The Impact and Importance of Wedding Photography Equipment on the Industry

A Discussion of the importance of wedding photography equipment on the wedding photography industry

If you poke around a bit you can find a good deal of discussion on wedding photography and the impact of equipment in the industry.  Specifically the notion or idea that the equipment really does not matter. That a talented photographer could grab an iphone or any cell phone with a camera and produce amazing stuff.  There is truth to that..just not complete truth…Let me preface this discussion with the caveat; I am a commercial success that sees himself as sill learning.  It’s my intention to make the reader I am stating all this as my opinion, and as the opinion of one who is not at a final destination but has a journey ahead.

Guess what? The equipment DOES matter!!!!

Let me draw an analogy….how often do you see a craftsman building a fine home with antiquated or outdated tools?

How often do you see a competent auto technician work on your car with anything other than the latest and greatest in the way of tools and diagnostics?

Answer…you don’t, at least not often. The tools DO make a difference. For us it can mean much faster auto-focus and the ability to shoot in varying lighting and still obtain a quality image.

So if we are accepting of the fact that the latest and greatest tools WILL allow the amateur to capture better images, what do we do?

How do we, as the professional photographer move forward? Do we accept the canon call that professional photography is dead?

I refuse to believe that is the future. I believe what we should be doing is concentrating on ourselves and our professional development. Looking at what we can do to get better, to produce results that would be very difficult to reproduce for the person who has the latest and greatest tool but who does not totally understand the tool and the ability to operate it.

We should be working to have better timing, to understand and control lighting, composition and finally to deliver to our clients an heirloom album that is so different than something they could produce from a friend with a great camera via common and easily produced books from any number of non-professionally dedicated producers.

So if we can accept the fact that the equipment will continue to evolve, and that evolution will undoubtedly allow for better images, made easier with less ability to understand the principles of photography required for everyone, then we realize we ourselves must change

Ill close by stating again, I am nowhere near where I should be or want to be, but it’s a journey I believe all professionals should commit themselves to. If we want to be successful ourselves. If we wish to grow personally and professionally.  If we want our industry to flourish we need to continue to develop ourselves and what we can deliver to our clients. Like almost any industry you can think of, the best of the best always rise to the top. They do not just continue to survive, they flourish  Maybe it’s time we committed ourselves to be more.

I would recommend an excellent opportunity to learn at the PPA’s Super 1-Day Classes. You can read and sign up for those HERE:

I would also recommend going to PPA’s Imaging USA. It is a bucket full of learning with classes by industry experts and a dynamite expos. You can find it IMAGING USA:

I’ll be there.

I hope you will to.

We owe it to our craft.

We owe it to our clients.

We owe it to ourselves.

A Day in The Life Photography.Why Wedding Photography still needs an actual Print.

Wedding Photography and Print vs. Digital Only

In the present environment for wedding photography, it is difficult to not encounter photographers offering digital only services. In wedding photography it is still of paramount importance to educate potential clients over actual physical prints and albums vs digital only files.

An heirloom wedding album filled with carefully chosen images that tells a complete story of the wedding day is not only a cherished priceless memento, it is the very first family heirloom.

Think that’s just the photographer talking to increase his sales? Think again. There is solid data to show the difference on our brains, and our emotions with print vs digital…a terrific article concerning this appeared in Forbes. You can check it out HERE.

This particular wedding was held at Cherry Log Event Center. A wonderful, intimate event center in Cherry Log, Georgia. You can check them out HERE:

To be successful, in our opinion, you may have to offer some level of digital files, however that should not obviate prints and albums. Understanding the respective culture may mean being able to leverage digital in ways that make strong use of it, while retaining your brand as well as the uniqueness for your clients.

Custom Apps built and Designed for your clients are an excellent way to use digital while maintaining the worth of the images. You can see an example of such an app HERE:

Loving your clients means doing AND offering your best to them, Actual physical prints and heirloom albums is in our opinion the optimum way to deliver the best to your clients.

Professional Prints and Heirloom albums are, in our opinion,  tell the story in the most powerful way possible, and the most personal story, is the most powerful story. We will be talking more about that in our next blog post.

Telling the Story In Wedding Photography

…and we are telling the story in wedding photography when we make good connections with our clients.

Telling the story in wedding photography involves telling the message of the couple. You can’t convincingly tell a message you don’t know intimately and you cannot tell a convincing message you do not believe in. All of these things involve a relationship with your couple. When we meet with a couple it is ultimately our job primarily to tell the story with wedding photography by producing beautiful and unique images of the couple on the day of their wedding.

This particular wedding was held at Cedar Plantation, an awesome venue in Acworth Georgia…you can check them out HERE:

Knowing…and loving your clients!

The very first thing we set our minds to do is to learn about them. How did they meet? What are their likes and dislikes? Are there special moments, things or places that are very unique to them? Learning things and setting your mind to learn all you can about your couple can play huge dividends on the days of shooting. Telling the story in wedding photography involves both knowing and loving your clients.

We are huge believers clients do not let you “in” until they understand that you care and that they can trust you. That trust is about your ability to convey their unique spirit accurately. As I tell all our students in our Super 1 Day Classes, we strive to shoot not just what it looks like, but what it feels like!

Connecting with your clients successfully hinges strongly on finding YOUR clients. After receiving a contact query we set up a meeting with the prospective couple. In this meeting we outline what we do, as well as what we do not do. We do not try to be the cheapest, we do not try to reduce or match prices and we do not do shoot and burns or digital only. Our focus is on a boutique experience in telling the story in wedding photography and our final product is an heirloom album.

When you love your clients, you want what is best for them…and educating them about an actual physical print and heirloom albums makes all the difference in their experience and value in their wedding photography.