioned.

The odds of getting a flawless, immaculate shot are almost none, and yet I still wake up every day in search of another, no matter how elusive. It’s an art form of creation not quite like anything else, and it’s become a part of who I am. And for a girl in a constant strive for perfection, sometimes, during brief moments of magic, she achieves it, and contained within the lines, according to her, is something beautiful. Something perfect.

Moving To NYC

Inspiration

I always had a feeling that I didn’t quite fit in, in Callaway County, MO, Population 44,000, but it started to become extra obvious around my preteen years. While other girls were decorating their rooms with butterflies and stars, I filled canvases with skyscrapers and pictures of the Eiffel and the Arc de Triomph. I asked my parents for supplies to learn knitting and screen printing and video editing and painting, and once they put the camera in my hand, it never left. 

My mom had given it to me to take pictures at a concert, but while I was waiting in line, I saw a lady wearing a gorgeous cream-colored sun hat with colorful beads on the rim, just barely covering her eyes, and I took a picture of her face. When I showed my mom, she scolded me, saying, “Gaby, stop taking pictures of strangers!” She didn’t understand yet, but I did. Even then, I knew I wanted to capture people, to make them timeless, to show the beauty in life, to show the essence of being human. It wasn’t until almost a decade later, in college, when I was told the word for what I was creating: portraits. 

Some kids ask for a car on their 16th birthday. I asked to take a trip to New York City. I stepped onto the concrete playground and fell in love. I walked around Manhattan with wonder and Central Park in awe. It was even better than I’d hoped. I knew I wanted to live there. And now, somehow, my dream is finally coming true. Today is the day. My plane leaves Lambert in an hour. But it’s still pretty scary. I just want to find a place to call home in the creative world where I know I belong, because, for my artistic side, that place was never Missouri.

I cant wait for the adventures, the art, the creating and hating and loving and funny moments and small still silences and the crazy bustling streets and coffeeshops and the overwhelming sense of movement and life and progression and finding yourself and getting lost on the way and everything in between. A city I love, a craft I love, and time. Fingers crossed. 

As I paid for my one-way ticket to LaGuardia airport, I had to chuckle, because it asked, “Business or Personal?” It’s both.

Success Tips For Emerging Creatives

Inspiration, photography tips

I know what you’re thinking: here we go, another one of those vague articles about how to be successful that doesn’t actually explain anything at all, except ending with some inspirational quote like, “the world is yours, so get out there and do something!” They’re kind of inspiring, but also never really say what you’re actually supposed to do. Well, this week is my one year anniversary of being a college graduate, and so far the real world has taught me a lot more about failure than success. So I thought I’d write about what I’ve learned thus far, in hopes that other young creatives might find it helpful.

Stop Comparing Yourself. First of all, in creative careers especially, your definition of success will most likely be wildly different from someone else’s, even in the same field. As a creative, you can’t compare yourself to other people. My graphic designer and illustrator friends are amazing, but they do a totally different job than me, a photographer. You should appreciate the value of the other people in your team, but you do a highly specialized and individualized job, too, and that’s worth a lot. And just because you have less experience doesn’t mean you’re any less of a professional. That’s something I had to learn to accept. When I’m bidding jobs against other photographers who have ten or twenty years more experience than me, I have to be confident in my craft (that, or fake it ’til you make it).

Identify What You’re Trying to Achieve. As a freelancer first starting out, it can be especially difficult and confusing to determine where to even begin. Should you make connections? Advertise yourself? Do a few free jobs to get your name out there? The most important thing you need to do is figure out what you’re trying to achieve. What’s your end goal? Analyze your objectives and determine what quantifiable steps you can take to move toward them.

For me right now, as an emerging photographer, success means networking, making connections, promoting myself and getting new opportunities. Once you have that outlined, you can make an action plan. Sometimes small steps make the biggest difference. For example, to get my name out there, I made some flyers of my images and my Instagram username and posted them in areas around London that I knew models and makeup artists would see them. It took an hour of my time, and around $15 to get color prints, and I’m still getting emails from designers to shoot their lookbooks and new collections.

