V and I just got back from Lynette and Glen’s cool wedding at Morrells … a quick sneak peek before we head to bed and Lynette and Glen (who are probably still at Morrells) head out to their honeymoon.

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I seem to be sending the same email over and over again these days, so I figured I’d add it to the blog and maybe that will help explain things a bit. Essentially what happens is that someone will have their heart set on us photographing their wedding, send through a price request a year in advance – a perfectly reasonable time frame btw – find out that I don’t have any dates open for that month, and send through another email wondering how it was possible that I don’t have their date available.

I shoot 40-50 dates a year, I try to space them out so that I shoot four a month, except for Jan, Dec, June and July where I shoot three. Once I have those four days in the month booked, I close that month off. So while I may have your particular date open, I can’t actually shoot that much from a post production and admin perspective. In other words, I may have the actual date open, but I can’t actually fit in the post production, album making, printing of photos, photoshoping, contracts etc. I made the mistake this year of booking a couple of extra dates because of various reasons … I got emails from cool people, people who sounded like the kind of people whose wedding I would love to photograph, or they were in cool places, or they mentioned the word baobab. Anyway, August was a terrible month for me, I barely slept, I hardly saw my friends. I shot some amazing weddings though, met very cool people, got some killer photographs, and I wouldn’t swap it for all the little plastic toys in China.

I also got really run down and stressed. I did investigate getting an assistant to do some of the album work and answer emails and all that, but in order to cover their salary I would have had to shoot another eight weddings a year, and then I would never get to see V. So that is the reason why I don’t have a Thursday available in November 2009, as unlikely as it seems.

The second situation, is that because of … I actually don’t know what, but it’s getting worse, couples are booking 16+ months in advance, add the fact that sometimes I wait months for the signed contract, can’t get hold of the couple because they used a disposable email address that they hardly check, and I don’t feel I can take their date away without telling them. Couples are also canceling a lot more often than they used to, I suspect as a result of booking so early, and this isn’t just me, a lot of photographers I am in contact with have mentioned a similar trend. I’m not sure why, but I suspect that it is related to such early booking, but it means that I have to try and book someone fairly last minute, because while the retainer does take the sting out of the cancellation, it doesn’t cover for the loss of income for the month. At the moment I have an opening in January, two in March and one in May, so you’re looking at people who canceled anywhere between four and eight months before their wedding. I do contact people who have asked to be notified if there was a cancellation for their month, but I really don’t want to start a waiting list type of scenario. It isn’t fair to anyone, you, me or the photographer with who you’ve booked just in case.

Nagi Noda, one of the most original image makers died yesterday – cool even in death, she passed away wearing “her Mark Ryden dress, Chanel boots, perfect make-up with Viktor & Rolf lace black eye lashes”

So we finished watching the second season of weeds, which wasn’t quite as funny as the first season and went to a pretty dark and absurd place towards the end, and we were stuck for what to watch next. Then we found Californication, with old David Anchovy, pretty dark and brilliant and nihilistic, loving it at the moment. The trailer (NSFW btw) makes it seem a lot more wholesome than it actually is.

So I vegged out on the couch this weekend and watched the entire first season of Weeds. I now have … “Little boxes on the hill side, little boxes made of ticky tacky. Little boxes, little boxes, little boxes all the same” … going round and around in my head.

… and while everyone seems to think that Michael Phelps made the 2008 Olympics unforgettable, my vote goes to Usain Bolt – serious style.

Been having a crap weekend. I snapped my neck again (don’t even ask, it’s too embarrassing) and I’m back in the neck brace on pain medication. V rocked my world by coming home with a Skygor Boogily Head; half fox, half cat, wears his heart on the outside and likes drinking psycho slurpies. What more is there to say?

And … she brought home Starter for 10, which (although is terribly shot) has a funny storyline, and features an 80′s soundtrack that includes the cure, echo and the bunnymen, the smiths and the psychedelic furs. The weekend was saved, and there will be some pics from Friday’s very very cool wedding up soon.

I’ve been reliably informed that I haven’t posted on the blog in over a week, thanks for that email we know who you are. Oh, the same person also informed me that I didn’t post a portrait of myself this year for my birthday. Gotcha there, I posted it on my facebook profile.

Anyway, this is a quick update on what’s been going on in the month of June at the studio. We are literally swamped with work at the moment and have been busy as beans putting together albums, photos, working on new joint ventures and trying to reply to the literally hundreds of emails that have come through. Due to this overload, and lets just say that I didn’t expect this many inquiries this year, we are in the process of trying to find an admin person to handle this for us. The good news is that you can expect to see a lot more pics and albums and … other things I’ll mention a bit later … on the blog in the next couple of days as I take a short breather and surface to do some blogging.

We’ve put together a joint venture between ourselves, a canvas printer and a framing company and will be offering really good quality mounted canvas prints. I’m putting together our pricing at the moment, but you’re looking at about R1600 for a 1.5m by 1m canvas, printed, stretched, mounted, delivered – that’s an A0 and A1 next to each other.

Before we get to the fun stuff, I’m really trying to cut down on the amount of email I’m getting. It seems that every week we get an email from someone putting together an online wedding portal, magazine, community or some other form of electronic business which is set to revolutionize the industry offering a one-stop portal for all a bride’s wedding needs and would like us to contribute, advertise or to use our photos. If your site can beat the following stats, or comes up higher in the SERPS for any of the keywords that we compete on, feel free to send me an email (include stats), please don’t call. Otherwise, I drink your milkshake!

We’re changing hosting providers this month, our current hosting doesn’t seem to be able to cope with the amount of traffic we generate, and we’ve decided to switch, so there may be a slight hiccup during the middle of the month while we make the necessary changes. We are also going to change our URL, but more on that later.

If you’re a photographer and have read this far. Hi!, we are in the process of putting together two seminars on marketing for wedding photographers, they’ll be held in Joburg and are full day events full of practical ideas and advice. There will be an advanced version for those who are already full time and a entry level version for those wanting to go full time. Keep an eye out here for more info.

Lastly, we learned a lot this month. Firstly, we need an admin assistant badly. Secondly, don’t try to fit a 1.5m canvas into the green mamba, you need the big black car to transport that kind of monster. Thirdly, wedding photography doesn’t scale, you can have too many inquiries, and lastly, did you know that L. Ron Hubbard lived in Linksfield? I didn’t, oh, and it gets pretty damn cold out in Cape Town, pretty damn cold.

Dylsky, it’s on its way.