Firstly couples we find are contacting far more wedding photographers for a quote than they ever have.  Not only are they contacting them but they are also going to meet with far more.  The choice today is massive – but how do you know if you have found a “good buy” or an “expensive mistake”?  Of course I am going to look at it with the photographers skilled eye of knowing what is a good picture and what is simply a collection of snapshots no better than any guest at your wedding could have taken – so for me it’s easy to tell.  For you however by the time you find out it could be too late and your wedding photos which are the ones classed as “an expensive mistake”.

Don’t be under any illusion though – there are far more inexperienced amateur photographers who have jumped on the “I can take a decent picture and have a good camera so I can photograph weddings” than you are ever likely to realise.  They are probably uninsured for either Public Liability or Professional Indemnity (because if they were they’d have to pass on some of this cost to you….) – so who pays out if something gets damaged at the hotel, one of your guests falls over their bags or they don’t make it to the wedding because their car won’t start or any other different eventualities that can and do happen every week across the UK?  Not them – that’s for sure.  They probably carry only one main camera and possibly a couple of lenses.  They may, if you are lucky, have a flash gun to hand.  You are luckier still if they actually know how to use it properly and effectively.  You may have to wait weeks for your photographic proofs after the wedding as they juggle their day job with their weekend moonlighting.  If the taxman catches up with them you may not get your photos at all as they struggle to pay a huge fine for unpaid taxes.  Oh and did I mention the British weather?  God help you if it’s either full sun or it rains – because they may not have a clue how to effectively deal with either – and either could ruin your photos.

Don’t get me wrong – there are some halfway decent photographers out there at around £1000 for a full day from getting ready through to first dance – but not that many.  We do recommend a couple of them if we are already booked or simply beyond your budget.  I’m not going to ramble on about everything you should or could do to ensure decent wedding photography as I’ve done it in previous posts but here’s a couple of things you should do as a minimum:

• DO NOT go and see a million and one photographers.  Shortlist 3 maximum to visit and make your choice.
• Ask a friend who they used, look at their album/photos and find out what they were happy with and what, if anything they were not so happy with then try to avoid the same pitfalls.
• ALWAYS make sure your photographer is fully insured for Professional Liability and Public Indemnity.
• ALWAYS ask about what back-up contingencies are in place – not just equipment but what if your chosen photographer is taken ill or similar – who will take his or her place?
• DO NOT simply purchase on price.  Your photography should have an emotional connection too.  Sometimes the difference may only be £200 – which is usually the cost of around 2 guests (who may drop out anyway) or what less than £20/month for a year – you can’t even go to the cinema for that!

DO NOT dismiss a photographer simply because they have not photographed your chosen venue before.  All this “We must go and have a look at it first to find the best spots to take photos…” and “It’s really important that your photographer has photographed the venue before…” is total rubbish.  I can show you lots of different galleries of amazing photos from venues we have never stepped foot in prior to the wedding day.  Any halfway decent photographer should be able to create good pictures with whatever they are faced with and if they go to the same venue and do the same things in the same spots then where is the creativity?  Add to this the fact that a venue is not the same each time and where does that leave you?  Take Hazlewood Castle for instance – a venue where we have photographed too many weddings to recount now.  The steps at the side where most couples like to have a large group photograph are at sometimes of the year in full sun – so if you pose everyone on them they will be squinting into the sunlight and the shadows on your pictures will be awful.  An experienced photographer will see this and move your group accordingly.  The novice however will pose people in the same place whatever – because that is the easiest option for him or her and all they know – they can fit a large group on those steps.

So there it is folks – in a nutshell “You pays your price you take your chance…” Just for the record – no – we can’t “fix” the photos after in photoshop either – you should have booked someone who could do it right in the first place!

We’re seeing an increasing number of photographers selling their work in beautiful albums at a knock down price.  If the images are as beautiful as the albums then of course this is great for the couple but what if the photos are not great with very little in the way of imagination or design skill in the album design?  Are you paying for the photography or the album?