Say Yes, and Keep Saying Yes. Since I’ve been in London, I made a little deal with myself. I agreed that I would accept all the shoots that I’m offered, even if it’s not my specific niche of fashion portraiture. In the past few months, I have shot concerts, a designer handbag collection, street style for a fashion blogger, red carpet events, and even the London Fashion Week runway. It totally pushed me out of my comfort zone, and every single one of those shoots taught me something new. 

My point is this: while new opportunities can be terrifying, they are are important, if not crucial to expanding your knowledge and skill set. Those shoots made me think outside the box and determine creative solutions that I had never dealt with before. Besides cultivating a deeper understanding of your craft, those kinds of skills will be useful in any potential future job. That’s why I think it’s highly important to say yes, even if that particular job isn’t specifically part of your end goal.

Put In the Work, and Work Hard. This one might seem obvious, but from observing my peers in the industry, I think it’s a pretty underrated and necessary step. You have to put in the work. You will have long shoot days and late nights editing. You’ll have to carry a reflector and sometimes get coffee for people, but it’s not for nothing. It’s propelling you closer to that end goal, even if you can’t see it just yet. For example, I assisted for a photographer in London on a one-day shoot, and it wasn’t a big deal, but I made sure to be as helpful and cheerful as possible on set. A few months later, he came back to London to do a cover shoot with a big magazine, and he asked me to assist again. Because of that, I met the entire creative team of that magazine and was able to make connections with them.

Every opportunity leads to another one, if you let it. You just have to be paying attention. You can have all the talent in the world, but if you aren’t putting effort into actively promoting yourself and trying to get clients and make contacts, they won’t come to you. You have to go to them. You have to be a little pushy sometimes. Make calls to agencies, send a lot of emails, and accept that you’re going to get a lot of rejection replies. They will still sting a little, but it hurts less each time. Send more.

So, while I can’t tell you that adding all the editors of Vogue on LinkedIn will be a guaranteed way for you to make new connections in the fashion industry, I can tell you from personal experience that if you try these tips, you will be pushing yourself and making tangible strides toward the success you want to achieve. And the most rewarding part is that you’ll meet some really talented and likeminded people along the way.

Living Abroad + Creative Problem Solving

Inspiration

As I strolled into the train station at precisely 8:21 am this morning in Newcastle, England, I checked the departures board to find what platform my 8:59 train was leaving from. And then, at the top, I saw it in big, bold letters: Cancelled. A train was derailed in Edinburgh, so my train was not coming for me anymore. Slight panic. Here I was, standing alone in a train station in a foreign city, and my ride back was currently nonexistent. This meant I was officially stuck in Newcastle for the rest of the morning, except that plan wasn’t going to work, because I had a mandatory class to attend in London. I quickly scanned the board. Think. I noticed there was another train going to King’s Cross, but it was leaving in 4 minutes! Could I make that? It would be a risk. I looked for the ticketing desk, but it was still closed since it was early in the morning. That wasn’t going to help. So, I did the only think I could think to do. I ran to platform 3 just as the train was pulling up. A few brisk strides and long breaths later, I found the nearest ticket attendant, who handed me off to another ticket attendant at the other end of the train. I swiftly explained my circumstance, and asked if there was any way I could get my ticket switched to this earlier train. Luckily, she told me that we could sort it all out on board, so I hopped on, literally seconds before the train rolled out of the station. Exhale. I breathed a sigh of relief. Who knew it was going to be such an adventurous morning?!

Originally from central Missouri, I’m currently living in London for the next 12 months, and through my time here so far, I’ve noticed how living abroad has strengthened my creative problem solving skills in a multitude of ways. You have to be able to adapt to change quickly, think on your feet, analyze the situation, and make a decision. For me this morning, that all happened in the span of a few minutes. But in a less extreme way, that kind of cognitive dexterity is constantly being developed every day, from planning ahead, organizing, and deciphering maps in foreign places to calculating train routes and travel plans. London public transport is wonderful, but it’s not always reliable, and never on time. I’m constantly evaluating, rerouting, determining the best options, and creating new solutions to problems that arise. Instead of panicking when I realized my train was cancelled, I took action to resolve the issue in an immediate way, and I don’t know if I would have had the same mindset, had I been home in my comfort zone in America. 

