By Sarah Babineau of Drive Productions
When my fiancé and I first started brainstorming our wedding planning I knew I wanted three things to be top-notch: the food, the jewelry, and the photographs.
Very few things are as sentimental as a good photograph and although we were on a very tight budget, I wanted to find a way to hire a professional photographer to make sure we had some beautiful images of our wedding day.
Then we learned the prices! After much deliberation, we did decide to hire a professional photographer and through trial and error, we found out how professional photography can be made more affordable. Before you become resigned to putting the instant cameras at every table, or hiring a student for your corporate event, wedding, birthday, anniversary or other party consider the following points:
Albums
According to one photographer we spoke with, adding a photo album to your package is the number one factor that can make photography package prices skyrocket. For flush-mount, 12 page photo albums, containing between 35-50 images in total, the price is around $750! Ask your photographer if they will remove the albums from the packages, and if so, by how much will that reduce the rate? Since putting together a wedding album is a very long project involving all kinds of editing, cropping, retouching and resizing, removing it should reduce the photography price considerably.
If you do want an album, but feel you can make a passable one yourself, consider self-publishing sites such as www.lulu.com or www.blurb.com. Their free software allows you to make and publish your own photo albums with just photos or photos and text. And you can either purchase one (or several) yourself, or post it online for your party guests to purchase a copy. They have several photo-book options and samples of wedding albums to view as well.
Although they are not quite as high quality as a professional job, (after all, that’s why they are professionals!) these albums are a great, inexpensive alternative.
Ordering Prints, Resizing, Black and White, and Retouching
This was another caveat we got from a pro in the photography field. We understood that although a few years ago, photographers still required special black and white film to get the best black and white images, and so the price would necessarily be higher to include black and white images; these days, this is no longer the case. Your photographer should be able to make any photo you choose black and white, sepia toned or full-color with nothing more than the click of a button. And the image quality should not suffer.
Copyrights are another touchy subject. Some photographers feel that your images are their property. And while copyrighting prints may have a certain merit artistically, the biggest advantage to this photography price structure is that the only way you can order reprints is through the photographer. And she can charge you, and your guests, as much as she likes for them. Many photographers now will give you all of the images on a CD which can be taken to any regular pharmacy photo shop, size and print them to your heart’s delight.
Retouching. There is some artistic skill involved here, and if you are asking the photographer to do extensive retouching of several of your photographs, they may rightfully request that you pay more for the prints when they are finished. After all, if you could do it yourself, you wouldn’t be hiring a professional. So it is only right that, the photographer is compensated for their time and skill for large jobs or custom retouching and editing.
That said, all photographers should provide some retouching of images. After all, why would they want to let a less-than-stellar image out of their studio to advertise their work? Use your judgment here, and if you are asking a lot of your photographer, understand that they will want to make you happy, but that they don’t work for free.
Sarah Babineau
Drive Productions
Acoustic Duo & DJ Team
www.DriveProductions.net
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