Wedding season is about to arrive, which means it’s time to start looking for a team. The photographer is one of its key participants, because he turns an event that will never be repeated into a memory. And the higher his skill, the more interesting the wedding photos will be.
Search!
Finding a photographer is not difficult, because you have… The Internet! But how to find a good one of your own – that’s the main question. For starters, ask your friends and acquaintances who are already married. Look at their wedding photos on their social networking pages. If you are satisfied with the quality of the photos, then feel free to ask for the contact information of their author.
Don’t be too cheap
The services of a professional photographer are not cheap. Pay attention to this! The cost of his work includes: meeting with you, planning the route of the wedding shooting and backup route (in case of rain), tracking the timing of the wedding day, putting you in the frame, assistance in posing, photo selection and elimination of marriage, primary color correction, secondary color correction, detailed retouching, photo book makeup. In addition, the photographer buys, updates and repairs his photo equipment, which is not, a priori, cheap. And also, he invests in advertising, which is how you know about it.
Pay attention to experience
The wedding photographer should be experienced. This affects the result, because to shoot your wedding, he will have only one opportunity. Can you imagine the responsibility? That’s why the photographer should have more than a dozen weddings, because wedding photography is the most difficult type of photography. It includes portrait, landscape, reportage, and object photography. In addition, the wedding lasts from morning till late evening, and even more so in different locations (park, restaurant, photo studio, etc.), so the photographer should be able to shoot both with daylight and artificial light.
Choose your personality
The photographer is a person who will be with you throughout the wedding day. He should be friendly and pleasant to talk to, because you will be kissing, laughing and hugging with him. It is important that his presence does not embarrass you.
Study your portfolio
It’s no secret that the photographer only puts the best work in the portfolio, as well as shoots from workshops, styling and walks. Ask the photographer you are interested in to show you at least one wedding as a whole, so that you can evaluate his skills in both reportage and studio shooting with artificial light.
A contract with a photographer: why sign?
Let’s imagine that you have chosen a photographer, met with him and you even liked him, but he said that a verbal agreement on cooperation is enough. How this is fraught and why you need to sign a contract, we’ll tell you next.
The contract for the bride and groom is a written confirmation that the photographer on the wedding day will definitely come to them, and not say five days before the party that he had a more favorable shooting. For the photographer, the contract is a guarantee that if the terms of cooperation are met, he will receive a guaranteed fee.
The contract must prescribe:
- terms of the deal (date, city of the shoot, number of hours of shooting, cost, basic and additional services)
- the responsibilities of the parties;
- risks;
- the number of photos in the final version and the form of their transfer;
- terms of performance, penalties for late payment and transfer of photos;
- other conditions (additional transport, payment for gasoline to the photographer, the photographer’s uniform, etc.);
- requisites of each party and signatures.
This will increase the couple’s confidence in the photographer, and the photographer will know what is required of him.
Usually the contract is signed at a meeting with the photographer after discussing all the details and making a mutual decision to work together. The signing of this document is supported by an advance payment. This amount varies for all specialists, but usually amounts to 25-30% of the total cost of the service.
A photographer who works without a contract is unlikely to be a professional, because only a master of his craft is not afraid of responsibility, is confident in his qualifications and can guarantee the result, which is written in the contract. Therefore, if the photographer does not conclude a contract with the couple – it is better to run away. An exception could be when the specialist is a close friend of the bride and groom. But even here we need to be careful!
Listen to these tips and try to follow them when it’s time to find a team.