Even though that was just a small example, I’m convinced that living abroad can help develop a lot of skills that will have a real-life, practical impact. Things like being flexible, creative, and willing to rapidly formulate a new plan when thing change. Being able to discover, interpret, investigate, surmise. All of these get tested at a new level. I believe that travel can not only pull you out of your safety net and show you experiences more incredible than you could have imagined, but the skill set and competence you will develop will be invaluable, and make you a better person. A more understanding, innovate, focused, creative person, who can see things in complex, multi-faceted ways. For me, the takeaway from this experience is that we have a lot to learn from the world around us, if we can be willing to expand our minds and try new things. And if all that doesn’t convince you, do it for the gelato.

How to Properly Store Your Digital Files

photography tips

Moving into the digital age, film isn’t the dominate photography medium anymore. We don’t have physical negatives that can be kept in a filing cabinet for when we need to make copies. Instead, we have thousands of digital files that don’t even exist outside of pixels and file extensions. Just like in life, it’s good to have a back up plan. And with photography, it’s not just a good idea, it’s entirely necessary.

Think of all the money invested in your gear, your time, and your photo shoots. But more than that, think about the images that are simply irreplaceable. The big production beach shoot with six models that cost a fortune. The bride and groom’s first kiss right as the sun was setting. You can never recreate those moments. And you can’t take the risk of losing them, either.

Backing up and storing your digital files is definitely not the fun, flashy part of photography. But it will save you if anything were to happen. You know that horrific moment when you realize that you just formatted your SD card without checking to see if all of those files were backed up? When you are searching for that one edit and you can’t find it anywhere? What do you do when your memory card becomes corrupt, as they occasionally do? Your Mac crashes, your laptop gets stolen? This is to protect you from all of that.

My philosophy is that it’s way better to be safe than sorry. So, here’s my photo file storage workflow. To start, every year, I get two matching 2 Terabyte hard drives and label them with my name and the year. Then I make a folder for every month. Then, after each shoot, I make a folder with the name of the shoot and the date and copy the files over. No matter if they still have a lot of space left or not, come December, a final copy gets made onto a separate (third) drive. Then, one copy stays with me, and the other drives get archived into storage in the safest place in my house: a fire proof room.

So let’s start right after the photoshoot. You have memory cards full of huge files, all waiting to be sorted, processed, and adjusted in post. First, before going through any images, I copy all the raw files onto both of the external drives. They are identical back ups. If I dropped one on accident, the other one would have my back.

Then, I edit. Lightroom, Photoshop, Bridge, whatever your workflow is. After the white balance is correct and the curves layers are adjusted to perfection, it’s time to back up the final shots. I upload those to my website, which functions as an online backup, as well. The client gets the files, too, depending on the contract we have agreed on. And then, the final images are copied within the folder of the raw images on each external drive. That’s a minimum of four places that the files are stored.

I also make sure to do a Time Machine backup of my laptop every week, because I’m constantly keeping my current projects on my desktop. Last year, my Macbook Pro died after living a long(ish) six years of life with me. But when the screen went black for the final time, my contents were backed up and everything was saved once I restored the new computer as a Time Machine back up. This will be a lifesaver one day, I promise.

The external drives work best for me as a backup system because they are small and portable, and don’t need to be plugged in, so I can take them on set or throw them in my backpack when I’m editing. Lots of people do more online backup, or a second computer drive, or flash drives, or CD’s, or memory cards. It doesn’t matter how you back up your files, as long as you aren’t leaving them in just once place (you’re making me nervous). Because technology will inevitably fail, or crash, or die, and along with it will go your files.

Some people keep their images randomly, one on a drive, some on Dropbox, others online, just the final edits here, the raw images there, etc. Don’t do that. It’s crucial to your workflow to be organized and dedicated to backing up files. No matter if it’s a bride you photographed five years ago that’s calling to ask for a canvas print of one of their wedding photos, or a magazine that wants to include one of your old shots in high res for their new issue, you have to have the files stored and you have to know precisely where they are. No exceptions.

