Keith Ferris Photo

This year I am introducing a new product in my standard wedding photography package. In place of traditional 4×6 proof prints,  I am now including proof magazines with all my wedding packages. The idea behind a proof magazine is similar to traditional contact sheets from the film days. It’s a quick easy way to reference and share your photos with your friends and family without the bulk and disorganization of hundreds of loose prints.

In the past I would present the newlyweds with 500+ 4×6 prints in boxes, which is nice, but not really easy for you to tuck into your purse and show your co-workers. Another downside of loose prints is that once the pictures are out of order, it’s like looking through a needle in a haystack to find a particular photo. I will  still offer 4×6 proof prints instead of or in addition to the proof magazine for this season, so please let me know of your preferences. Overall, I’m excited to hear the feedback for this new product.

The cover of the spiral bound proof magazine is customizable with your favorite photo and text and features a frosted plastic cover (which is open in this photo and difficult to see)

Having six photos on one 8x10 page allows you to see the detail in each image which reproduces 2x3.

The plastic spiral binding resists damage and the 2x3 photos are a good size to see the detail.

I’m pleased to introduce the press printed book, which is new for the 2011 wedding season. The press printed book is printed with an offset press (think photography book) and is available with a variety of page finishes with rigid pages. The sample I have has the glossy finish, and it looks amazing. You have to see the studio sample to believe the quality. The press printed book also offers a full wrap full color cover for a stunning look. This makes the perfect companion or parent album and is available in a variety or sizes so you could even use it as a thank you for your bridal party. Please check out the pictures below and ask to see the studio sample.

The press printed book allows photos to run across two pages for creative layout options.

Here’s a long awaited post about a new product that I’m excited to offer: the Sequoia Album. This is a traditional flush mount album printed on archival color photographic paper. The leather cover is available in a variety of colors with your choice of imprinting. It’s available in a variety of sizes, but the most popular are the 10×10 and the 12×12. Ask to see the studio sample for a closer look. As always, pricing is based on the page count, number of photos, size, and cover options, but prices are very reasonable, so if you’re interested in one just ask me for a quote.

A fully customizable flush mount album allows photos to run across two pages.

The number one factor in getting good photos from your wedding day is hiring an experienced professional who you like. Beyond that though, there are a number of considerations when planning the day that will help the photographer get the photos you want.

Engagement Shoot – The purpose of the engagement shoot is not just to get nice photos of you and your fiance, but it’s also a chance for you to get to know the photographer a little better and see how they work. It will make you more comfortable on the day of the wedding and will result in better photos. If an engagement shoot is a possibility, it’s always recommended and guaranteed to make the wedding photos better in the end.

Getting dressed early ensures that you get enough photos in your dress before the ceremony.

Getting Dressed – Most wedding coverage starts with the bride a few hours before the wedding for the “getting ready” shots. It’s important to remember to get into your dress while the photographer is still there. Sure you’re busy, but if you wait too long then all you’re going to have are pictures of you in the cute button up oxford blouse. Not what you want for the album.

Mobilize the Troops – Most of the time the formal group photos are done immediately following the ceremony so it’s important to let the bridal party and immediate family know when and where they need to be, especially if there’s an open bar nearby. Make it clear to them, pictures first, then drinks. If you have a family member who’s good at organizing then it’s wise to enlist their assistance to help round up the family.

Watch the Birdie – On the subject of formals it’s important to make sure that all of your guests are not taking photos at the same time as the professional photographer. I’m not afraid of the competition and I’m not trying to make a monopoly of your group photos. What I do want is for everyone to be looking at the camera, my camera, not someone else’s. There’s nothing more frustrating then having group photos with people looking in twelve different directions. I will politely ask guests to wait for me to take my pictures before they use their cameras.

What’s for Dinner – Most wedding venues charge for the photographers meal. What does that mean? Usually they want to serve the photographer and DJ last, and it’s usually whatever is left. I’m not one to complain, but come on, you’re paying for this! Some enlightened venues serve the us first. Why? Well, if you serve us last then we’re eating when the party get’s going after dinner, but if you serve us first then we’re good to go! I always prefer to have my meal sooner rather than later so ask the caterer if this is possible.