Don’t get me wrong.  I love to see a beautiful and well made wedding album.  We have scoured the world to find the best in modern album presentation for our clients.  But if you are offered a beautiful and well made album at a budget price then my advice would be to look very closely at the photographs within that album.  If the album originates from GraphiStudio in Italy (who are now quite “mass market”) I would also ask the photographer you are considering if the photography within the album is their own or is it some of GraphiStudio’s stock photography – which at one time they used to offer photographers for sample albums.  Of course the majority of GraphiStudio albums will be the photographers own work but at least if you ask the question you can make an informed choice about if this photographer is the one for you.

I’ve recently read posts on Bridal forums advising couples to barter with their photographer and never accept the first price that is offered.  A few people tried that with us last year.  We didn’t drop our prices for any of them – when setting our price in the first place we charge and quote what we know to be a fair price for what is on offer whilst still leaving us an amount to live on.  Photography is our only business and it needs to provide an income for both of us full-time.  Probably about 50%  of the couples who tried to barter still booked us and every single one was delighted with the results, as the thank you letters and testimonials received from every couple, without exception confirm.  For the other 50% I’ve carefully followed through every single couple and seen their photographs on the photographers they did book blogs.  I believe only one couple will think they made the right decision – their photographs are beautiful.  The others saved themselves amounts ranging from £50 – £500 – less than £10 per week at its highest.  My heart goes out to them when I see what they ended up with – nothing even close to what they would have had from us.  It must be so disappointing.

Each year we receive between 400 – 450 enquiries for wedding photography.  We book just 30 weddings per year.  We totally understand that people have budgets to stick to.  So do we.

To put this all into perspective, if you received three enquiries saying: “We love your work but your prices are way too expensive – we have a budget of £xxx and for that we want x, y, z included, we really want to book you but photographer “x” has quoted £xxx and so we want you to quote the same….”

or “We simply love your work, our photography budget is £xxx – can you offer anything within this price?”

or “We simply love your photography. Photography is one of the most important parts of our day. Are you available on xxxxxx?  If so, what are your costs for xxxx?”

Which would you book?  I’ll give you a clue, the second two usually end up in bookings!  The first one very rarely does.

So what have we been up to?  Well lots of wedding enquiries to start with.  Each one very special in its own right.  For the first time in a long time we’ve also had lots of enquiries for photography in venues which are new to us.  Some couples worry a little about this and ask us if we will visit the venue prior to the wedding.  Due to the practicalities of working all over the UK and beyond often this isn’t possible.  But although some of the bridal magazines and lesser experienced photographers would suggest that it is imperative for your photographer to have visited your venue in order to select the best spots for photographs it’s really not.  An experienced photographer will use whatever is available on the day in order to create great images for you.

For an example of why you shouldn’t worry about this take a look at:  New Wedding Venue which is an album design for a wedding venue we had not visited before.

What we’ve noticed this year is that there are a lot of “late” wedding bookings compared to previous years. It seems many couples are waiting until closer to the date to establish what budget they have left over for photography.  Speaking of budgets we’ve also noticed that budgets are lower than in previous years this year.  This is very worrying as  we’ve also had towards the end of last year more couples asking us to look at their printable CD’s to see if we can “fix the photos and make an album”.  6 couples in total have asked us this – which is 5 more than the previous year.  One couple sadly couldn’t get their promised disc from their photographer who appears to have gone out of business without fulfilling their obligations.  Heartbreaking.  So, our advice to you is that if you budget falls below £1500 then please check everything very carefully from insurance (Professional Indemnity & Public Liability and your own wedding insurance as a minimum) through to when you can hope to receive your photographs after the wedding.  Look at complete weddings – both galleries and albums and ask yourselves are their pictures there that if it was your wedding you would be happy to have on your wall?  Are the expressions and poses pleasing to look at?  If the answer is “no” then keep searching.  Whilst photoshop can make a good picture great it can’t make a bad picture good so this really is a case of buyer beware!

We’ve also been working on our Facebook page.  If you haven’t already please “like” our page and take a good browse around it:  www.facebook.com/WeddingPhotographybyFNSWeddings   – you will find lots of pictures from lots of different weddings on there.

We’ve also been Twittering a little bit more too.  So if you’d like to follow us on Twitter just look out for Sharon Malone or fnsweddings.

We’re just in the final stages of putting together a little fun competition from our past weddings so keep watching this space for more news on that one.

