I hate my wedding photos

isofa

I' m with Dr_DiNg_DoNg and Lady Morticia on this one, and have posted several times on a similar subject today. As a photographer I can see the issues and as an soon to be groom, I can see them from another angle!

Very sorry to hear the OPs experience and that she has received poor photos. Why not find a good local photographer and do a "shoot the dress" day, get your hubby to get all togged up again, and get some similar wedding type shots done, worth spending a few hundred on?

I spent a great deal of time care and attention on wedding photos, and to see that some people, breeze in, "snap" the day and produce poor quality photos is a crying shame. But hardly expected, the market is awash with people with no talent, no eye, and more importantly no skill.

This is why I'd never offer my services for a few hundred quid, a wedding to me is everything from the pre-prep meetings, venue reccy etc, then the full day of work plus a week to 10 days of after work on the images, it's a huge commitment. I feel honoured to be involved in the couple's day and would do my utmost to make the images as good as possible.

Anyone can take a photo. But only a good photographer can take a good quality shot, be it with a top end camera or even a compact (should the need arise!). However a poor quality photographer, who has spend thousands on top end cameras and lenses, still will product poor quality shots, the equipment matters not a jot.

The times I see people at weddings (and the odd course I give), with the latest cameras (often more up-to-date than mine), without a clue on how to use them.

I shoot weddings in RAW+JPEG, a large proportion I'll use the JPEGs (or a straight R-J conversion for ultimate clarity - but everyone is different) then remainder of the RAWs, I'll tweak a bit, usually for skin tone and white balance, I'll spend a good week doing this, ensuring the images are top notch, I review and check every image individually, I batch nothing. One wedding a few years ago the groom was boiling hot, his face was reddened (yet the bride picture perfect!) and I spent days, filtering him down to a more natural skin tone. A recently one I'd not noticed on two shots a child had dragged off a table cloth, so I had to matte in a new table!

Worryingly, many people seem to think it's money saving to pay a small fee for a cheap photographer, this thread being a classic: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1471661 I can only hope that the savings were worth it. We certainly aren't scrimping on our wedding, the photos are a major investment of the day.

Shooting weddings is the hardest thing I do, you have to be very good with people, be quick on your feet, and remember a great deal. I usually take 750 to 1000 images on a wedding day, with up to 300 making the final set. It's so different to shooting anything else. The lighting can be a tricky and you need to understand exposure, how to shoot in manual and how to get perfect flash shots too. I enjoy it, but ensure I don't do too many a year in comparison with my other work, to keep my sanity I'd much prefer to do a few hand picked clients than 8+ weddings a month as some people do in the summer!

Choose a photographer carefully!

TediousPhoenix

Sorry to hijack this thread - it's very interesting and has prompted a question.

I've started out in the DSLR world as a hobby (an expensive hobby!) and have a few friends who are good amateurs. At our Chinese Wedding in May we got them (as well as lending out my camera) to take the photos. They were OK. Not fantastic though.

For our proper wedding in April this year I've been debating on whether to get a professional in or not, especially seeing as we're only having a small wedding. I asked for a quote off a local photographer. She said she'd charge £375 for 2-2.5 hours on Easter Monday (it's literally a 2 minute walk from where she lives!). That includes post-production work and the images on a memory stick (no album - we put together an album last time so I don't want to spend money on that yet).

Could someone with more experience than me have a look at the site and tell me if the pictures are any good. To me they look nice and are better than other sites I've seen, but wanted a second - or third - opinion. (I may have the camera but I'm still very much learning... plus the taking the photos is more fun than the actual photos... I find anyway! And seeing as there are pros around I thought I could utilise this.)

I want to met with her and see complete works before I commit, as well as asking whether we can have the RAW files too.

Am I permitted to post a link to the website? If I'm not please can a mod remove it.

http://www.essex-weddingphotographer.co.uk

LadyMorticia

TediousPhoenix wrote: »

Sorry to hijack this thread - it's very interesting and has prompted a question.