So you may think that with digital photography all you have to do is download the photos and you’re done right? Wrong. I want to outline here my workflow so people can understand all that goes into their professional photos after the shoot. For this example I’ll use my standard wedding workflow.

When I get home at 1:30AM dog tired, that’s when the real work begins. I won’t sleep until the photos are downloaded and backed up. The first step is to import them onto my computer from the memory cards. I have a mix of cards from 16GB to 2GB so I’m often importing from about 6-8 cards and about 40GB of data. That can take up to a half hour. I shoot my photos in RAW format, which are the largest possible digital negatives, so that’s why they take up so much space. Once the images are safe on my hard drive I can go to sleep, right? Wrong. Next, I back them up to another hard drive, just in case the one I put them on fails. I also leave the images on the cards as long as possible as yet another backup. Once this is done I can go to sleep right? Technically I could, and probably should, but in reality I’m much too excited to see the photos I just took so I often spend some time looking through them to see how they came out.

Next comes the selection process. Considering I can shoot over 2500 images at a wedding, my next step is to pick out the best 500 or so. I use a program called Lightroom to view and mark rejects and selects. This is a loooooong process and is mentally pretty exhausting. Imagine picking the best photo out of five similar ones, now do that three hundred more times. I usually do this over a few sittings and continually whittle my selection down to a more and more concise collection. Overall, it can take anywhere from four to six hours.

Once I’ve picked out my selects I back up the photos again since this information is saved in the photos. Here I will rename the photos so they have a logical sequence according to the time they were taken. The next step is color correction. Since weddings take place all over the place and in mixed lighting situations, I’ve got to go back and correct the colors for any photos that may need it. This is subjective and I use my experience going all the way back to color correcting color prints in the darkroom to get the photos where I want them to be aesthetically . At this point I also adjust the brightness, contrast and crop of any images that require it. This is where I take the RAW captures and make them into your finished photos. This can be equated to the digital darkroom, before we just had digital negatives, now we have finished digital files. Then guess what? You guessed it! I back them up yet again. It’s worth mentioning at this point that I’ve got two sets of backups going. The original, unedited and uncorrected captures, and the edited and color corrected files. Now they’re all still RAW so my next step is to batch them out as JPEG’s which is a more universally accepted and smaller file format. Once I’ve batched them out I back up the JPEG’s. Now I’ve got the original RAW imports, the edited RAW’s and the finished JPEG’s all backed up to multiple drives. I’m not good at math, but I knwo that’s a LOT of data.

The next step in the process is to upload the photos to Pictage. When I booked the wedding I created an event with Pictage and shared that link with the bride and groom that they could, in turn, share with their family and friends. Once the photos are uploaded, which I usually run overnight since it take s while, I can categorize them on Pictage and release them to the bride and groom. From there they can review the photos, remove any that they don’t want to share, and then release them to their guests. Once they release the event then Pictage will email the guests to let them know that it’s available. Pictage is a wonderful company and not to be confused with Snapfish or any of the other online photo sharing sites. Pictage caters to professional photographers so their quality is top notch. I’ve been making photographs for a long time and they still impress me with their quality and customer service.

Next steps? From here the bride and groom can order whatever prints they like from Pictage or work with me to create an album or other large format photos. Within their site the bride and groom have the ability to create folders so this is the first step to creating an album. Once they’re picked out their favorites I can begin the design process. Albums are proofed online and once they receive client approval I send them out to be printed.I also have a number of avenues to order professional quality canvas and traditional prints and I always work with vendors that cater to professional photographers for the highest quality photos possible.

What’s next? Yep, I back it up again. This time I put it on a hard drive that gets stored off site so, God forbid, anything happens to my house, they’re safe in another place. It’s also worth noting that the JPEG’s I upload the Pictage are also archived indefinitely so if NY falls into the ocean the photos are STILL safe and sound somewhere.

I hope this has been informative and not too techy. If you have any questions about my workflow, just let me know since I’m sure I left out lots of minutia for brevity’s sake.