In this digital age of photography, having a backup AND a backup of the backup is essential. Technology is amazing, but it can also delete all your years of hard work in a matter of seconds. It might sound like I’m being a bit meticulous with all the backups, but I promise you that you will exhale with relief when just one of these backups saves you just one time. It’s worth it, for the peace of mind when you are formatting your memory cards. For when you power down your laptop at the end of the day and know that the images you care about, that you are working so hard to make, are safe and secure.

PS: It takes time to keep everything organized and backed up, and it’s part of the job. So don’t feel bad about including an archival fee when sending an estimate to your clients.

Finding Inspiration In New Places

Inspiration

I’ve been in London almost a month, and I’ve barely unpacked my camera. I’ve settled into my flat, successfully navigated the Underground to make it to my fashion photography courses, and even managed to make some friends and go out with them. But I haven’t been taking any photos.

At first, I was getting a bit exasperated with myself. I’m a photographer in London and I can’t find anything to photograph? What’s wrong with me? But sometimes when you are in a brand new place, it can be overwhelming. I haven’t had any big ideas for conceptual shoots yet, and at first, that freaked me out. I wondered, where had the inspiration gone?

It’s not that I wasn’t interested or inspired; actually, it was quite the opposite. I’ve been going to art galleries–Tate Modern, The Royal Academy, Bjork Digital at Sommerset House. I was being inspired, I was just overwhelmed. Sometimes your headspace can get so full of absorbing what’s around you or being busy with routine tasks that it can feel like there isn’t any room for creativity or inspiration.

I often find that when I’m in need of an inspiration increase, it’s because I haven’t been giving enough attention to working on creative projects. While some things just have to be done during the day–work, cooking dinner, answering emails, binge watching Stranger Things— I think it’s important to carve out some time to focus on your creativity. It doesn’t even have to be a lot of time. Take ten minutes before bed and sketch or write. Allow yourself one hour in a coffeeshop to sip tea and brainstorm. Use a lunch break to collaborate with coworkers. Share and discuss ideas. Take a walk with no distractions. Leave your phone at home and look at the amazing world around you.

Dream, ponder, create. Let yourself think of ideas, even if they are terrible. Especially if they are terrible. Start somewhere, because you can build off that to find better and more cohesive ideas. See a play, or take a yoga class to clear your head. It’s all about your mindset. You are uniquely you, and you have the imagination to do it. You just need to refocus and revitalize your creative energy and vision.

Other ways I combat the creativity gap: organize. Keep a list of ideas, mood boards, photo samples, drawings and snippets of inspiration from anywhere. I take pictures of spaces in restaurants, billboards, even just people walking down the street. Cut out visually interesting pieces from magazines or newspapers. Designspiration is a great website that I use to get the wheels turning in my head.

Most importantly, give yourself a break, and realize that mental inspiration blocks are pretty common with creatives. Inspiration can be found all around us; it just takes time to process and interpret. Just be patient, keep going, and be open to letting yourself absorb the world around you. If you are mindful in those ways, I promise that inspiration will follow.

3 Suggestions From Your Wedding Photographer

photography tips

Planning a wedding can be overwhelming and exhausting. I’ve shot a wedding or two–or fifty– and I wanted to share a few tips from a photographers perspective to help create some ease on the wedding day. Here are some things I have noticed that can really make the day go a lot smoother:

1. Scheduling. As wedding photographers, we know that your special day is going to be really busy, and trying to fit everything in can get kinda crazy. What most people don’t realize is that the wedding photographer is going to be with you all day long, so scheduling is very important. Most weddings fall into this general schedule: getting ready, portraits, wedding, reception. But things can be tailored and adjusted depending on the details of your wedding. For example, do you want to do a first look? If so, the wedding party photos can all be done before the actual ceremony. That will save time later so you can relax and freshen up before the reception. Talking with your photographer in detail about the schedule can clear up any confusion and help decide the right schedule for your wedding. 

