The Business of Weddding Photography and the post-processing involved

I just want to touch on wedding photography and time/financial investment associated with the event (for the photographer) and also go into depth on post-processing and what that entails. I should start by saying that I love doing photography and none of this is a hardship for me. In fact if I didn't get paid I would still do it anyway, for the love of a beautiful picture. LOL that being said, once you see the work involved, you will understand why I like to get paid too!

Now - wedding effort is 25% day-of and 75% post-processing. I will shoot upwards of 2000 photos with my second photographer. A typical day is 12 hours of coverage. I average 3x more hours in post, which means a 12 hour wedding will take me 36 hours in post-processing. So, for simplicity sake , let's say each photo takes me about a minute ... (2880 minutes / 2000 photos . Of course it's more like some photos taker longer and others take only seconds ( to delete or approve ). The reality is that I eyeball each photo and if I can do batch edits for a number of images then I do that. I usually prepare a package for the bride and groom that contains their collection and also anywhere from 4-12 images that I tag as my "favorites" which are edited. I hand off the package and then wait for their edit requests at which time I complete those (usually another 4-5 hours worth of work).

So here is an example:
Laila and Alex at Strathmere: For this image I opened the original in Camera Raw and made 4 copies. The first was properly exposed/color corrected for the bride, the second for the groom, the third for the dress and the fourth for the leaves/trees. Wedding dresses always pose a unique problem because they are BRIGHT and WHITE and cause the exposure or white balance to be quite skewed. If you expose (light meter) for the dress then often the rest of the image is under-exposed and vice-versa. This is less of a problem for our cameras ( we shoot with my Canon 5D MK IIs - which are quite high-end cameras ) but those shooting with point and shoot or entry level DSLR will often find this a total nightmare. Then I stack the layers in Photoshop, apply a layer mask to all 4 and 'paint' in the areas I want to keep. (watch the video for a tutorial). Then I have to remove noise using software such as Topaz or Noise Ninja ( plug-ins for photoshop ). Then I sharpen for select areas, boost shadows in others and voila. This process takes around 15 minutes or so ... longer for images which were taken in less than ideal lighting conditions (ie. too dark, harsh sunlight, etc.)

Krystle Joey - T-REX
Here is an example of a MUCH longer editing process. In addition to the steps outlined above ( exposure, white balance, noise, shadows, sharpen ) I did a custom edit job at the request of this bride and groom. The couple is FUN FUN FUN and wanted to express their creativity and individuality by having a wedding party portrait with something ... ummm ... different ;) I was asked to photoshop in T-REX , to have him pursuing the wedding party! LOL. So I scoured google for a suitable HIGH RES stand-in (took me 20 minutes) and then added him to the photo. I had to edit him so he was BEHIND the wedding party, had the same depth of field ( in-focus parts vs blurry bits ) the same white balance and was to scale. This took me another 1.5 hours. So 2 hours for a single photo!!! I often get asked for this type of edit, either add to or take away from a photo or apply an artistic edit.

So you can see that while I do not necessary spend 1 minute post-processing each image I take at a wedding, it sort of averages out for the entire collection.

effort:
I can't tell you how agonizing it can be for me to filter images. I am always tempted to compare one with another or stop mid-filtering to "just see" how an image will look with editing ... It is a HUGELY time consuming part of the process. Another problem I run into is that the file sizes produced by my higher-end cameras are ENORMOUS and the processing power of my (practically new) laptop is really less than I require to load and create thumbnails of all the digital negatives (I shoot in RAW of course). This decision making process is a skill I'm still honing.

