The newest addition to Capfoto… Adalie Michele
Well my goal of writting a blog post every tuesday this summer has been shot now that my little girl has arrived.
Adalie Michele Dettmann (Adalie is pronounced similar to Natalie just take off the A)
Born: 8/1/10 @ 8:02
weight: 7lbs 14 oz
Length: 20 in
Attitude: feisty
She is a ball of cute and when she was born she had her arm wrapped around her head thus making the delivery very difficult. She has her moments but when she is up she is extremely talkative and wants to have your attention. As I write this right now she is in a moby wrap so I have two free hands (for now). If you have been receiving emails from me and you realize that I don’t capitalize or punctuate my typing properly that is because I’m becoming very proficient at writing out emails with only one hand!
This experience has been quite the shift for me, as many people told me time and time again, you just will never know how much work it takes until it happens to you. Which is true, I was expecting that life would go back to normal after the first two weeks. I could sit at my computer uninterrupted while Adalie nap’s quietly in the background. Not so much, yet somehow the work still gets done and all of my self imposed deadlines are more than met. At first I was stressed out about how I was going to manage and then someone gave me some great slap upside the back of your head advice “Normal will never happen again as you know it, get used to the “new” normal and you will be ok”
So this is my quest of the New normal which includes many diaper changes, waking up extremely early while she is sleeping to edit photos, holding her while responding to client emails and helping my wife as much as possible in the in-between times while she is trying to study for her last year of law school.
I’ll leave you with a couple of cute images we took out in our back yard.
Speeches are like mini-skirts, they should be short and cover the good bits!
I know another one of my catchy titles: I picked this one up while I was shooting a clients wedding in Ireland this past spring. I do have to say the Irish have some great one liners but onto the point….
Most people have no clue how to write a best man or maid of honor speech and I can’t blame you its tough. The biggest piece of advice I have to give you is, IF YOU PLAN ON WINGING YOUR SPEECH IT WILL STINK in comparison to the other person who thought about what they are going to say and you don’t want to be that turd who thought they could wing it, drank just a wee bit to much, and then didn’t really have much or anything entertaining to say.
So for the Best man or Maid of honor: Research using google, write your speech, practice your speech
For the Bride or Groom reading this: Encourage your people to actually pour time into writing a speech. Also if you know one person is going to do a great job and the other is going to be a dud, have the dud go first, it will save the dud from waiting and sweating bullets knowing their speech can’t compare.
I guess the long and short point of this message is to save some heart ache and someone feeling bad the day of the wedding. A little preparation goes a long way and with all of the weddings I have been too (tons) very infrequently are there two well put together speeches delivered that draw laughter and even sometimes tears.
I will leave you with another one liner I picked up in Ireland during a best man’s speech “In life there are many up’s and downs, may all of yours be between the sheets”
What Happened to CAPFOTO!!!!!
Yesterday I received an email inquiring if I had a date open for wedding photography. Reply: Yes.
Today I received a phone call at 9:43 from a really nice Girl (the one who emailed me) by 9:46 she confirmed to book a her wedding photography with me. Three total minutes of interaction and now I’m shooting her wedding. What has lead to this when a little over two years ago when I started Capital Photography I had to scrap around to find clients?
So the title is not catchy or witty as some of my other titles as of recent but as I sit here on my stool (a cheap $30 stool from target which makes my butt sore) I wonder how in two years I went from scrapping weddings for next to nothing on Craigslist to having to say I’m sorry were all booked out on that date! (Were all means that all 5 photographers are booked on one day!) The girl who booked me this AM sent my mind into a whirl wind. I did ask her one question, how did you find Capfoto?
Her Reply
“I was talking with my friend and asked her if she would use her photographer again, she said no, but that she had a friend whos wedding photo’s were awesome that she had seen on facebook.”
That was the sale, she trusted her friend. That is what a sale takes, trust. Capital Photography’s services are a great value and our quality is next to none, I could talk to someone about those services forever and that wouldn’t convince them to book with me. Trust is the turning point in a sale and when our clients trust us with their wedding photography services great things happen.
We have built a brand that is trustworthy, as I wrote about two weeks ago, the current generation is different than former generations, but one thing remains the same. Why did people order from sear’s back in the 1950’s, because the products had guarantees and were a good value. Basically they could trust Sears. With the technology we have and our many modes of advertising nothing beats a good referral.
Enjoy your week, next time I could be writing about my brand new baby!
Here is one video I made recently, ask yourself after watching it, can I trust this person? Branding takes work so if your a small business owner work on your brand it pays.
Photographer meet my Swiss army knife!
I am a firm believer that in order to excel in anything you must have a great many skills to accompany that one thing you are excelling at. That brings me to the title of my article “photographer meet my swiss army knife”. Many of you know me personally and many only professionally, I’ll dive in an explain the title. I have been told by many people “you are a great photographer, I love your pictures” Thus the “Photographer” part of the title, the rest “meet my swiss army knife” is a tribute to the many other skills I have picked up along the way in order to produce the results I am capable of doing. These skills include but are not limited to
Knowing where to get some of the worlds best cheese curds (Mauston, WI), Also Where to find such great props as lets say pink elephants, Or even how to change a flat tire in 10min so your not late to photograph a wedding, your actually early.
Now I’m joking a little bit, but thats just the kind of guy I am. Most people think being a great photographer is being able to frame the shot, and pressing the button. But what most people don’t think about is the preparation that goes into that shot. For instance our shot of the day, is probably not the most artistically pleasing but it captures the true emotion of the moment and made the groom and all who attended go nuts.
