Having trouble choosing a photographer?

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding! The day you dreamt about is finally here. It is one of the most significant days in your life, so understandably you have a lot of important decisions to make this day unforgettable and enjoyable.
Picking your photographer is one of your most important choices, as (s)he will be responsible for crafting your dreams. Your wedding day is supposed to be fun, memorable, a culmination of hope and dreams; you need a photographer who recognizes that. Remember that you will be spending a lot of time with your photographer, so it is important to find someone whose personality matches your own vitality and vision. To help you in this process I came up with a few a few ideas to mull over. The more you have explored offered in wedding photography, the easier it will be to choose the right photographer for you – one who will be able to meet your needs and exceeds your expectations.
The first consideration is what style do you want. Do you prefer mainly traditional wedding portraits, photojournalistic, spontaneous candids or a mixture of the above with a sprinkling of playful and quirky ones? Candids are a great way to capture the mood and atmosphere. Imagine a beautiful bride in profile looking out her childhood bedroom window.
A good photographer will be able to combine his/her expertise and artistic vision with your wishes. (S)he will listen to you and incorporate your desires into her/his work. The photographer should not only offer advice on how to make beautiful photographs, but anticipate any “new” motion or pose you will make. Make a list of the photographs you want: bride’s family, groom with brothers, uncle Ernie and aunt Selma with the bride. Your photographer should meet with you before the wedding to brainstorm ideas and set a schedule for photo shoots throughout the day. Make sure the photographer is clear on the proceedings of the day. Thus (s)he will be able to advise what you need and the best time to do it. If you have a wedding planner, make sure (s)he is in contact with the photographer. It is often harder than expected to gather everyone at the same time and place for pictures. Thus, we suggest that you plan a photo session with the wedding party and family members before the ceremony and festivities get underway. Although this is a deviation from tradition where bride and groom do not see each other before the ceremony, it is the way to get the best shots. Everyone looks beautiful and fresh. It is also a good idea to allow ample time for the party to get comfortable with the photographer, so no one looks stiff and uneasy. An experienced photographer should also be able to do things quickly, lest the process drags on and results in more annoyance than fun. The right photographer knows when to be assertive and gather everyone for a family portrait or when to simply stay in the shadows and take candid shots. If you have time between the wedding and reception, formals can be done then. A viable alternative to seeing the bride before the ceremony is to use the cocktail hour when all the guests are occupied. The garden, if available, can be a lovely backdrop for a portrait. Take a walk through the town, posing by land marks. Take advantage of the city skyline for an informal wedding party grouping. Shoot down a busy sidewalk with the bride and groom as the center piece. This approach yields fun and unusual pictures where members of your party are interacting with each other and having a good time.
Every wedding has its own flow. You need a photographer who is not only flexible, but is also able to adapt to the changing environment on the fly. What if it rains? – Lets have some fun with colorful umbrellas. If your celebration lasts longer than expected or you find yourself wanting that last-minute picture of your high-school soccer team, will your photographer be willing go the extra mile? Discuss this before hand, so there are no unpleasant surprises or unexpected extra charges.

But lets not forget the special moments. There are first kisses and there are tiny kisses newlyweds sneak when they think no one is looking. The way they hold hands and occasionally look into each other’s eyes… The way his hand falls on her waist when they share a dance… The way she brushes his hair off his forehead… – these tell a different love story the watchful photographer records. What about the father of the bride and mother-in-law dancing doing the “bump” or a child taste-testing the cake. The photographer should always be on the lookout for the unexpected and unique. Don’t forget to ask your photographer to take pictures of all the details you spent so much time perfecting. Flowers, wedding rings, center-pieces, place-settings, invitations, service programs – all these are small, but significant parts of your wedding.

It is a good idea to have an engagement session with the photographer a few months before the wedding. This way you can see the photographer in action. You will also experience how it feels to be the subject photographed and find your “good side.”

Another option to consider is film vs. digital. Do you want to be able to view your pictures immediately or would you prefer film? Do you want a leather-bound wedding album or a DVD of digital pictures? Does the photographer offer artistic enhancements?  Can you customize the wedding package?

While there are still film photographers, digital has come so far now that the differences are no longer existent. One of the big questions to ask photographers, other than the gear (s)he uses, is what format will the photographs be in. RAW or jpeg? Only the superbly experienced wedding photographers will use jpeg mainly, however, they do know when to adjust to RAW when the situation calls for it. But for safety’s sake, ensure that your photographer shoots in RAW. RAW allows a “safety net,” if you will. It is a large file, but it allows for non-lossless photographs that can be altered as much as the photographer’s eye sees fit. Also, archival of RAW photographs last so much longer than jpegs, regardless of the unit they are stored in.
How will the photographer store these photographs?  Will (s)he store it in an external hard drive?  What is his/her strategy in storage?
What about timeline?  How soon will you be able to see the proofs and receive the final product(s) after the ceremony?  Two weeks?  Three?
While you are planning your wedding, just remember that this is your day! You deserve to get the photographs you want.  I hope this brief guide helps you pick the right photographer. Learn beforehand as much as you can about the options available to you and the services the photographer provides.

Ted Nghiem’s Photography is located in NJ.  I invite you do contact me and learn about my wedding photography!  For an appointment or have any questions don’t hesitate to call me.
Ted Nghiem,

856.261.5147,

www.tednghiem.com

Photo Stock

I just uploaded some of my photos to ShutterPoint.com, a photo stock site.  Hopefully I can generate some sales from that!  I only have the beginner’s program, so I can only upload 50 mb.  And I only uploaded about 9 photos, which sucked up all the memory.  Well.. hopefully something good will come from that.

