Good morning lovelies! When it comes to wedding photography, if you’re not in the know {like me} it can be a minefield out there! Thankfully Blake from Blake Ezra Photography has gone into detail on the ten crucial questions you need to ask your prospective wedding photographer…
Below is a link to a handy little download too, a checklist if you like for you to print out and take to your meeting.
Free download! essential questions to ask your prospective wedding photographer
I will now hand you over to Blake!
Choosing a wedding photographer is not something anybody does on a regular basis, so naturally it’s sometimes difficult to know where to start. We are active in many types of photography across numerous sectors, but one of the things we’ve noticed about wedding photography in particular is that there’s no industry standard package, universal mark of quality or standardized method of working.
So, for those of you searching for someone to capture your special day, we thought it would be a good idea to write a list of vital questions to ask your prospective wedding photographer. Even if you’re not planning on coming to see us, feel free to print this list and take it with you to whoever you do choose to meet – it’s important to us that any couple getting married fully understand what they’re getting, whichever photographer they choose.
For the sake of comparison, and to provide some detail and context, we’ve also given our answers to these vital questions.
QUESTION 1:
Which cameras to do you use?
Are they fully professional cameras and do you carry a spare?
We currently use the Nikon D3S; they are full frame professional DSLR cameras. Typically we will have four of these cameras on-site at any one wedding, so yes we do have spares at the ready should anything go wrong. Note that some photographers will use ‘semi professional’ cameras, so clarifying this in advance is a shrewd move.
You could even ‘google’ their camera model number to find out more. For the real techies amongst you, our lenses also range between 16mm and 300mm, and include many prime lenses, which shoot at f1.4 – which are incredible for low-light and romantic photography.
QUESTION 2:
How long will you be with us on the day?
Will you be there for the preparations and stay until the very end?
Whenever we photograph a wedding, and whichever combination of photographers from our team is involved, we never ever limit our time on a wedding day. You’ll never hear us use popular phrases like ‘8 hour package’ or ‘until an hour after the first dance’.
We believe that a wedding day is sacred, maybe it’s Blake’s background in news photography or maybe it’s a realization of the importance of a wedding day, but we like to gather all we can – to preserve as many memories as possible for our clients. This even extends to doing portraits of the Bride and Groom after the guests have gone home!
QUESTION 3:
Do you bring a second photographer?
Are they a professional in their own right?
How many times have you worked with them before?
It’s our opinion that all but the most intimate of weddings require more than one photographer, as there’s often so much going on. In fact one of our favourite things about presenting wedding photographs to our clients, is that they see things they didn’t even know had happened on the big day.
We always have at least two photographers present on the day; for our ‘Original Wedding Package’ it’s Blake and one Associate Photographer, and for our ‘Associate Wedding Package’ it’s two Associate Photographers.
We work regularly with all our Associate Photographers, some of whom are full time members of our team, and all of whom are high-quality professionals. With some other wedding photographers, this really is not always the case, so do ask the question.
QUESTION 4:
Have you ever photographed a wedding at our chosen venue before?
This is an important question to ask, as every venue is different. It’s always useful for a photographer to know exactly where each element of the day will take place, how good or bad the lighting is in different spots, and the best angles for some lovely portraits or group photos.
We’ve photographed weddings in most of the top venues in London, but we still always carry out a Venue Visit with the Bride and Groom, to make sure our preparations for every wedding are thorough and detailed. We may even have a few useful suggestions from working in that venue before.
QUESTION 5:
Do we own all our photos? Can we make our own prints afterwards?
What a crucial question – do you actually receive the images that are taken? Again, you may receive very different answers to this question, depending on which photographer you ask. Some photographers will provide an album with a certain amount of shots in it, some will provide an agreed number of pictures with the rest available to buy afterwards. Some will give you a disc of thousands of proofs, for you then to choose which you’d like edited.
Here’s what we do: we make a selection of approximately 1000 images, then individually edit and retouch every single one, including things like the removal of fire exit signs and plug sockets, and even making guests look slightly less sweaty than they perhaps were on the dance floor. This level of editing is simply not the norm. We then provide those images to our clients on disc in high-resolution, so they can print them without asking our permission every time.
We always recommend having your photos professionally printed, not through a high-street shop but through your photographer or a specialist lab – the colours and contrasts are much more true to life – but our clients aren’t obligated to do so. In my opinion, this disc is the most important thing you can receive after the wedding, an album is a truly magical way to display your wedding photographs, and every couple should have one, but the wedding photographs themselves are where the true value lies.