The number one skill is trust, if you can have your clients trust you they are willing to listen to you, CHECK.
Second is clear direction, I told Dylan to look at the camera after he threw the garter because (as has happened many times before) the bride and groom want to turn around a look, then you end up getting a picture of the back of their head, CHECK.
Three (here is the photographer part) setting up the flashes in order to create dynamic lighting and freeze the action, the room was really dark and if I had shot without flashes the action would have been blurry. I also had to make sure that the whole room was not lit because that just would have looked boring.
Four Love, as it says in the bible, without love you are but a clanging gong or banging cymbal. I get invested in my clients and I truly love them. This may seem a little weird but I get invested in their day and it becomes a part of who I am, in return that part of me is reflected in my work.
When I was leaving the wedding with the amazing Jon Good (an associate photographer for capfoto based out of Milwaukee) we were complemented by the parents and wedding guests on how awesome the photos were. Love the complement but they have not seen any of the photos yet. That is the sign of a job well done, our attitude throughout the day built a relationship of trust that in turn allowed us to take the amazing pictures we took.
this leads me to my last point of the article and the last blade on the swiss army knife. Personality is more imporant than skill. When I got home and shared this experience with my beautiful wife (and almost mother of our first child, due in about a week). We reflected on our wedding day and the wedding day of others and she made the comment that “if your photographer sucks the whole day is going to suck” which is true, we are with your from start to finish. If you trust and enjoy your photographer then taking beautiful pictures of you will be super simple, not a laborious process. Have a great week!
Our Generation is different than yours
I was talking with my friend (one of the worlds best wedding videographers, not exaggerating) Matt Brue of Capture Studios based out of Minneapolis a couple of weeks back and he struck a chord that resonated inside of me. He said “our generation is different, we want to know everything about someone before we are willing to invest in them.” We continued our conversation about a hundred different things but that one comment stuck with me.
People want to know everything about a product before they are willing to invest in it. We are the age of google, type in your name and sometimes you would be surprised what pops up. Onto my example
Think about a raspberry, a big red juicy, ripe raspberry, yum yum. Now what if you had a choice between three different crates of raspberry’s and you can only choose one.
#1- crate is full of good looking raspberry’s no extra info
#2-Crate is full of good looking raspberrys and it says its organic
Now lets stop here, think about what assumptions you have already made about the second choice? Fill in the blank when you toss Organic in there you are going to think something
What if the Third choice was the same good looking raspberry’s but it was organic and locally grown,
if the price is the same which one are you going to choose? #3 maybe?
I know I would pick number three because i have all the info on it, all three could be organic and locally grown but only the third said so.
When I think about this in light of my photography company I want people to not only know the skills of the photographer they are going to work with, but i want them to feel like they know a little bit about them. To feel comfortable calling them on the phone to chat about their shoot/wedding. We are people who happen to be photographers, just like your best friend who could be x,y, or z. So watch this little video and ask yourself, do you feel like you could invest in this person?
Mascot Costume + Dave = a wall hanger
This week it is going to be a short one folks, Why might you ask? Well, its wednesday and I forgot to write out my sweet blog post yesterday thus short but sweet today.
This week we are talking about the phrase, when life hands you lemons make lemonade. As a wedding photographer many times I show up and things just don’t happen the way that I had anticipated and hoped. This weeks pictures are a good example of this, as you read the first line you thought this was going to be about a negative turned around as a positive, but instead it is a positive turned to super positive.
When I was a kid I used to ski at Tyrol Basin, just outside of Madison, WI and they always had this awesome bear mascot, that would walk around and sometimes even ski down the hill.
My friends and Clients Mary and Sam, had a wedding at Tyrol Basin, this was the first time I went out there when there was no snow on the ground. Needless to say the whole wedding was beautiful, it was an easy day to take great pictures. So when I went into the bridal prep area and saw this bear costume I couldn’t resist, thus the first picture below. Now many times when photographers get the “shots” and feel good about the day the wheels stop turning and creative stuff seemingly slows down. Not for this guy. Life handed me two great clients, a bear costume, a camera for one reason, to combine all three into the shots below. Enjoy and feel free to comment using your own lemonade stories.
Ireland is all about Guinness and family
Ireland… Its like driving to door county to shoot a wedding, except for the unique accents and a couple of customs checks. Some of you may recall the Volcanic ash northern europe and a large part of the world was affected by early this spring. Well I was almost one of those people. On April 24th I was scheduled to shoot a wedding in Westport, Ireland. My flight to get to Ireland left on the 22nd! and as of the 21st of april flights were still being canceled. For some reason I always had a peace that I would make it, and the bride did as well (at least she told me that on the phone, but when I actually arrives she was so relieved). When I arrived I was welcomed in as one of their own, I was even offered a bed and stayed the whole weekend with the family.
The wedding went off without a hitch, and we even did an after the day shoot which in turn gave us some unique and amazing images.
But what was my take away, I went a quarter of the way around the world to photograph a wedding, they hired me for my photographic abilities/skills and I agreed to go for the experience. As amazing as the location and the accents were, the thing that struck me the most as I was leaving that small country was the people and not just Irish people but the people specifically I was with. I will always remember this adventure not because of; driving on the wrong side of the road, or being given a glass of jameson to drink the morning of the wedding, or going on a photo shoot with the wedding couple but also having seven other people along just for the ride. It is the people that I will remember and hold onto through all of these memories. It was Justin’s (the grooms) dad who made me drink a Shot of Jameson (a shot = a full glass), and it was Katies Mom who welcomed me in like I was her own. Why is this significant?