On the portrait front we’ve recently photographed the babies of some of our previous wedding clients.  We love it when this happens – we usually build up such a lovely working relationship with our couples that from our point of view it can feel a little “flat” when we stop emailing each other after they’ve collected their albums and everything is done and dusted.  So it’s lovely when we get some nice news like a baby has been born or is expected.

That I think is about it for now!

Speak again soon!

Sharon & Andy

We have known the girls who form Disctracted – Danielle and Emily for years and think at only 10 and 12 years old respectively they are incredibly talented.  We’re very excited to be their “official” photographers and have recently completed the photography and artwork for their first CD – which combines some cover tracks with some of their original work – composed and written by Emily and Danielle.

At the final of the Open MicUK competition they sang  “Firework” by Katy Perry.  They were amazing.  They were only one point behind the runner-up of their category in the final outcome despite competing against 27 of the countries most talented under 18 acts.

Here’s a recording of their performance.  I’m not divulging which voice you can hear in the background shouting for them at the beginning and the end is mine!

Well done girls!

If we take this much care over photographing your rings just think what we are going to do with the rest of your wedding photography!

When we photograph a wedding we capture the emotion from the day.  The first time dad sees his daughter in her wedding dress for example many photographers concentrate on the bride’s descent of the stairs but not many notice the tears welling in Dad’s eyes.  We do.  We notice both – it’s one of the advantages of having two photographers.  We see and photograph different things.  We see the excitement in the bridesmaids as they see the bride in her dress too and mum – we notice the pride as she looks in awe at how beautiful her daughter looks today.

But the bride – what does the bride see as she looks in the mirror and checks her appearance for one last time?  We capture that too.  That last look, checking everything is just perfect and she looks the very best she could do for this most amazing of days ahead of her.  The nerves perhaps beginning to kick in as the anticipation of seeing her groom begins to build.  The reassurance she is seeking as she asks the question: “Do I look alright?”

To the skilled photographer and photo journalist all this is vitally important to capture – to thrill the couple and family when they see their photographs for the first time with the little moments, tears, joy, laughter we have captured on camera.  So what if the bride is unable to see what she looks like?  What her parents and bridesmaids look like, what her groom looks like – waiting for her at the end of the aisle?  How do we “see” and capture on camera what the bride “sees”?

What if the groom can’t see what his approaching bride looks like, what the ceremony room looks like, the look of pride and love on his parents and families’ faces as they watch him make the greatest commitment of his life?  How do we capture and portray on camera what the groom “sees”?  How do we bring to life the emotion and feelings of the day which are always so present in the eyes?

I thought about the way I would see my family and friends if I was visually impaired.  My feel, hearing, smell and touch would become my eyes.  I would be so familiar with the features and beauty of that person I was about to marry that I would need no first glance to reassure me.  If I were the groom, I would know her perfume wafting as she approached, the swish of her dress, those familiar steps and instinctively know that she was near.  I would be able to sense that feeling of anticipation and excitement as the moment approached that we stood side by side taking our vows.  If I were the bride, my fingers would intertwine with his as we stood together and we would perhaps squeeze each others hands – something only the two of us would know – to tell each other that we loved them.  I would almost certainly feel my husbands face and features, wondering if perhaps those unseeing eyes were shedding a tear.  Mine would be a very special marriage full of private moments between two people.

So how as photographers do we translate this into the photographs?  We have an inherent need to “wow” all our clients with their wedding photography.  It drives us on at each wedding to try to surpass all their expectations and more.  But how do we “wow” someone who can’t see the photos?  The answer to this has got to be by the reaction of their family and friends when they see the photographs for the first time.

So if we can capture a touch, a glance in what is known to be the right direction, perhaps a tear, the laughter but most of all the connection between these two people who are so clearly so much in love and if at some stage during the day we have the opportunity to describe to the bride and groom how each other looks to us, in the colours and particular way we see the world then maybe, just maybe we will be able to make a huge difference to that wedding day and help to make it as special to the two people getting married as they are to each other.

If we can translate into our photography that special connection that is present not only between the bride and groom but also their respective families and friends, then and only then will we have done our job well and our photography will prove to be not expensive but priceless.