QUESTION 6:
Do you have public liability insurance?
What if something happens to you on the day?
These are two separate questions, bracketed together in the ‘what if something goes wrong’ category. For any contractor, having public liability insurance is always absolutely crucial, but especially when working in historic or ornate venues. Public liability insurance is needed if the photographer knocks something over, if their light stand catches on a valuable painting in a hallway, or in plenty of other theoretical but very possible scenarios. We have £1 million public liability insurance, which we’ve thankfully never had to use and hopefully never will do.
Asking your photographer what the contingency plan is, should something untoward happen to them on the morning of the wedding, is crucial – especially as it will put your mind to rest. If a photographer can’t make it to the wedding, for whatever reason (and it had better be a good one), the wedding still goes ahead, so a responsible photographer will always have a good back up plan. Our second photographer is always somebody who shoots weddings in their own right, somebody who can happily step up and take charge, and somebody who has been fully briefed on that particular wedding in advance.
We then do everything in our power to bring in one of our other ‘Associate Photographers’ to take the role of second photographer for the day. This is one of the benefits of choosing a company with a good network of photographers, assistants and backup equipment. Of course, this hasn’t happened to date and we hope it never will, but we aim to absolutely take any photography-related stress away from the Bride and Groom.
QUESTION 7:
How long after our wedding will we receive the photos?
We’ve all heard horror stories of Brides and Grooms waiting months and months to receive their images, so this is an important question to ask. Answers vary from a week to a few months.
Our clients always receive a selection of 20-40 fully edited preview images through our blog within 24 hours of their wedding, we then aim to deliver a set of approximately 1000 edited images within 4-6 weeks of the wedding day.
Nobody wants to be told their photos will take a year, but equally if a photographer promises 2000 edited photographs within a week, one must question the amount of time and care which has been spent on post-production.
QUESTION 8:
What’s your style? How do you operate on the day?
Some photographers are the life and soul of a party, some photographers are so inconspicuous you wouldn’t even know they were there. It’s important to discuss this with whoever you go to see, and also to seek recommendations from other couples or guests at previous weddings covered by that photographer. If the guests, or worst of all the Bride and Groom, come away thinking ‘the photographer was really annoying’ or ‘the photographer was always in the way’, it’s far from ideal.
If you have seen the photographer ‘in action’ before, and noticed that they spend loads of time chatting to guests, or that they tweet updates from the weddings they’re shooting – that means they’re not doing the one thing you’re paying them to do, which is to photograph your special day.
Of course there are times when we are called upon to be slightly authoritative on a wedding day, such as organizing guests for group photographs or producing a beautiful set of portraits of the Bride and Groom in a twenty minute time slot. But we are reportage photographers at heart, capturing moments as they unfold and certainly not looking to be the center of attention or turn the entire day into a photo shoot.
QUESTION 9:
Can we see examples of your photography from lots of different weddings and lots of different venues?
In a world of digital photography, affordable DSLR cameras, and free website builders, there are so many people out there trying their hand at being professional photographers, with a portfolio of 20 very nice wedding shots for you to see. However there is no substitute for experience, so make sure that you see work from many different weddings.
If the same Bride and Groom keep popping up in the portfolio you’re being shown, it means one of two things… either this photographer hasn’t photographed many weddings before, or they haven’t photographed many weddings they’re proud to show prospective clients.
Of course all wedding photographers at some stage in their life had never photographed a wedding, but it’s important to know the level of experience you’re investing and trusting in.
QUESTION 10:
Will our guests be able to see the pictures and buy prints online after the wedding?
The first few months after a wedding are often very busy ones, settling into married life – sometimes involving a honeymoon or even a house move. Many photographers nowadays, including us, upload all the images to a secure gallery online, providing the Bride and Groom with a link to the gallery, and a password.
Guests, or even those who weren’t able to attend, can then easily log on and see all the professional wedding photographs provided to the Bride and Groom, and order high quality prints directly from the photographer should they wish.
Thank you so much Blake Ezra Photography for taking the time to write this post on 10 crucial questions to ask your wedding photographer! Here;s the link again to the handy downloadable checklist.
Free download! essential questions to ask your prospective wedding photographer
Want to see one of Blake’s weddings in all it’s beautiful glory? Jake and Chelm’s urban synagogue wedding was uh-may-zing… Chelm was such a beautiful bride!
Lots of Love
XxX Sonia
and remember… keep wanting!