I had this mini revelation that I believe I had many times while I was living in China. As I was getting ready for the Trip I was thinking about how this will be a great adventure to have in my back pocket, not only was I going to travel to Ireland but I was going to shoot a wedding in Ireland. So once the weekend was done and I was able to sit on the air plane and reflect I was struck with this “it is not what you do, but its who you are with.” Life is not about accomplishments it is about relationships. I makes me think about the verse in the bible which basically says “without love you have nothing, without love you are a clanging symbol.” This little revelation has helped me to become a deeper person, especially when it comes to my photographical work. I want to make the effort to love my clients, to get to know them, and have them know me. Its not about just creating, its about capturing who my clients really are in a way that takes care of the relationship with my clients.
For some kicks feel free to watch the videos linked below
I didn’t always love shooting babies
Catchy title I know, but its true. I for one didn’t always like “shooting” taking pictures of babies. They are so unpredictable and when they get upset they just start crying. Not to mention getting peed on is the grossest thing every (well almost) See the picture below of one of my clients being graced with just that.
But as my wife Rachel is due in about a month, slowly but surely my mindset has change dramatically. I never thought I could love something I’ve never seen so much. At one point in time if someone contacted me to take pictures of children, newborn’s or infants I quickly diverted the project to someone else. But as I found out I was going to be a dad for the first time I realized it was a fear I had of something I was simply not used to.
What this has translated into for me is a new passion for capturing a moment in life that goes by so fast. Every woman I work with at school always say’s “The time goes by so fast” Heck the last nine months have raced by, I can’t wait to see this little bugger in about a month but I know it will be bitter sweet as the time will go by fast.
That is why photographs are so great, they freeze that moment in time, I’m excited to continue to stretch my photographic and artistic boundaries. I have tons of great ideas and if my little one is a willing subject (I’m pretty sure she will be) You will be seeing many of those ideas come to fruition. It is my way to not only become a better photographer for my clients but it will be a way for me to freeze my own experience being a dad and having something priceless to me to cherish.
Enjoy a couple of pictures
Dave
Happy Tuesday! hopefully for you and me
Summer is upon us YippEEEEEEE
(steve rocking the wake surfing!)
Anyways I’m making a commitment, yes a commitment to make your tuesdays a bit brighter. How will I do this? its quite simple, I’m vowing for the next three months to blog every tuesday.
So put an alarm in your calendar, tuesday stalk the capfoto blog!
What will our topics be?
They will be about life, the life of our photographers, the life of our clients. The details which bring us all together.
They could be about Karl just standing in a field
Or about how my wife (rachel) and I are expecting our first child in a little over a month (talk about life changer)
It could even be about new products we are launching to better meet the needs of our clients (or just to boost our cool factor)
So from now on, every tuesday when you find yourself day dreaming, refocus, recompose and check out what is going on with Capital Photography’s many doings.
Take care all and have a great week! Dave
Wedding for a friend
Very few times in your life are you presented to do work for friends you have not seen in a long time. I have the opportunity to do just that and shoot my friend from high school’s re-wedding ceremony. Her Husband Cliff and her were actually married one year prior, but had their real wedding back home to celebrate their one year anniversary. Here is to Gina and Cliff
The photos below are just a few of the images we edited
After The Dress with Sarah and Drew
I had the opprotunity to shoot an after the dress session with Sarah and Drew, pictures speak louder than words so I will let the images do the talking. Also here is a little video to show how we pulled off just a couple of the shots!
Don’t you dare hire a wedding photographer till you read this…
True confessions of a Wedding photographer: “what to know when hiring a photographer”
Ok First off don’t be mislead I’m a wedding photographer so I’m going to have some bia’s. Just like my pastor at church says “look at what I say, don’t take it as the truth, but test it and see if it stands true.” That is one of the reasons why I love the church that my wife and I attend up here in St. Paul, MN.
For most people they only get the chance (hopefully) to hire a wedding photographer once in their life. It can be quite the exciting process and quite the intimidating process. I want to provide some clarity to the whole deal to hopefully help you pick the kind of coverage you want and need. Remember you have to take what I say with a grain of salt.
Lets start out with the icky: As a bride or groom most likely you have very little experience in the wedding industry, that is why everything is so exciting and intimidating. Now from a person in the industries standpoint you are easy prey. Why? I’ll tell you, you have no clue what you want or need. Anyone can tell you that you need this and if they are good enough you are going to believe them. Also you are most likely going to be a one-time buyer, for almost everything for your wedding, so if you get screwed over by the vendor it won’t really affect their future business. I don’t want to make you skeptical but I just want to open your eyes up to the dark side of this business. I have seen it happen, heard stories and have shaken my head in disgust. Now for something good: There is hope, if you do your homework you can end up with exactly what you want and pay a fair price for it. There are several key components that will ensure that you will find someone who is right for you. First I will shed the light on what to think about, then tell you the bottom line which is what you can/should do. I know your feeling lucky right now
Pictures: What is you see is not always what you get, but most of the time it is… The great thing about photography is that it is visual, the Kodak saying “pictures are worth a thousand words” is pretty true. If you go through my portfolio of images you have a great feel for my style but I and everyone else use only the best pictures we take in our portfolio!