It’s a rather nice dilemma to have in one way but in others it makes life difficult.  As one of the best UK wedding photographers, we are recognised and acknowledged as offering something a little different and special in wedding photography.  This has over the past 2 – 3 years resulted in us having some very exclusive weddings to photograph in places like Africa, New York, Canada and the South Pacific along with several European wedding destinations.  Whilst this great for the number of stamps in our passport most of these clients prefer us not to show any pictures from their weddings and invoke the confidentiality clause in our contract.  So we have no pictures to show!

Now that has been fine up to now but next year is looking busier than ever with a few of these weddings booked to date.  We need some weddings we are proud to “show and tell”.  So come on ladies and gentlemen if you are a socialite who would love to show off your wedding photos not only on our website but on the likes of Facebook and Bebo etc. please get in touch! While we’re at it, lets have some nice little Yorkshire Weddings to photograph for a change!

Give us a ring!

Please give us a ring! We need you!

We need you!

A: If you own a digital camera, yes, once you’ve bought your equipment for a few hundred pounds (camera, memory card and computer), your photography is ‘free’, unless you want to print something.

There are a few extras for you to factor in that a Professional Wedding Photographer has to cover. Items such as hard-drives, RAID enclosures and DVDs for storage and multiple back-up copies, significantly more expensive cameras and multiples of them for back-ups, professional quality lenses, professional indemnity insurance, business insurance, liability insurance, equipment insurance, top spec computers, colour calibration systems, professional bodies and their subscriptions, website design, maintenance and hosting fees, a new suit every three or four months, brochures, sample albums, advertising, accountancy fees, utility bills, business rates and income tax. All these are just the expenses pertaining to running the business, before they start to pay for things like food and the mortgage.

I haven’t even mentioned number of hours worked yet! Not just on the Wedding Day itself, but hours and hours of editing, processing images, retouching, printing, creating DVDs and designing albums. What about contributing to the years of expertise, experience and professional development/training courses?

Digital photography is much more time-consuming than in the old days of film. Brides didn’t expect to have pictures of table favours, the speeches, in fact anything other than group pictures outside the church and maybe a smiley portrait of the happy couple. So the photographer shot his thirty-six pictures, took the film to the lab, where for a few pounds, someone else cropped, adjusted exposure,  most importantly colour corrected, and printed all thirty-six images. The key phrase in this paragraph is “SOMEONE ELSE”! The digital photographer is now expected to produce sometimes ten times as many images and do all the editing, cropping, colour correction, dodging, burning, exposure adjustment and retouching themselves.

Then there is the law of supply and demand. The better the photographer, the more he will value his time and don’t forget, ‘profit’ is not a dirty word, it just keeps businesses running from one year to the next!

Q: Ok, so a photographer has got to make a living, and I now understand that I’m not just paying for a few hours of standing around taking snaps. How come wedding albums cost so much?

A: As with all things in life, if you get something custom-made, a one-off, personally designed for you and manufactured from the finest materials, often in another country, it’s not something you can compare with the £2.99 paid in your local newsagent for a plastic paged book to stick prints in. Some of the album manufacturers we use put up to 50 man hours into producing one album. Even at minimum wage, that’s a £400 bill just for labour, before adding materials, printing, expenses, taxes, shipping…to name but a few.

Q: Right, I really want to book you, but I don’t think my budget will stretch. Is there anything you could do to lower your prices?

A: Well, I might answer by saying ‘is there anything you can do to increase your budget?’ it amounts to the same thing. Everything has a budget; it’s just a case of priority. You can always find a bit extra for your photography by saving little bits elsewhere. Look at the list of things to pay out for before your wedding, think a little about how long they will last, what the overall effect on the rest of your life together would be if you didn’t have it, and who is going to notice, apart from you if it’s not there.

Compare that to the only permanent, life-long reminder of your wedding day and see what’s left!

That said we’re pretty reasonable!

When we say “print ready” we mean exactly that.  Unlike many photographers who offer a high-resolution or printable CD of pictures ours are all hand edited to the highest standard, any cropping, colour correction etc. will have been done for you.  No matter how good we are at getting it right “in camera” there will be times when things beyond our control (for example a variety of different lights – halogen, energy-saving, tungsten etc. all in one room) will adversely affect the technical quality of the images we produce and may make images have a different “colour cast” to other images shot around the same time.  We take the time to correct this for you before we give you the disc.  So if you want to print your own album for example you will be able to do this and every single picture will match the next.