Narragansett Rhode Island Wedding Photography: Heather & Jay
This wedding was a little different than ones I usually work, in that I knew the groom and the best man fairly well. We grew up in the same hometown and went to the same high school. I was a couple years behind them, but still… it was fun working with people you were already pretty comfortable with.
This was my first time meeting the bride because the couple now live in North Carolina. But, she too, was very easy and fun to get along with. If you can find a bride with a bigger smile on her face I’ll seriously give you 50 bucks.
Heather and Jay got married in beautiful Narragansett, RI at The Towers… a famous landmark for you out-of-towners. This place sits directly on the ocean and is simply beautiful. Below are a selection of my favorite images from the day:
Newport Rhode Island Wedding Photography: Maggie & Justin
If I was giving out gold stars, I would give out something like 100 to all the brides who make the most of a rainy wedding day. They’re really “glass half full” kinda people. Sure, it’s raining, but it’s still your wedding day.
This wedding was at the Hyatt in Newport, Rhode Island. I have done several weddings here now and this was the first time it rained. I found myself forced to look around for indoor locations to do pictures. But wait… is that a break in the rain? Yes. For about 8 minutes and then me, my camera, my second photographer, and the videographer got soaked. Only the couple escaped under an umbrella with minimal damage. But, I got my wish and in those 8 minutes was able to fire off a few nice shots outdoors.
Maggie and Justin are a great couple who couldn’t stop making each other laugh all night. The whole group (family included) were a laid back bunch and made capturing the day a pleasure.
Some of my favorite images below:
These two would also get 100 gold stars.
Connecticut Wedding Photography: Jillian & Vinny
Remember Jillian and Vinny from their engagement session earlier this summer?
Well now they’re married. The wedding was in western Connecticut and it was gorgeous. Such a perfect day for a wedding and these two are such a fun couple they making taking pictures a breeze.
Here are some of the highlights:
Cape Cod Wedding Photography: Shelby & Maura – September 10, 2011
Shelby and Maura were married in beautiful Cape Cod, Massachusetts this September. I’ve actually never seen two families so close and compatible. In fact, the family’s homes played an integral role in this wedding. The brides got ready in one, and had the ceremony in the ocean-front backyard of the other. Gorgeous.
The entire wedding was planned (very well) by Desiree Spinner Events.
Below is a selection of of my favorite images from the day. Enjoy. And congratulations again to Shelby and Maura!
Thanks for visiting! Be sure to request a welcome package or contact me for more information about your wedding.
Rhode Island Wedding Photography: Sarah & Todd – August 27, 2011
Sarah and Todd had their wedding in Providence, Rhode Island this August at the Biltmore. This was the day before Tropical Storm Irene hit, so there was some rain, but we had plenty of opportunities to get outside, and even a few moments to drop the umbrella. These are some of the highlights:
Wedding Photography Lists & Photo Samples
As a wedding photographer, I’ve had a fair share of brides provide me with photo lists. Lists of photos that I must take during their wedding day.
First of all, I encourage these lists. In fact, a lot of times I require them. Three or four weeks before the wedding day is the perfect time for a bride to email me her list of desired photos. That way I’ve got time to review it, think about it, edit it, and have a conversation with her about it.
However, I’ve gotten a few lists before that spell out nearly every last detail of each photo that I’m supposed to take. The problem with these? It’s not that I don’t appreciate your attention to detail, and it’s not that I don’t intend on taking most of these photos… I do. The problem is, when you create such a detailed list, you keep your photographer so involved with that list (paranoid some might say) that they often don’t take the time to look up from it and capture the real moments.
For example, I don’t need to be reminded to capture the couple’s first dance or have one of the reuqests be “photo of my dad staring back at me after he’s given me away”. Those are giant moments in any wedding and they obviously require adequate coverage. What I would love knowing is that your centerpieces are all different and you’d like a picture of all of them, or that you’re grandmother did the calligraphy on your escort cards, or that after 2 minutes of slow dancing, you and your new husband are going to break into a crazy-rendition of “Beat It”. Those are special and unique moments/items that I wouldn’t be aware of otherwise.
Same thing with family groupings. Mom, dad, brother, and sister with bride and groom is a standard. But if you’ve got special aunts or cousins or great great uncles that are attending, chaulk them up on the list if you want photos with them because otherwise I may not know they exist. It also helps to have someone designated to help me figure out who everyone is. Your list might say “Photo of bride with Aunt Mary”, but I have no idea what Aunt Mary looks like or who she is, so it makes the pictures flow a lot easier to have someone (your brother/sister, or even yourself) knowing that it’s their job to round up the relatives.
So make your lists, please. And in fact, I encourage brides to send me tear-sheets or printouts or emails of anything that inspires them… which are very helpful by the way. Even if you don’t know why. Have you ever looked at a photo that you absolutely loved for no apparent reason? Maybe it’s the composition, or the lighting, or the pose (or all three). Point is, I can recognize those features in an image and do my best to duplicate that vibe for you! The photo above was made possible because a bride saw something similar done on a wedding planning website and we worked with her bridesmaids to make it happen (took a couple of trys).
The more we’re on the same page, the better. It’s your day. And it’s my job to do the best I can to make it a day you remember and remember fondly.
How a Wedding Photographer Selects Wedding Photos
September is always my busiest month for editing. The late August weddings and early September weddings are always a guarantee, and often my first weekends to book up the previous winter. This year is no different as I find myself buried under an avalanche of editing wedding photos — some 10,000 this week.
One of the most popular questions I get asked is “how many photos will I receive from my wedding?”. There isn’t an exact answer for that, and it depends mainly on three things:
1) Which package you select. Two of the three packages I offer include a second photographer. Two photographers almost definitely means more photos, often close to double.