Bottom line: If you like a photographers style ask to see a complete wedding, yes that is correct a complete wedding. My friend Lisa asked to see a complete wedding after she had hired her photographer, the images looked nothing like the portfolio and she was able to break off the contract and hire a better quality photographer. (She was lucky they let her out of the contract) If after you go through and see the images from the entire day from start to end and you still like them, then smile you are on the right track. (also if you want to be really well educated ask to see a wedding similar to yours, aka. Winter wedding, summer outside wedding, ect.)
Services: This is when it gets ambiguous, there are so many different services and styles of products that you can’t really compare apples to oranges . But there are three things I’m going to highlight.
- Rights to images: “I’m so glad I have the rights to reproduce the images to our wedding, I love paying only $0.29 for a 4×6 instead of $10” Some photographers keep the rights to images. Typically if a photographer keeps the rights to the images it means you are going to have to purchase prints from them afterward. Sometimes for ridiculously high prices. If you get the rights to the images it will typically be for personal use only. Meaning…… go to walgreens and get the photos printed, but the photographer keeps the copyrights to the images. This is safe and should be worded out in your contract somewhere.
- Bottom line: get the rights to reproduce your images for personal use.
- Image edits: “I got all of our pictures the week following our wedding they looked ok but they were all unedited.” There are several different ways photographers edit photos I’ll highlight three. No edits, this is called the turn and burn and is the way most “cheap photographers” turn back the photos. You pay the price in quality, with “nothing special” pictures. Basic Processing, in this formate the images are adjusted for color accuracy, and some artistic (black and white, sepia, ect) elements are added. Photoshop This is the high powered program that produces the most fine tuned and exquisite results. When I edit an image in photoshop I usually spend about 45 min on a single image making it perfect. So what do you need? You need some editing to be done to the images, basic processing is enough, but if you have a couple of images you want to be perfected it is nice to have a photographer who includes this or is willing to do edits for a reasonable price in photoshop.
- Bottom line: make sure that a good number like 500 will be put through basic edits, and know what the cost of advanced editing for photos in photoshop will be.
- Number of images: “we ended up getting only 200 low resolution images from our photographer and he tried to charge us more for the rest because as he said it wasn’t outlined in our contract” Total number of images is very different than total number of edited images. For example when I shoot a wedding I take about 2000 images by myself, then I edit about 700 of those photos for my clients. What is important is not the number of images they take, but the number of images which are returned to you the client as proofs or on a DVD/CD. For example I return all the images to my clients, one DVD of edited photos, the other DVD of the unedited photos. For a good rule of thumb, anything less than 400 is to few and anything more than 900 is more than you need.
- Bottom line: Your photographer should guarantee over 1000 original images taken, but then give you at least 400 images back edited
- Worlds best wedding album= this http://www.vimeo.com/10195401
- Books/Albums: “My album was so artistically done, it brings back my wedding day every time I look at it, it was so worth it the extra money.” Books and Albums, do you need them? Some say yes and others say no. With the abundance of book websites out there, many couples are opting to create their own book. Really this is a personal choice. The one tip I do have to give when it comes to books, they take a ton of work to produce, let alone you who has never really done it before it will take a ton of time, so you have to determine what your time is worth and if it would be better to spend a couple hundred dollars on books. That being said when I was shopping for wedding photographers I couldn’t believe they were charging 3-500 dollars for a book. But once I got into the industry and realized A) how much it costs to have them made (typically around $240) B) how much time goes into making them. The big price tag is totally justified.
- Bottom line: this is a personal decision books, I would say go for a book or plan on making one afterward by yourself
- How are the images delivered: To be honest I’m going to put this simply, you should get all of your edited images after the wedding in High resolution format on a DVD. Plain and simple. I catch a ton of flack for this in the photo community because frankly holding onto the digital files and making clients print through you is a great way to make some extra money but I just don’t believe in running my company that way. Some other ways clients receive their images if not on a DVD or in addition to a DVD is proofs. Typically the photographer who does proofs is the one who holds onto the high-resolution version of your pictures in hopes you order larger more expensive prints from them. Many times purchasing the digital files can be an “add on” type of feature, make sure your factor this in when you are creating the package. With facebook, and family you want to have the right to put the photos where you want and when you want (as long as it is for personal use).
- Bottom line: Get your high resolution images on a DVD it will save you money in the long run
- Online hosting of images: “After my wedding I spent 20 hours emailing people the images the photographer took of them, I wish he would have just put them online.” Save yourself a headache and select a photographer who will post the images online. Then you can refer aunt Suzie who wants you to send her the digital file of her and uncle Butch to the site and you don’t have to waste time emailing out photos. Most photographers put this up so that friends and family will purchase photos from them, which have been marked up. This is not an evil as it costs money to put the images up. I came to grips with the fact that people don’t want to pay extra when they can get it for free someplace else. So in order to save my clients a headache I just allow anyone to download their images free of charge (as long as they have the password I provide the wedding couple). This is a service which you do not need but is really nice to have.
- Bottom line: Have your images hosted online
- Hours of Service: “When I got married it ended up being the hottest day of summer 101 degrees. We couldn’t do formals outside at the golf course we were having our reception at. Since I hired someone who didn’t limit time, we just pushed back those portraits until later when the sun was setting.” So how many hours is enough coverage? Here is a confession for you that will perk up the brows. When creating a photography package many photographers will increase the number of hours of coverage with the increased amount/package you purchase, in hopes you will purchase services you don’t really need/want. Why would they do this? To make more money. To determine the amount of coverage you have to determine what you want covered. Think about; getting ready/salon, pre-ceremony, ceremony, formals between the wedding and reception, reception pictures, dance pictures. If you only care about the wedding itself then 4 hours would be enough but if you want it all covered find someone who doesn’t limit the amount of time covered. Some companies like ours (I’m biased) never limit time no matter what package you purchase.
