Wedding Photography
From 1986 to 2007, I estimate Newsome’s Studio of Photography covered just over 800 weddings. I stopped accepting large traditional weddings at that time, but will occasionally still entertain providing documentary styled photography coverage on a very limited scale – for very small weddings.
When I say “very small weddings,” I mean weddings expecting less than 75 guests, wedding and reception in the same location, and coverage limited to four hours or less. These types of parameters often fit nicely for “second weddings,” but not usually “first weddings.” 🙂 It’s not that I don’t still enjoy the photography aspect of covering a wedding – although it’s a gruelling day for even the youngest of image makers – it was the post-production that led me away from the wedding market.
The time invested in one wedding far exceeds what most would ever realize. In the film days, a six hour wedding would typically involve about 16 hours of labor, between meeting with the couple, booking, engagement session, day of coverage, editing the proofs, masking negatives, assembling an album, and delivery. In the digital era, that same six our wedding ballooned to 30-40 hours of labor. Why? Because you tend to shoot more, and YOU do the color/density corrections that the LAB used to do. Then you invest an incredible amount of time in creating a custom album that resembles a magazine layout, vs the old-school 1-8×10, 2-5×7’s, or 4-4×5’s per page styled album that matted around actual prints!
Sadly, most of those album companies went out of business over the last ten years, due in no small part to the shifting sands of tastes in album styles.
Today, I had a client come in for passport photos. She brought with her, a blast from my past – her wedding album that we’d created in 1997. Yes, she’s still very happily married, three children, and hadn’t aged a DAY! It was great going through that album, because I could remember every single photo taken – the location – the family members, and the wonderful couple they made back then (and still make).
It was almost enough to make me want to go back into the wedding business…. well… almost. 😉
Thank you Sandra! You made my day.