I've started out in the DSLR world as a hobby (an expensive hobby!) and have a few friends who are good amateurs. At our Chinese Wedding in May we got them (as well as lending out my camera) to take the photos. They were OK. Not fantastic though.

For our proper wedding in April this year I've been debating on whether to get a professional in or not, especially seeing as we're only having a small wedding. I asked for a quote off a local photographer. She said she'd charge £375 for 2-2.5 hours on Easter Monday (it's literally a 2 minute walk from where she lives!). That includes post-production work and the images on a memory stick (no album - we put together an album last time so I don't want to spend money on that yet).

Could someone with more experience than me have a look at the site and tell me if the pictures are any good. To me they look nice and are better than other sites I've seen, but wanted a second - or third - opinion. (I may have the camera but I'm still very much learning... plus the taking the photos is more fun than the actual photos... I find anyway! And seeing as there are pros around I thought I could utilise this.)

I want to met with her and see complete works before I commit, as well as asking whether we can have the RAW files too.

Am I permitted to post a link to the website? If I'm not please can a mod remove it.

http://www.essex-weddingphotographer.co.uk

Heya hun.

Just had a look at the website and from my point of view the photos are brilliant. I love the compositions and how she has managed to capture the perfect moment in all of the pictures.:)

I want her to do my photos now.:rotfl:

frannyann

TediousPhoenix wrote: »

Am I permitted to post a link to the website? If I'm not please can a mod remove it.

http://www.essex-weddingphotographer.co.uk

Just had a look, not a photographer myself but would be very happy with shots like that.

longhotbath

Hi shelovestobuystuff, I am so sorry to hear about your wedding photos. 1st time round, I had an expensive photographer from friends recommendations and the photos were great - much better than the marriage!!

2nd time - we had an amazing castle location, and used a friend who wanted to get into the wedding side of things (hes a professional portrait photographer).Oh, they were so awful - he didnt use the location to its best at all, forgot family members off photos, we got old fashioned stiff photos instead of the reportage we had agreed on, he scratched the negatives before the reprints were taken, and then missread the instructions for putting the original prints in the album, and got glue all over them - so all we have is the proofs!!

11 years later, we have a few prints that either I took ! , or another friend did. The photos may be awful, but the marriage is great!
DH and I are planning to put together a 'photo book' of the photos that we do like, with ones we have had taken since, but the official photos are never looked at.
It was a bittersweet day - my FIL died the morning after the wedding, so ours can never be repeated, but I think that we would have arranged for a good photographer to take some more photos in our wedding clothes - and got most of our guests to join us too!!

caeler

I really feel for you about your photos. Hopefully you'll be able to gather the snap shots taken by friends and family and peice together an album that your happy with.

This won't help you, but we can't always link cheap photography with poor quality, my photographer was the cheapest around and his work was excellent, I knew this because I looked through past work.

However there were still a few dodgy ones of me!

karen_newcastle

TediousPhoenix wrote: »

Am I permitted to post a link to the website? If I'm not please can a mod remove it.

http://www.essex-weddingphotographer.co.uk

I am wedding photographer. Book her - she is VERY good! And for £375 she is totally underselling herself!!!

TediousPhoenix

LadyMorticia, frannyann and karen_newcastle thank you for looking over the website and photos. It's nice to be able to get other people's opinions, especially after reading this thread!

I thought £375 was a good price. If I'm honest I was expecting about £600+.

I'll arrange a meeting with her.

Thanks once again!

shellsuit

TP : Those shots are cracking ~ and what a bargain price!

Pity I don't live nearer, I would have booked her like a shot!

Dr_DiNg_DoNg

TediousPhoenix wrote: »

Am I permitted to post a link to the website? If I'm not please can a mod remove it.

http://www.essex-weddingphotographer.co.uk

The examples are nice, but you need to view something like 50 images from one wedding to get a true idea, its not hard to shoot 400 photos per wedding 20 times a year and get a few excellent shots from each to put on the website.

What you need to do is make a judgement on the average work , not the best work.