2) A bit harder to quantify or determine, but how complex your wedding is will also affect the number of pictures you get. Are all your centerpieces different and require unique photos? Do you have really robust invitations, table tents, place cards, menus and other stationary? More things or more events, means more photographs.
3) Lastly, time. How long have you hired me for? 8 hours? 15? I don’t think this one needs much of an explanation…
But let’s put it this way, I’ve never shot less than 1,400 images at a single wedding and the most I’ve ever had at the end of the day is 3,500. Do you get that many images? No.
Let me walk you briefly through my editing process to better explain why.
I use a program called Aperture to organize and raw process your wedding photos. This program (like many others) has a very simple “star rating” system, like the scale used to rate movies, 1-5 stars. The first thing I do is browse through the entire day’s worth of photos fairly quickly and eliminate anything that’s just clearly horrible — meaning it’s slightly out of focus or under/over exposed, or maybe your uncle jumped in front of my camera. This represents a very small percentage of your photos… I’m good, but nobody’s perfect! Mostly blame your uncle.
Next I take a little more time and go through the images I’ve marked with 1 star. This time I’m mostly looking for things like closed eyes or goofy faces. Not goofy in the “Oh, look at Joanne, she’s being so silly” kind of way — more like the “I never want that picture to see the light of day” kind of way. Photography captures a split second moment in time, and that tiny little frame is not always the most flattering at 16 megapixels. I spend enough time with my clients to understand the difference between a fun-goofy face and one that looks a bit awkward.
The next pass through takes a lot of focus and time. My camera is capable of shooting in bursts of up to 9 frames per second. A moment like your first kiss may last 3 or 4 seconds. Some simple arithmetic will tell you that I could easily take 36 pictures of your first kiss. I know it’s an important moment (hence the trigger-happy finger) but let’s face it, 36 photos is excessive. Longer moments like your first dance might have 50-100 different shots taken — shooting at a much slower frame rate of course. But the point is, I’m weeding through those very similar images to find the best 20-30%. Best means lighting, your expression, composition, etc.
The 4-star pass drops a much smaller selection of images. This is when I start to apply adjustments and see which images really start shaping up to be amazing. These are the images you see, everything with 4 stars. Because I know you’re still wondering — let’s say hypothetically at a fairly average 8 hour wedding with just one photographer I shoot 1,800 images. You can expect somewhere between 400-600 final images.
So what’s the elusive 5-star rating reserved for if I show my clients all of the 4′s? If I had to tell your story in 30 photos or less — which I do, that’s what wedding albums are for — I would use these 30 or so 5-star photos. These are the “WOW” images. The ones I would include in a blog post about your wedding, ones I’ll add to my portfolio and maybe add to my marketing materials. I also like to see how our final tastes align when you select your wedding album images.
So that’s it — how I select your wedding photos and how many you can expect to get. All my clients have their images posted online, they get 4×6 prints, and a DVD of all the full-resolution edited files.
Rhode Island Wedding: Photography Spotlight
Every so often I’m going to take the time to highlight some individual wedding photos here on the blog. This particular Rhode Island wedding was interesting because it took place the day before the dreaded tropical storm “Irene”. It was a Saturday and it wasn’t too windy, but it rained a lot… just in time to take pictures with the couple.
We had a few breaks of literally just a couple of minutes at a time, but got some good shots in. Sarah and Todd were great, real troopers.
If the rain holds back enough on your wedding day, it’s the best type of weather for pictures. Not too hot, cloudy for uniform light, and the streets are wet and shiny and produce awesome reflections.
This photo was taken in downtown Providence, Rhode Island on Westminster Street. Completely un-posed, just the couple enjoying a nice moment together.
Digital Negatives Included
New wedding DVD samples just came in and I thought I would take the opportunity to reiterate that these are included in every wedding package I offer for no additional or hidden charge.
They’re silk-wrapped with a custom photo cover, magnetic closure, and the disc itself is printed too. So not only are these DVDs super elegant, but burned onto them are ALL of your final images, fully edited and in full resolution. You also retain all printing, reproduction, and online sharing rights for personal use. You can print up to 30×40 inch photos at this resolution.
My philosophy has always, and will always be that you paid good money for me to take these photos, why shouldn’t you get to enjoy them to the fullest? Check out a few more images of the DVDs and cases right here and if you haven’t already, request a welcome package for even more info.
New Wedding Albums
I’m very excited to announce the new albums now featured in ALL of my wedding photography packages.
That’s right, all packages come standard with a 10×10 wedding album that has 10 lay-flat spreads. Lay-flat means no middle gutter like a magazine, your photos flow seamlessly across two pages and look even more awesome. Each page is mounted to a 1mm thick piece of fiber board to give the book a really substantial feel.
The standard wedding album comes with a soft vintage leather cover in a number of classic colors. It’s a $690 value, included in your wedding package!
There are also a number of other options including different sizes, more spreads and custom photo wrapped covers. These albums also make great gifts for your parents, maid of honor and best man.
The most common question I get about wedding albums is “how many photos can I fit in my album?” Well, 10 spreads can accommodate anywhere from 10 giant photos across 10 full spreads, to 3-4 photos per spread, meaning an absolute maximum of about 40. I find that somewhere between 20-30 images fill the album quite nicely.
In terms of actually laying out the albums, you can let me do all the leg work, select a “must-have” list, or we can schedule a separate album consultation to go over every last detail. No matter what, I’ll email you a PDF proof before I place the order to ensure 100% satisfaction.
The photo paper is insured to resist fading for 125 years, and you also have my personal guarantee that for whatever reason your album doesn’t come out the way you imagined, I will replace it for no additional cost.
There are some photos of the albums in this post, and there are even more on the wedding album section of my site, but the only way to see these beauties in person is to schedule a meeting.