2. Hotel Decor. Drab rooms with dark curtains letting in no natural light will be the death of your getting ready pictures. Make sure that the room you choose to get ready with your bridesmaids has windows for a lot of natural light. Also make sure that it’s big enough. There’s nothing worse for a wedding photog than falling over everyone getting ready in a tiny room while trying to stay out of the way, and get the pictures you need. Photos of the bride getting her hair done, spending the morning with her bridesmaids, and putting on her gown will set the tone for the entire day, so make sure there’s enough space and light! 

3. Guests. Your family and friends are excited, and want to capture this special moment for you. But a huge problem nowadays is having every guest standing during the wedding holding out their iPhones to take photos. Nothing ruins a gorgeous first kiss photo more than all the aunts and uncles trying to take photos and videos from their phones. I promise the quality of those will be terrible, and you hired a photographer to get that perfect shot for you! Let us do our job of capturing your day and kindly ask your guests to limit the technology if possible.

These are just a few common issues I see often while shooting weddings. The key is to keep your photographer informed and communicate so you can work together to capture such an important day in your life!

Making the Most of the Golden Hour

photography tips

What is this sorcery that some of us call the Golden Hour? It’s the time of day right after sunrise or before sunset where the light is warmer and softer because of how low in the sky the sun is. Cool and science-y, right? Well, it’s a dream for photographers because of how appealing the lighting is during that short time!

Any professional photographer will tell you that golden hour light is pure magic. It has a cast that’s warm and seems to caress the face like a bright hug from the sky. Golden hour light feels like love formed into rays of light. It’s literally light from heaven that’s the most gorgeous thing ever. So how can we use this amazingness for better results in photography?

Time it Just Right. Since the golden hour only happens for a short period of time each day, make sure to come early and prepared. Get set up and be ready for when the sun sinks lower and the magic starts happening.

Shoot Shallow. If you shoot with an open aperture, not only will it make your subject pop, but the glorious light streaming through the trees will create the most amazing bokeh you will ever see. Here’s an example of that:

Some other things to consider: fill light, contrast, and color balance. Color balance is crucial because you want to create a balance of warm but also don’t go overboard with warm tones. That’s really up to artistic merit, so just work with the images in Photoshop to get a balance you like. Same with contrast. It can be easy to overdo it, so really focus on a nice medium. And you can always try a speedlight to create some drama and to add a little pop of fill light to the images during the golden hour! The key is to experiment and see what you like.

Lens flare, shadows, and silhouettes. The golden hour can be a great time to play with silhouetting objects since the sun is so low. Lens flares can also be fun. Here’s another example of a golden hour silhouette. Feel free to play with shadows and use the lighting to create the emotion you are going for!

Overall, there is no better time than the golden hour to get outside and experiment with natural light photography. It’s a great time for me to gain some inspiration and shoot some personal work when I’m feeling like I need some photo creativity. Grab some friends, a speedlight, a reflector, and have fun! 

4 Rookie Photographer Mistakes

photography tips

When I was a teenager, I picked up a camera and started clicking the shutter at everything my eyes could see. I would capture everything from dirt on the sidewalk to candids of my family and friends. And I’ll be honest: I had no idea what I was doing. But over time, after hours of practice and repetition, I slowly got better. And just like a lot of self-taught photographers, I made virtually all of the technical and logistical mistakes along the way to finding my voice with photography. But throughout the years, I have managed to figure a few things out, and I thought I would share some of the mistakes I made, in hopes that it helps out other emerging photographers.

1. Shooting in JPEG. When I first started out, I thought it was crazy that anyone would want to shoot in RAW. It took up so much more room than JPEG and used up vital space on my computer. But the good thing is that it also captures a lot more information in the files, so you have more options when doing things like color correction or brightening shadows, for instance. You can also print the images much larger in the RAW file format. Not to mention that every time you open a JPEG file, it loses data, which is, obviously, really bad. You don’t want your files to be deteriorating every time you need to open them in Photoshop. So if you don’t have enough space on your computer, simply buy an external hard drive to put the files on. 

