What to look for in a wedding photographer
Photography is so much more than just having a nice camera or taking a lot of pictures to cover your bases. The first thing we hear from all of our assistants trying to become professionals is, “Wedding photography is much more difficult than I thought it would be.” Our answer, “Of course it is!”
The goal of this article is to help prevent you from hiring the wrong photographer, or even worse, relying on "Uncle Joe."
This section will cover more of the soft-skills that your photographer needs to possess. These are areas that you need to pay attention to during your meetings and conversations with professional photographers, because they are not things that you can really determine by asking a canned question.
Read this first, then check out 15 Questions to Ask Your Wedding Photographer for specific interview ideas.
Expertise – being technical and creative
A professional wedding photographer must not only be completely versed in the technical side of the trade, but he must also be artistic and creative. Those are two completely opposite personality traits.
How many people do you know are very technologically savvy and artistically creative at the exact same time?
Having great camera and technical skills will allow the wedding photographer to capture properly exposed, well-lit images regardless of the lighting situation and time constraints.
On the other hand, having great creative skills will allow the wedding photographer to approach each shot with a unique perspective and artistic vision, ensuring that the shots are not just photos, but artistic imagery.
Assistants — why more than one photographer
We often are asked the question, “why do I need more than one wedding photographer?” Well, if you were to look at a wedding written up like a movie script, you would see a primary story line surrounded by smaller side stories that are happening at the exact same moment.
For example, during a wedding ceremony, the main story is obviously the bride and groom. However, there may be multiple side stories occurring at the exact same moment, such as mom or dad wiping a tear from their eyes, or the flower girl sitting in the corner picking petals from a rose in her hands.
No matter how good a photographer is, he/she cannot be at all places at the same time. To compensate, we use multiple wedding photographers, each with a completely distinct coverage focus.
Our lead photographer focuses strictly on the bride and groom. Our second wedding photographer focuses heavily on reaction shots from the family and guests. Our third (when needed) focuses on creative editorial imagery by constantly surveying and moving around the scene to find unique angles and alternative compositions.
While we recommend two photographers regardless of the size of your wedding, it is almost required if you have 100-200 people at the wedding. For clients with very large celebrations (200+ guests), we strongly recommend utilizing three photographers.
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