We tend to photograph in a very photo-journalistic fashion, but we also do formal posed photos. Our journalistic style lets us capture the important moments as they are happening. This produces photos which really tell the story of your special day. We often shoot with two photographers for a wider variety of angles and because it allows us to capture things happening at the same time in different places. Check out our
portfolio to see a small selection of our excellent work!
We use state of the art, Canon EOS Digital SLR cameras. We also use Canon external flashes, one mounted on a bracket on the camera and other flashes with light stands and umbrellas available for formaly posed shots or special lighting situations. We also have external battery packs for our flashes which enable our flashes to recharge almost instantaneously, allowing us to take many photos in rapid sucession. We have a wide variety of high quality lenses for every situation. We always bring a backup camera and other equipment in case of an equipment malfunction. We have many memory cards which allow us to take well over 1000 photos before we run out of space on our memory cards. We can transfer the files to a laptop if we manage to exceed the capacity of our memory cards.
We shoot in the cameras "RAW" mode. This allows the best quality that the camera can provide. It is very similar to a film negative in that it is possible to correct the images after the fact. For example, if the white of the wedding dress is too bright it is easily corrected and the details can be restored. If the photo was shot as a JPG and the dress was way too bright there would be no way to restore the details in the white dress. RAW files are also uncompressed which means that they do not suffer from the pixelation artifacts caused by JPG compression. Some wedding photographers out there do shoot in JPG, but they are taking a big risk with your precious memories.
Shooting RAW requires a lot more time because we adjust each and every photo on the computer in photoshop for optimal color, brightness and contrast. We spend two to three times the amount of time we spend shooting the wedding editing the raw files. So for a 6 hour wedding we will spend 12-18 hours after the wedding making your photos look their best. Most of our packages include both the edited raw files and a set of JPG files(saved at the highest quality level) generated from the optimized raw files. JPG files are more universal and can be viewed on almost all computers and are printable at almost any photo lab. We can also provide a folder of lower resolution (and smaller size) jpg files suitable for myspace or other online uses. The raw files typically need special software to view. Most professional print shops can read the raw files and they will provide prints of the highest quality. You can download a free trial of Photoshop from adobe.com or download Canon's raw file viewing program from canon.com to view and print the raw files from your home computer. We provide both RAW and JPG files to let you keep your options open! If you are on a very tight budget and good with computers and Photoshop we can offer discounted rates and provide you with only the unedited RAW files straight from the camera
Some photographers have an exclusivity clause in their contacts stating that they are the exclusive photographers for the wedding and no one else can shoot photos at the wedding. They do this because they want to sell you as many prints as possible at inflated prices. We encourage family and friends to take photos at the reception, since we can't be everywhere at once, and we want you to have as many photos as possible of this very important day. We also allow people to take photos during the formal and group portraits. We find that having extra people helping to coordinate the formal photos helps to set up the best group shots because your friends and family know how everyone is related to each other. We only ask that the other guests let us get our shot first and then they can take as many as they want of each group pose.
We keep a copy of the photos on file in case you lose or damage the originals. CD and DVD discs last best when they are stored in a dark, dry and cool place. They do deteriorate over time so we recommend that you back up your photos onto another disc every few years. This is what we do with our backup files which we make for every wedding. Included in your purchase is the right to make as many copies as you want so feel free to make as many back ups as you want and give them to family and friends! If you prefer, for a small charge we can make extra backup discs for you with custom printed photo labels. Prints made at high quality photo labs can have a lifetime of over 100 years if stored properly, so the best back up method may be making sure to get lots of prints of all your favorite photos!
