Quite often we’ll rent a lens to give things a bit of variety, but the 50mm 1.8 will always be my favorite lens. Its the most basic of lenses, I bought mine in 1991 and 18 years and over a million images later, I feel like I know most of her secrets.

I had another comment this morning from a fellow photographer that we deliver too many images. We deliver all the images that I am happy with, full stop. I also feel that I judge images based on artistic and documentary merit but our clients pick their images based on other criteria including things that they like or don’t like about the way that they look. I’d rather they had a couple of similar images with different expressions so that they are able to pick one that they are happiest with. Yes, it does make for longer selection times, but I can live with that.

“We love your style, and if we had known about you before our wedding we would have definitely hired you. Our photographer gave us a DVD with all of the photos taken on the day. Would you be able to edit them for us?”

I seem to be getting more and more of these types of mails recently, and I thought I would just clarify a couple of things. Editing pics only enhances what is already there, it can make a good photo look great, it can’t make an average photo look good and it definitely can’t do anything to a terrible photo. Editing is also an extension of the photography process, it enhances what the photographer was seeing when he or she took the photo, getting someone else to edit your pics wouldn’t result in the vision that your original photographer had.

The camera isn’t a human eye, it can’t see the range of colours that our eyes can, or the same amount of tones. It also can’t photograph what your mind sees as a photographer, we try to correct that in the post production process and get it closer to what we saw when we made the image. Its a myth that you can take a terrible image, club it to death with a canned photoshop action or preset and get an amazing image. Post-production is a part of the artistic process of getting a great image, not something you can add on at the end as an after thought.

Secondly, the process of editing is part of what makes wedding photography so expensive. For every hour out photographing a wedding, we budget at least 5 hours of post production work. We look at an eight hour wedding and allocate 80-90 hours of admin, photography, post-production and design.

Some photographers, and I am assuming this on the basis of emails I get from prospective clients, charge extra for doing post production on your images and apparently this is something you need to ask before you hire someone (it would never have occurred to me that one needed to ask, but apparently you do). We routinely hand over around 800-1000 images for a wedding, and each one goes through our post production workflow, the cost of this time is part of our packages, not an extra. Long story short, ask what is extra and whether you can see a representative full wedding. Wedding photography in SA is an industry with no barrier to entry.

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I’m really enjoying Anne-Celine Jaeger’s, Image Makers, Image Takers.

Martin Parr: “You usually have a hunch, but the great thing about photography is that it’s so unpredictable, so you never quite understand how and when a good photograph comes about.
But when editing, I do contact sheets, then machine prints and then select from that.”
And when asked what makes one image stand out more than another, is it emotional or an intellectual reaction he answers: “It must be intuitive. If it were intellectual, I’d be able to explain what happens. That’s why I’m a photographer. I express myself visually, not verbally.”

I watched two movies this weekend, lying in a sleep deprived half state, trying to clear my head a bit from the relentless photo editing. First up was The Mist, which I’m not sure if it has been released in SA yet, but our video shop has this TBYB section where stuff that has not yet hit the screens is often for rent.

The movie started off innocently enough with the usual, army stuffs up, opens a portal into another dimension, bad critters come through, humans get eaten, that is the standard fare for this kind of date night horror. Bubble gum for the brain and eyes, just what the doctor ordered. Then the twist, and not what you expect either; dark, post-existentialist, psycho drama that leaves you feeling drained, slightly twisted and very much wondering why. I’m not sure why anyone would want to watch this.

Desperate for something a bit happier, we put on I’m Not There, the Bob Dylan movie with the six different people playing him. I went through a big Bob Dylan phase when I was in my teens. This was beautifully shot, long, ambitious, complex meander through I’m not sure what. The only person who looked like Robert was Cate Blanchett, who was smoking, literally and figuratively, in the role. It was the kind of movie that I would have loved ten years ago, today it was eye candy. If you’re a photographer, or you just like to shoot, highly recommended. Edward Lachman, simply kicks ass as a cinematographer.

“For a scene showing young Robbie and Claire in a New York diner, Lachman framed the two so that they didn’t always seem to be the subject of their own shots; he accomplished this effect by using a mirror behind the actors, deliberately disorienting the viewer and introducing shifts in screen direction that would create an awkwardness that reflected the characters’ emotions.” from American Cinematographer

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.

This one is for all the photographers, wannabee photographers and other interesting people who read this blog.

In a recent edition of a photography mag that shall not be named I saw a double page spread for the Canon 40D, the image was of a fantastic sunset, the payoff line … I gaze at the sunset with the woman I love, and think … f/8 at 1/250 …

If that’s you, maybe its time to try another f-stop. f/8 has no real personality.

If you’re not a photographer, we’ll be returning to our regular diet of beautiful brides in amazing venues next week. This weekend will be another Summerplace affair.

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