- Bottom line: you never know what is going to happen on your wedding day find a photographer who will shoot the whole day, if you like a photographer but their packages for full day coverage are really expensive ask if you can custom make a package.
- Timeline to deliver Images: “It has been over 8 months and we still don’t have our wedding images.” How tragic is that and how often it happens. Why would it take 8 months for someone to get their images? Here is another thing which will perk up those eye brows, because the images have been sitting untouched for 7 of those 8 months. Image processing takes a ton of time, on average I spend about 30 hours processing images after a wedding, if I have 2 weddings, a senior portrait session, and an infant session all in one week. There are not enough hours in the day to edit those photos and have them turned back in a reasonable amount of time. There are many things that I can do to increase the turn around time, but that is personal/business decision. You don’t care how I get it done, you just want it done and done well. Have a guarantee in writing as to how long it takes to turn around images back to you. For our company we have a guarantee that two weeks after your wedding your images will be posted online for review/download.
- Bottom Line: 2 months is the maximum amount of time you should receive at lease the first round/proofs of your images in
Cancelation policy: “we realized we hired the wrong photographer after we paid our deposit and they wouldn’t let us out of our contract” Your photographer should have a cancelation policy of some sort. A fair policy is that you forfeit the deposit if the wedding is called off or you want to go with another photographer. That being said what is a fair deposit? $250-$500 depending on the total cost of the projected project.
Bottom line: make sure that you have talked about the cancelation policy with the photographer
Style of photography: Our photographer had style with that hot pink shirt she wore, I thought zumbas went out of style in the 80’s?” Every photographer has a style and you can see that in the way they shoot. I will outline the two basic styles and what you can expect from those styles. The “formal” photographer, this is the photographer who tends to be more forward in getting the groups together for formal portraits, they also tend to have strength in posing people to look their best. When they are capturing images they tend to be more well formal looking, more smiling at the camera, ect. The second style is the “photojournalistic” style of photography, in this style the photographer basically follows you around and captures you like a journalist would capture the Olympics. Their shots tend to be more well candid. Most photographers shoot with a style which is a mix of the both but some are just one or the other.
Bottom Line: Make sure that the style fits what you want, and if it does not make sure you ask them if they can shoot a certain style or find another photographer who fits your style
What happens if the photographer is sick and can’t shoot the wedding: “our photographer got into a bad car accident a week before our wedding and broke both his legs, he told us we had to find another photographer.” Most photographers work solo or with very few colleagues. Find out who would fill in for your wedding if they could not perform the tasks that are needed of them. Some photographers don’t have a backup plan thinking they are superman, well superman has his kryptonite.
Bottom Line: Make sure that your photographer specifically states what they would do if they got sick and couldn’t perform the wedding. If they say “I don’t get sick, don’t worry about it” you should worry about it and hire someone else.
What type of equipment/how much equipment: “my mom had a better camera than our photographer!” First and foremost, equipment isn’t everything. I have taken some of my best pictures using a consumer series camera. But having the right equipment sure makes getting the shots you want way more consistent and faster. Here is all you really need to be worried about, do they have back-ups. With a wedding there is no redo. This past year I had two cameras crap out on me at different weddings but no worry I always bring 3 camera bodies with me so it didn’t hinder me at all.
Bottom Line: Ask how many camera bodies (2 at the absolute min) what lenses (2 at the bare min), and flashes (2 min) they will bring.
Back-up of images: “Our photographer lost all of our images, she uploaded the pictures to only one hard drive! Now we have nothing.” I have two friends that this happened to, two! The cards we photographers shoot on tend to be very stable, so it is not dire that the photos are backed up during the wedding day, but when we upload the images to our computers, we need to make sure to backup on multiple hard drives before we delete the images off of the cards.
Bottom Line: the images should be backed up on two different hard drives/places (online could count)
PERSONALITY/personnel: “Our photographer was drunk and hitting on my 17 year old sister, I wanted to take off my shoe and hit him over the head with it!” Personality is the NUMBER ONE THING to consider when hiring a wedding photographer. You will spend the most time interacting with this person throughout your entire day. IF YOU MEET YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER AND YOU DON’T LIKE THEM, DON’T BOOK THEM. My friend Lisa had this to say “the most important fact that you have is to feel comfortable with your photographer so if you feel “off” when you talk to them, don’t book them.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Bottom line: You have to really like your photographer, if you don’t find someone you like. Don’t settle for just ok!
Price: “The best investment I’ve ever made was hiring you as my wedding photographer” I heard that the other day and it made me smile, why? Because people are paying me good money and when they feel good about what they spent it makes me feel like it all that hard work is worth it. In photography the saying “you pay for what you get” Is 99% of the time true. Price and sticking to your budget is extremely important. Some of you may find this hard to believe but to get great wedding photos you need to spend well over $1000 (like $2-3000 is average). Why is this you might ask. I’ll give you the skinny. On how I price myself out and why I price myself out the way I do.
A) It takes a ton of time (3 hours prep, 10 hours wedding day, 30 hours post processing = 43 hours of work for one wedding)
B) Doing photography the correct way is expensive, when I shoot a wedding I bring about $8000 worth of equipment with me. About once a year a camera will break (Over $1500) and I’ll need to replace a lens (another over $1000 expense).
