Atherton & District Amateur Photographic Society

On Sunday afternoon I was happily Christmas shopping when I took a call from a mate. After the pleasantries (5 minutes later), he mentioned his sister was getting married at 2pm and, due to the snow, the official photographer had to cancel. The real reason therefore for the call was...would I step in?! Obviously I wouldn't/couldn't let a mate down.

So, with an hour to get home and to pack and with no preparation whatsoever, I embarked on my biggest photography challenge so far!

The link to the images is here http://www.redshank.net/galleries/bev-1209/ and I really would appreciate some feedback (to be honest - I've been asked "how much" for this and your feedback will help me to value this).

All the photos were taken indoor (at the Greyhound in Leigh), all using one mounted speedlite flash and the light got worse towards the end as I lost all ambient light. The photos are in the order taken and would be edited again for the album.

From a wedding photographers perspective I learnt a lot from the session (not least to find out when friends family members are getting married!!) but in relation to the lighting and what I would do better next time, in poor lighting conditions.

Cheers & merry Christmas!

Andrew

I've had a look at all these images, and well done for being prepared to pull out all the stops at such short notice. You've been successful as well - there's enough good material here to make a very creditable set of images. Be ruthless in the editing.

If you didn't have an assistant, then it would be a good idea as the weakest pictures are the groups. An assistant will help you get the people together and arranged while you concentrate on the photography. Try to avoid gentlemen clasping their hands in front of themselves and looking as though they are waiting to receive the brunt of a penalty shot! You did miss the cutting of the cake.

The candids are nice and these days people appreciate that more informal approach, full of the life and joy of the occasion.

Hope that helps!

Andrew,

Well done, they will be more than happy with them. The thing is, some people will think that if your photographer doesn't turn up, you'd be happy to just have any kind of pictures to record the day, but that's not true. You've got all the main photos and with the table layouts, menus and flowers etc, you've got all the fillers you'd need to make an intimate album.

I don't think all the desaturated pictures work (bridesmaids in boots), but most do. The bride has a very colourful skin tone, I think it's worth keeping that. However, she may not like it, what do I know. It would be interested to hear what they think.

Cost - can you justify to yourself (by that I mean your better half!) turning up to gain experience, or did you turn up to do a job? I'm sure they would have no problem with you saying what you would have quoted. You could also work out what percentage of a planned wedding photographer day you actually performed and pro rata it?

I know you want to be sympathetic, but you achieved something, so don't sell yourself short. Bear in mind, I'm assuming that they already budgetted for a photographer, he didn't turn up......

Well done.

Andrew Shepherd wrote:... due to the snow, the official photographer had to cancel ...would I step in?!

I've been asked "how much" for this and your feedback will help me to value this).

Hi Andrew

I agree that you've got more than enough good images for an album here. You seem to have an eye for this kind of photography, I think.

I agree with Philip that the desaturated / sepia images don't really work (for me). They look a bit washed out and lacking in contrast. Perhaps try giving them a bit more 'punch' by upping contrast.


As for how much to charge, they obviously already had a budget and you rescued them from a nasty situation.

It depends on how much of a 'mate' he is and how much of a value you want to put on your time and services. As you were shopping when he phoned, I take it you weren't invited to the wedding.

A suggestion would be to ask him how much they were going to pay the other photographer and then add more on top for the last minute 'inconvenience factor'.

Andrew, like John, Phillip and Paul, I think you have enough there for the couple to have a good record of the day. The desaturated photos are the ones that I prefer, but as Paul notes, with a little bit of tweaking - and as an 'album' I think it the images would hold together with a consistent approach [either all desaturated or not]. What struck me with the Bride was that her pictures were a little too sharp, so a bit of softening might help.

It's difficult enough when it's planned and not last minute - so well done. Oh yes, don't undersell your time and wares.

Regards

Walter

Andrew

That is a smashing job. Very, very well done.

How much? No idea.

Whilst I agree with Walter that the bride looks a little over sharpened some of the others could do with some selective sharpening. Img 7706 and 7751 are good examples. I have pulled both in to photoshop and the eyes sharpen up fine. It will probably work even better on a full size file.
Img 7812 has picked up a colour cast from the ceiling lights so it needs the white balance tweaking.
Once the final images have been selected some of the backgrounds need sorting out. It looks like you were working in a very challenging environment.

You can be very proud of your work. To me these images look to be of a professional standard.

Theo

Many thanks for the comments - I'll respond to the various comments:

John – I didn’t have an assistant and it was manic preparing the group shots – last time I did a wedding I knew exactly who I was photographing and in what order/where, but not this time. I didn’t stay for the dinner, speeches, cutting of the cake, first dance, etc – I only stayed until after the ceremony – I was taking the kids to see Santa! Thanks for the comments around the bloke group shots – something I will be more conscious of in the future.