2. Not Backing Up Your Stuff. Speaking of external drives, another huge mistake is not having backups of your work. It’s way too risky to rely on one piece of technology when they break or fail so easily. Especially as a wedding photographer, I just can’t risk losing those precious, once-in-a-lifetime images. I highly recommend two different places minimum to store your (hopefully RAW) files, whether that’s external drives, CDs, or using something from the Cloud like Dropbox. With 2 and 5 Terabyte drives becoming more accessible and inexpensive, you will be able to rest easy knowing your files are backed up, and not at the expense of your wallet.

3. Using the Wrong Lenses. A beginner might be temped to just use the kit lenses that usually accompany the first DSLR body they get. Please, I am begging you, don’t. Get some higher quality, more durable lenses. Lenses that have higher apertures (3.5-2.0 range) will allow you to shoot with lower light conditions and create a shallow depth of field to help the subject pop from the background. If you can’t afford to go all out and purchase a new lens, you might even consider renting them (I used to do this all the time when shooting weddings-works like a charm!). Yes, these options are more expensive, but you can immediately see the results. If you don’t believe me, do a quick test. Take a kit lens and shoot something and then try a higher quality lens. Compare the two and I can guarantee you will see stunning improvements between the images. It’s another key element to taking your work from being good to being professional.

4. Not Charging Enough. As a student, I used to feel guilty for charging my clients. Someone would say, “Hey, what would you charge to do my daughter’s senior pictures?” and I would stutter around the question before throwing out a number that would barely cover my gas money. In my head I was thinking, how can I charge very much when I am barely older than the girl getting her senior pictures taken?! Well, here’s how. You have to factor in the cost of all the gear you are using and your time as a professional. If you have quality work, it doesn’t matter if you are 18 or 48. You have knowledge and a specific skill set, which is very valuable and worth the cost. I have found that more often than not, people are willing to pay more to know that they are getting professional quality work. Lastly, don’t forget to have confidence in yourself. Just keep practicing, and you are on your way to conquering the photog world!

Why It’s Important to Invite Your Wedding Photographer to the Meal

photography tips

Brides magazine recently published a truly terribly misinformed article advising brides not to feed their wedding photographers, stating that photographers should pack a lunch themselves or make sure it’s in the contract. As a professional wedding photographer, I can tell you from personal experience that not feeding your photographer is a huge mistake. Wedding photographers are there from the very beginning of the day, usually starting with the bride’s hair and makeup early in the morning. A typical day is anywhere from 6-12 hours, and we are on our feet shooting and working our hardest the entire day to make sure we get everything. We don’t get breaks. Most of the time, we don’t even get lunch. So, brides, not only should you feed your wedding photographer, but you should save a spot for them at your reception to eat dinner.

A lot of brides choose to give a vendor meal to the wedding photographer along with the DJ and other people who are working on the wedding day because it is less expensive than the meal that the guests will be eating. That vendor meal typically consists of a cold sandwich and a side, like chips. I am here to tell you that a vendor meal and ushering the photographer out to sit in a small room outside of the reception area to eat will not lead to a happy photographer. And brides, the last thing you want on your wedding day is a disgruntled photographer.

Your wedding photographer is the person who will be with you the entire day. We are working hard and taking literally thousands of photos to document this special day of your life. We are the only ones who are there the entire time, following you from getting ready to the first look through the “I do’s” and late into the night, usually until you leave. It’s more than just a business agreement. We are experiencing some of the most previous and intimate moments of your life, and we are capturing it. Giving us a hot meal and a place to sit for a few minutes at the reception is a small, well deserved token of appreciation that you can do for your photographer, and I promise that it will go a long way.

Too often, wedding photographers are treated like they are just another an employee. But we have a unique position on the day of the wedding. We are artists, creating images that will document this important day for you, and that you will treasure for years to come. We want you to have photographs that capture great memories from the day. You are letting us into your life, and in exchange, we are putting our heart and soul into these images.

The cost of a few more dollars and a seat at a table will have a huge impact: getting a short break from all day of standing, getting some hot food for nourishment and a cold glass of water for hydration will leave us energized and ready to photograph all of the dancing that is sure to follow dinner. Not to mention the appreciation we will have for the bride and groom. The extra effort you give will be reciprocated by the extra effort we will put into your photographs, guaranteed.