C) Day of expenses/travel if paying an assistant and random expenses I average about $350. And then Online hosting of images and advertising = $$$. Now not every photographer works the way I do but I know in order to do a quality job I need to put up the money to get it done right. To shoot a wedding when I average out all the costs over all my weddings it comes to about $650 per wedding to shoot. Now my minimum is much higher than $1000 because I’m not going to pay myself $8.13 an hour to be a pro photographer. There is a wide spectrum of photographers which charge varying rates. Set a healthy budget and shop around, follow the criteria above and you will find someone who will do a great job for a fair price. If you go cheap your pictures will 99% of the time look cheap.
Bottom Line: “You pay for what you get” look at the image below (from bridepop.com) the average cost for photography is $2283, set your budget somewhere around that if you want good wedding photos. If you want epic wedding photos increase that by about $1000 and if you want ok wedding photos decrease that by about $1000 I hope that I have provided some clarity for you about what to be looking for and what is most important.
Below there will be a list of questions you should ask based off of the advice that I wrote about above. If you have any questions please post them below or if you think something else should be considered as a criteria post a comment as well. Take care and have fun. Besides picking out your husband/wife the next biggest decision should be picking the correct wedding photographer. Your wedding is a one time deal so don’t take it lightly
- Are you available for my day (if it is a Friday, Sunday, or winter wedding ask for a discount as that is the low season)
- Can I see a complete wedding which you shot (make sure it has over 400 images for you to see)
- Will I receive a digital copy of my photos on a DVD/CD, if so how much will it cost and are they high resolution? (answer should be yes)
- Will I have the rights to reproduce the images for personal use? As in going to walgreens and getting the images printed? (answer should be yes)
- How many images do you take on average for a wedding? (Over 1000 for sure)
- How many images will you edit (over 400 for sure)
- How do you edit the images (Just basic edits or do they use photoshop for more advanced editing)
- Do you offer a book/album? If so can I see an example (If you want a book you want to see an example don’t just take yes for an answer)
- How will you deliver the images to me? And what is the turn around time for images (On a DVD/CD/Online for download or Proofs and no more than 2 months)
- What is your cancelation policy? (just make sure they have one and you know what it is)
- When you shoot a wedding what style do you shoot in? (formal/photojournalistic or both)
- What do you do to get people/family together for formal portraits, what is your workflow to ensure it goes quickly? (they should be able to kindly get the right people up front in a quick way and they should have some sort of formalized workflow they can describe to you)
- What would happen if you were sick the day of our wedding and couldn’t perform our wedding? (should have some sort of back-up plan and list of what they would do, inquire about specifics)
- What type of equipment do you bring and what kind of back-ups do you have incase your equipment fails? (they should have a back-up of everything, camera, lens, flash)
- When/how do you back up our images to ensure that they are safe?
- How do you think past wedding clients would describe your personality the day of the wedding? (friendly and fun are great characteristics)
- Do you offer any discounts? (it never hurts to ask)
I have offered you a glimpse into the world of wedding photography and what as a professional I think the main points to consider are. At capfoto.com we are all about our clients. From never limiting our shooting time the day of your wedding, to always providing you with high resolution DVD’s of your images as well as online hosting where friends and family can download the images at no cost. We are unique in the wedding photography industry so if your looking for a wedding photographer shoot us a message (info@capfoto.com) or give us a call (715)-441-0175.
Being Patient
Great photographers can direct their subjects in any situation but what happens when your subjects can’t take direction?
Recently I have had the opportunity to get into baby photography. The experience has been terrific for my patience. Creating a moment is all about mimicking an idea. Anticipating a moment is more journalistic and is a skill I have been seeking for a good amount of time.
The Musatov's New Addition
Here is an image from a recent shoot. I tried to place the 10-week-old into the positions that I wanted to shoot. I ended up getting the best results when I waited for his natural movements. Instead of putting your subject into the desired look, patience will allow you to find their personalities through their natural movement.
Patience pays.
Win $1000 in photography from Capital Photography
So we are holding our first give away of 2010.
It is my resolution during this new year to give all the followers of my photography more and what better way to do that than give away a portrait package valued at $1000?
If you want to enter the competition click here
The reason for the competition is to get more fans on our facebook fan page. It has been running for 5 days now and we have gained over 100 fans (I’m pumped)
I also made a video to promote our competition
So in what ways am I planning on giving back this year? Besides some awesome photography contests, I plan on giving back with education. I’m an educator at heart and I want to help other people (that means you) become a better photographer. I also want to give inspiration, I feel like my style is very distinct
and I want to have other photographers copy it, it is highly off camera flash intensive which creates dramatic portaits no matter the scenario. I have also started shooting more natural light portraits and have had some great results, sometimes I surprise myself
So this year will be a year of thanks! and let me thank you by offering you a chance to win an awesome portrait package by simply telling people about my fanpage on facebook
www.facebook.com/capitalphotography
Magazine cover Contest
I submitted the following photos for a magazine cover contest! It is for a Madison based womens magazine called Brava. Check out the images and let me know what you think
Success but never satisfied
Look at this Happy couple, I loved shooting this wedding for Jayna and John it was such a fun time. Great people in a relationship that you know is going to last a lifetime. One of my favorite pictures is when he saw her walking down the isle he started crying
It is an honor to be a part of someone’s wedding day, which brings me to the point of this blog post.
A friend asked me if I was going to advertise in the twin cities bridal magazine, it has huge coverage of the area and vendors and basically any bride getting married will have this to look for everything from reception sites to photographers. I thought about it and said “no”, why would i do that? I’m not trying to toot my own horn here but as a company we have already booked out over 18 weddings for next year, this time last year i had about 3 booked so that is a drastic improvement.