Walter/Paul/Phil – on the de-saturated images – I really like the effect. It’s a Lightroom preset and, for me, it really makes them different. One thing I’m finding though, is what I like the majority don’t!! I’m not preparing the album for them – I’m just passing the images on (to save me time), the de-saturated images were really intended just to show how different the same images can look with a little editing, but I do like them (maybe with a bit more tweaking).

Paul – he’s my best mate but I haven’t seen his sister for many years – it was more a favour for him and I wouldn’t have done it for many other people (certainly not at “mates prices” anyway). Having said that, I really enjoyed the challenge and the experience.

Theo – thanks for the pointers on sharpness. I’ve been trying to spend as little time as possible (all I’ve done is cropped, corrected the white balance, removed the noise, added a few effects and generally sharpened them up). But on over 150 images that takes a good few hours. If I was preparing the album and was being paid “fully” – I would spend more time on some of the images.

Most of these images were shot around ISO 1600 & 2000 – the venue and low-light really was a challenge – do you think I have corrected the noise levels?

Many thanks all and I hope you are all having a good break.

Cheers

Andrew

Andrew,

Sorry about the late reply, currently in York at a caravan site using an O2 dongle on my old (8yrs+) laptop set at 16 bit to view at 1024x768. Thus cant really comment on the sharpness etc of the images as they dont look the best on the old thing.

Price: You've probably agreed a price by now, but here's my two penneth. Well you stepped in at the last moment so that should pay more, but then its for a friend, also the photographer booked should really have had a standby if he couldn't make it (you made it there so why couldn't he?). You are supplying the images for them to do as they will, so they will be able to print off as many as they like. A shoot and burn as they say has a minimum price of around £200 midweek, yours is a shoot then adjustment of images (time involved). I would estimate a price of between £350 to £550 as a minimum, if you are giving them an assignment to print as many as they like which will probably happen whether you do it or not then you should factor that into your price also. Then again you could always mark it down as a good learning experience and charge less. Not really answered the question, but in the end its your decision, also bear in mind that it may lead to other weddings and you dont want to sell yourself cheap.

As for the images, i agree with everyone else, you've done a very good job and they should be well pleased. I personally dont like the desaturated images and think they would be better in black/white with a little more zap (contrast etc). Then again if you are going to do a few weddings then its good to have your own style and its one that may sell yourself to potential clients.

On a technical point the speedlite 580? should have given you enough light that you didn't need an iso of 1600+, unless you wanted to include a lot of the ambient light. The shots in portrait mode show the flash shadow to the right which could have been reduced by use of a 'stroboframe' or similar which would keep the flash above camera to avoid harsh shadows. Another speedlite would have assisted but you wont be able to buy that until they pay you. A second speedlite set on slave could literally be placed anywhere in the limited space you had and the Canon wireless (light) system would have triggered no problem, thus allowing you to throw light on the subjects from more than one direction and the Canon Ettl11 system would have taken care of the flash exposure, (well not strictly true as it can be caught out, but generally works ok)

Some of the backgrounds leave a little bit to be desire, but heck in that situation I'd be clutching at straws to criticise that and you've altered position so we dont get the same background continuously which is a bonus. A lower f/stop may have put some of the backgrounds more out of focus and also allowed more natural light in. Dont know what lenses you were using, but your 5dMk11 has good high iso levels so really you had one of the best cameras for the job and it shows. The flash should freeze the subject so you could have been at 1/125 secs at f4-f8 using camera on manual and flash on ettl for simplicity with an iso of 400-800. Or reduce the shutter to 1/60 or thereabouts with a 50mm or less lens and so long as the subjects were pretty static (which they generally are in posed wedding shots) you would have plenty of keepers and still allowed more ambient light in. I reckon even though you shot at 1600 iso and above the results from your camera are such that even experienced photographers would be pushed to see the noise and the clients wont even notice. If there are some that show then convert them to black/white which is what most professionals seem to do and then call it grain lol.

As for the workflow situation its a personal thing to each photographer, I use Canon's own DPP software, its good for recipes and applying sharpness, white balance etc in minimal time and will also batch process raws to jpegs though it does take a little time to do that.

Overall, extremely well done in the circumstances.

Phil

Cheers Phil

The majority (apart from the actual ceremony) were shot at F/4 with the 24-105 lens and I couldn't go any lower. Given how tight it was in the reception area (nobody wanted to go outside in the snow!) I had to open up the lens, which will have sharpened up the background. It's another fair point though - I've tried to crop them quite tight to remove some of the distractions.

I wanted to catch some of the ambient light, to avoid dark backgrounds.

Regards

Andrew