cost:
So let's assume that I have invested about 10,000 dollars in the gear I own ( this is actually a very conservative estimate ) AND I bring another 8,000-10,000 worth of rented gear with me to a wedding (which costs me about $300-400 to rent - this is the DAILY rental fee) AND I have to pay my second photographer - let's say $250 per wedding. This doesn't cover the cost of batteries, compact flash cards, extension cords, duct tape, lost/broken equipment replacement..... etc . So the actual expenditure DAY OF ( not including my gear ) is $700. ($300 rental + $250 assistant + $150 incidentals). Ok, then I get paid $2000 for a package. = $1300 ... "profit" cough cough ... $1300/48 hours = $27/hour . BUT I had to buy all that gear to be there .... In fact I probably make less than my second photographer who gets paid $25/hour and hands over her CF cards at the end of the day and can then go party with her friends ;) I go home and get to work. LOL. I ALSO have to pay for the packaging material and my company promotional items such as business cards and the ipad that plays the slideshow at the wedding and .. and ... and ... and ...
There you have it ... still want to be a wedding photographer? :)

Tips for shooting at horse shows

I have been shooting horse shows for a few years now and these are a few things I have learned to do to get the best possible image. It is of course very important to know what the ideal horse stance is of any discipline and I recommend googling that to read more about it. In the meantime I can cover some of the basics such as composition and lighting!

• First and foremost is fill the frame. Get as close as you can or zoom in as much as you can so that you can fill the entire photo with horse and rider. Not only will you get the details like facial expressions but you will minimize as many distracting details as you can, like fences or people in the background. I am going to talk more about zoom lens in a minute. Don’t hesitate to get right down on the ground and shoot from a low angle. Often that will eliminate a lot of the background that otherwise would plague you and in my opinion it creates a really striking image of the junior rider in the short stirrup class.
• When I am shooting a vertical image (portrait orientation) I like to get the horse and rider coming straight at me, they’ll be tall and thin and framed perfectly for a portrait. The portrait I save more for flat classes or dressage events. When I am shooting a horizontal (landscape) image, I get the horse and rider at ¾ profile or full-on profile. This is how I shoot most jumping images.
• I set up for my shot keeping these things in mind: light, background and course.
• Ideally, in a perfect world, every day would be an overcast day with flat light and no shadows. Unfortunately I can’t control the weather!! So … let’s consider this : Sunny day? Time of day? Early? If the sun isn’t too overhead yet I shoot with the light in the athlete’s face. Otherwise I try to get them backlit.
  

  Here is a super duper awesome secret that will improve your images on a super bright sunny day. The Canon default contrast is a little high, producing some blown-out highlights and dark shadows under harsh lighting. Change the contrast setting in camera (pg 112/113 of the t3i manual) , go to picture style , press info, select contrast, press set, press the <> key to adjust, then press set then menu. It will show in blue that it’s different from the default. I can’t stress enough how important this is, your highlights will not be overexposed and your shadows will not be pitch black.
  
  There is also more to understand about JPG vs RAW but this opens up another discussion about software and post-processing. For the meantime I recommend you learn the ins and outs of JPG then tackle the next step.
• I choose where I am going to hang out based on the course the rider is doing. I pick a spot where I know their eyes and head will be turned towards me over the jump and not obstructed by their horse’s head. I time it so their horse’s knees are just over the rail. Best case is pretty / tight together knees . I then look for the jump with the least distracting background. Commit the course to memory so you know where the rider will be next and so you can quickly (and quietly) move into the next position.
• For fun you could try out the “burst” mode on your camera, as the rider is going over a combination, I know the entry level Canon t3i has this feature, it’s called Continuous Shooting, check your manual, I believe it gives you 4 frames per second. Might make for a really fun “story board” type display on your daughter’s bedroom wall!!!
• Be quiet and do not scare the horses.
• Ask permission if you want to get into an area for a better shot. Don’t be shy. As long as you are courteous and never create a danger then likely you will be able to. (That being said do not go anywhere that is restricted). Also be aware that if there is an Official Photographer on the site that has been engaged by the club then you most likely will be asked NOT to take photos with your semi-professional gear. Please respect this request. The Official Photographer works very hard, is very talented and invests a substantial amount of time and money so they can be there and get the best quality images of your child. Their images will be substantially better than yours and will be worth the financial investment for you to buy. *** You may own the same gear as the OF but I can assure you, his/her images will still be better than yours. Just buy hers ;)