But I was contacted by two potential clients the other day who seemed like they were sold on Capital photography we were talking about getting things finalized with contracts, which made me feel like this
But then I was contacted by one saying that they went with another photography company and another saying that they were checking one more option before they made a choice. My heart sank. I felt like I was a middle school relationship that had gone south and I was left eating my lunch alone for the first time since my relationship had started over two weeks ago.
Kind of Alone!
Of course people need to have the photographer that is best for them and with how busy we are going to be I’m not worried about filling the dates. For any number of reasons they decided to go with someone else. But why do I feel this emotional connection with potential clients let alone the clients I have or are going to shoot.
I thought about it and it became clear. I want every couple that gets married to have awesome photos and not be disappointed in any way about the results from their wedding photographer. And the only photographer I can control is myself, I know I’m capable of taking great wedding photos as well as making the wedding day photos fun for everyone involved. So when someone decides to go with someone else I worry for them thus causing my heart ache.
So in the end there is no real point to this blog post except the fact that I’m a saap and I’m way to invested in producing quality results for my clients
To distract you watch this commercial for Capital Photography below
E-Sessions are in
At the tail end of wedding season is when booking for next year picks up, which means lots of engagement photos which I love doing. It gives me an opportunity to get to know the couple as well as know what kind of style they like. This makes the results from their wedding the following year more tailored to their personal taste.
Dannella & Jeremy
The Second Couple was Kelley and Derek
Where am I?
Right now I’m sitting at the kitchen table eating some chicken noodle soup. I know that you have a question on your mind a big question…….. WHAT CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP, yup that is correct. Today is the first day ever that I have legitimately called in sick to work (I have called in two other times in my 26 years when I was “sick”) So I’m not one of those people.
But today was a very slow day, I really couldn’t move to fast so my mind I guess had to slow down a bit two. So as I sat here I reflected, drank Kamonbuka (don’t ask) and dream t of the future of Capital Photography. My photography over the past year has increased in consistency and quality like I can’t believe.
This past December I thought this was the cream of the crop! Its good but now this would be considered normal for me
Now this is what I think is Amazing and I still can’t believe I took this picture
My photo editing skills have catapulted to new levels where almost any edit I can and do….do.
(Look at the faces below)
And now I have more toys to make amazing photos happen then ever before. Example of a toy which it totally not needed but something I love is my Rollieflex and My Yaschica Mat TLR cameras
So where does this lead me and us here at capital photography… To branch out, I’ve always been a teacher and this past June and July I taught about 6 people how to really work a DSLR camera and how to do off camera lighting. If you want to know more about off camera lighting just go to www.strobist.com that is where i learned everything I know about it and really if you like my photos that look like they have been lit somehow with a flash then it is thanks to that database of knowledge which I drew from which has catapulted my photography to new levels. Anyways back on track.
I want to teach others to be professional photographers, so this is your casting call if you want and are interested in learning how to take your photography to the next level clear away some time this spring as I am in the process of trying to develop some sort of course to give you the skills necessary to bring your photographs to the next level.
Now why would I do this? Part because I love helping people out but mostly because I’m sick and tired of seeing people jumping into the “professional” photographer realm way before they have the skills to call themselves by that name. It is not like we are engineers or doctors, we don’t get a license which tells us we are professionals, it is a self given title. I gave myself that title after about 4 years of doing paid photographic work. So if you are interested then clear away some time shoot me an email and look forward to this march when I will give you tips on how to not only take amazing photographs but also how to put in place some of the best practices for photography businesses
Shoot me an email if your interested dave@capfoto.com
Weddings and my life!
So I feel like I need a personal challenge to write at least a blog post once a week. So if you are one of my blog readers (I think there are probably two maybe three) challenge me to it by leaving a comment at the end of this post.
I promise if you start commenting you will see more quality stuff like this!
also you will receive more information that everyone needs like how to make amazing photos like this
All you need to make this photo happen is a Bar, a off camera flash and something to constrict the light to a very small space…. oh yeah and some bling look below at my diagram to see what I mean
Or you might just see a bunch of awesome recent photos. Any way you dice it up we are going to have some interesting thoughts. Let me know what you want to see. May it be the worst of the worst pictures I have taken. Or if you want me to give you tips on how I pulled off certain shots I’m open to your requests!!!!
Last Day of being a Full time Photographer
So today is a bitter sweet day for me. Let me first discribe my day to you.
I woke up.
Had a big cup of coffee and while i checked the morning emails I decided to go on a bike ride
Then I came back from the bike ride and decided to go get some quarters at the bank (I went a little over board and they gave me a bag to put my massive amount of quarters in. Now i know what it is like to be a bank robber with one of those bank bags full of money.
Did some laundry, vacuumed, dusted, and was basically a super husband (kind of like a super hero
Then I finally got to working on images around 12:00 after having some toast (with no peanut butter, it kind of broke my heart)
Once I was done editing the images I uploaded a bunch to my website for my clients.
After that I felt a little bushed!
So came the big decision of the day. Do I….