I was supposed to have a portrait session yesterday with an actress, but at the last minute she said that she had an audition to go to for a commercial.  Oh well.  She said she would try to reschedule.

Tomorrow I have a session, hopefully with these two college students.  So hopefully that will go through and I will have more practice with posing and shooting people.

I have to leave to get my 70-200 f/2.8 that I rented.

Interesting travel tip

Traveling with a significant other

Well it is an interesting read, even though I don’t have a significant other. haha! But it is a pretty interesting read for those who do have significant others and travel often!

I have another portrait session to shoot at the end of a month, a wedding of a family friend! Ooh! More practice!

I created a better wedding business suite for my business!  Better and more elaborate wedding packages, referral programs, advertising!  Now to tune them up!

Little wings that could fly

Vincent looking into my eyes, at Yosemite National Park.

Ever wonder where and when you started to find something you truly love doing?  People always say that when you travel you tend to discover more about yourself, if you go with other people, you learn more about them.  They go on to say that traveling is a sort of “spiritual journey.”  Seriously?

Those two photographs that I posted above, is a story of getting starting the enjoyment of photography.  My nephew, vincent, is really lucky.  He is starting out really early and that his parents are letting him spread his wings early.  He doesn’t get stuck in a position to please his parents, well at least not yet, with a position of status.  He is embracing his creative side and just is.

I think I have been shooting myself in the feet since I left Rutgers.  I was sincerely pursuing graduate school in Cultural Psychology, trying my damnest to get accepted.  I was negligent towards the other part of the life I should have been pursuing.  I come from a former middle class family, I say former as my father is now on disability and the sole income lie on my mother and myself, whose belief was that we should get high paying jobs after graduating.  My father’s ideal.  My mother’s was to find a steady job that was reliable and what we could survive off of.  Not bad.

But it amounted to the traditional occupational roles.  Before, when I told them I wanted to be a Cultural Psychologist.  They were shaky at best, as I wasn’t accepted into a graduate program.  Now if I told them I am going to pursue freelance travel photography, well… all hell’s would break lose.  I can understand, I am trying to get my photographs sold, so I can understand the despair!  Where would my income come from, those sorts of questions.

My first travel outing was to Thailand in November 2006.  It was for a spiritual retreat and that was when I started to really shoot a lot of photographs.  Granted I just got my 30D and the kit lens, I was shooting away getting a better grasp of the camera.  I had my first taste of international travel and it whet my lips.  Sure I didn’t get to travel a lot outside of the area where we stayed, I did enjoy the location, to a degree, where we stayed.  There were so many things that went wrong there, however, that left a foul taste in my mouth.  But I still appreciated the fact that I was able to go.

My trip to Ireland, back in August 2007, is where I should say it really started.  Oh god, I loved flying, hanging around Dublin, hiking thru Howth, taking a bus around the Ring of Kerry, getting stuck behind a bunch of sheep, going to different hostels, and absorbing the life in Ireland.  I didn’t think about school, I didn’t think about family, and I didn’t even think about girls…no wait I did think about girls on the trip!  I did what I loved the most, travel and photograph my journey.

I felt nothing but absolute bliss being in a foreign land with foreign people without an absolute care of where I was going to be next.  I didn’t worry as much about food, although living off of bread, cheese, pizza, and potatoes sure does put a crimp in the culinary and stomach, I survived.  And still loved it.  It was just great to be that free. Sure there was the money issue, flying and traveling in Ireland was pretty pricey, although I was able to budget my stay there.

After returning home, after work, I would go home and work on the library of photographs that I have taken from the trip.  Well I did eat dinner, clean, and shower, but those are regular day things that one has to do daily.  Well I guess if I said I just edited and overviewed my photograph and that’s it, than that might be hardcore and a very wow factor.  But I am still human.

Then came my brief trip to San Diego.  I originally went there to help out with something which wasn’t the real reason to go there, so I left heart broken to San Diego from Las Angeles.  I stayed at my parents’ place, who let me stay there and fed me understanding what I was going through, well I think so.  And from there I was able to go to La Jolla Cove, check out University of California San Diego, Wind and Sea Beach, and visit Linda for a few.  The entirely heart broken moments tamed by the photographic moments that I had.  So in a way I was glad I came out there.

Just like with Ireland and Thailand, preceding this trip, I would spend a lot of my time working on my photographs from the trip.  It just gave me a great sense of purpose.

Then the final push to my final career motivation was my most recent trip to California, where I traveled with my brother, sister in law, and nephew.  I had nothing but fun and enlightenment during this trip.  Enlightenment?  Maybe not, but I did learn much more about what I wanted to pursue.

Travel Photography.

Traveling a spiritual journey?  Seriously?  Yes it is.  You really can find out more about yourself.  Discovering that maybe things that you held onto so dearly really isn’t or wasn’t for you.   I still hold a love of Cultural Psychology, and that is how I will view my surroundings as I travel further around the world.  But my life will be dedicated towards preserving it’s vintage culture in a photograph so that we will never forget the beauty of seeing culture.

Some travel thoughts

I am just a tad preoccupied with job positions and learning how to use MAC OS X to add another entry!  I just bought a Macbook Pro from Apple’s online store!  I used my educator’s discount and whatever I could use to get a cheaper deal!  I finally purchased one!  And still learning how to use it.  I am totally used to PC hardware and software that jumping ship to Mac is like Culture Shock.

How the heck can I right click?!

This is part two to the previous’s post.  There are 5 parts of this trip slide show that I cut up and put onto youtube.

I finished all of the photographs from my trip to California.  Check them out!!  Travel!

This oil problem that we are all facing is really killing the travel industry.  And that is very bad.