A) take a nap
B) drink a big cup of coffee
If you know me very well you know that I seldom take naps so coffee was a must
And to top the day off I had a senior photo shoot with one of my swimmers pete, say “Hi Pete”
And now I’m writing a blog post to you. This past summer had been awesome, I have grown so much as a photographer and really this is the first time in my life I have had a summer job that made me happy (garbage man, boat tour guide, booze cruise first mate, landscaping, janitor, ect.) I will miss the freedom I had to make my own schedule but i’m excited to be stepping back into teaching in addition to my photography. I will be teaching Elementary PE at Creek Valley Elementary school and I couldn’t be more excited. It seems that all the educators in the school have their stuff together and I’m excited to be around an administration that keeps the teachers held to a high standard. I guess looking forward to the next couple of weeks, I will have a blast teaching and many many late nights editing photos! If you’ve ever thought about giving me a random gift an extra pound of coffee or two might be nice
Relax in Hayward with me, Come on don’t be afraid!!!
So this past weekend I did something that I rarely do…. I relaxed. Now I don’t know if you know this about me but I’m always thinking of what I need to do next and am almost always on the go (as i think most people are) But I made a point this past weekend of leaving everything I have to do this week behind and just being a person. How often do we really do that? Think about your life, think about where you are, and when is the last time you left everything that is weighing you down and just relaxed?
Was it a week ago? a month? a year? maybe since childhood could be an accurate representation for many people today. So if we enjoy relaxing (or the idea of relaxing) so much why don’t we do it in the way it was intended to be, actually leaving the worries behind and just being?
you will have to figure that out for yourself but it is worth while thinking about
Be more like Albert E. Cliffe when he said “Show me a worrying person and I will show you a person who
does not know how to relax.”
Not like Dagobert D. Runes “Work is man’s most natural form of relaxation.”
Here is an example of what relaxing produced for me this weekend
And the rest of the pictures
Have a great week relax with me in the midst of your stress
Come and check out my new look
Feel free to go around a little bit on the site. I’m still trying to work out some buggs but I’m loving the way this looks
Ciao
Dave
My first commmercial and a new look
Watch the video below (yes I’m a geek everything was done by yours truely and it took way to long) and let me know what you think
Alright now that you have seen Capital Photographys first commercial, welcome to the update on life…..
Wedding season is thinning out right now and that is awesome as it leaves me with a breath before I start teaching on the 8th of September in Edina, MN as a adapted physical education teacher. I’m excited to get back to teaching PE after two years of other teaching experiences.
Rachel has had her first law school classes today for the semester I can’t speak for her but I believe that she is already feeling a little overwhelmed.
But now that I have a second I’ll catch you up on some of the personal things of the summer!
1. Rachel and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary on july 7th in Bay Field, WI
2. We moved into a new apartment (pictures will be coming soon) Here is one from our porch
This is actually taken through a new photographic toy I purchased, I call it Rollie and it will be doing some awesome things for me photographically speaking.
3. We became an Uncle and Aunt for the second time, way to go Heidi and Clay
Other than those pretty big things our summer has been filled with a lot of time spent together, causing us to reminisce a lot about our time in China. While we were living in Nanchang we only worked 14 hours a week and the rest of the time was like play time. Although we have been working a lot more than 14 hours a week (sometimes it feels like 14 hours a day) we have both been able to do most of our work from home. What freedom that give us.
Until next time take care and please take a good picture
Dave!
Little Fish Making waves
Far to many days have passed since I have written anything the would be considered informative beyond the simple facebook twirt, or short emails. So what’s going on? Well I’ll tell you Capital Photography is taking off (close your eyes and imagine it lifting off the ground) Yeah that image in your mind is sweet.
Next summer we have booked about half the weekends already with weddings (so if your waiting to contact us don’t wait your date may be taken)
(what an awesome moment this was)
Senior photos are going amazing and we are offering our clients something that most companies can’t.
(unedited at all this is how it looked straight out of the camera, minus the capfoto logo)
I’ve also been receiving streams of emails after every wedding we shoot similar to this one
“Just saw the wedding pictures of Jayna and John. I wanted to let you know they are BEAUTIFUL. Of course I am biased since the subject is my sister, but they are the best wedding pictures I have ever seen. You really captured the moment. You can just feel the love in the pictures. Thanks for your hardwork”
thanks- Carleen Freesmeier
My little small victories in photography have really got me thinking about why I do it. This is not a what came first the chicken or the egg question. Its really about why I do what I do. I mean when I was a kid I would run away from the camera when my mom was taking pictures and now I’m the one constantly pulling out the camera.
(now this is me being a little vulnerable) I realized its the competition and its not that I’m competing with others (come on I’m a nice guy and I’ve only let the air out of someones tires a couple of times 
But its that I’m competing with myself. I realized this as I was editing the pictures for the wedding Carleen above commented on, they were and are beautiful pictures, I mean truly stunning.
But….. looking at them didn’t make me feel satisfied, the satisfaction came when the bride made this comment on my facebook wall.
i LOVE the pictures Dave!!! Thanks a million!!!
That was the moment when I felt like I had really done something great.
So really what does this say about the nice guy writing this blog post? I’m insecure, its interesting because if you ask almost any one of my friends they know me as confident, I’m willing to be daring and don’t shy away from making public speeches. My insecurity comes from not knowing if people approve of me.
So what does this mean for you as my blog reader? One of a couple things 1) if you are my client I really do work extremely hard to make sure you love everything about what I do. 2) If you are married to me you already knew this about me and you love me anyways (love you to rach) and 3) If you know me you constantly see me drinking something, typically coffee, that is my “security” I realized this when I read a book about addiction, and basically it said that people are trying to regain control over some control they lost. For me it is social situations I feel like I can’t control what people think of me so I control the coffee mug to my lips and that is enough to make me feel secure.
So my friend I leave you with this, a photo I took this morning after meeting a friend and client with a cup of coffee. Good things happen early in the morning with a cup of coffee.
