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Most people have a misconception about wedding photographers. “You just show up and take pictures right?” Totally not true!
How some people think Photographer's spend their time (I wish!)
Although most weddings occur on the weekends, I am quite busy during the week. A lot of my time is spent marketing my business, scouting new locations, answering e-mails, editing photographs, meeting with clients, blogging, and more.
My time looks more like this:
Preparations for the wedding occur the night before. I collect all of my camera equipment: camera, multiple lenses, my flash, flash batteries, memory cards, my diffuser, camera batteries, light meter, & my ShootSac. I charge all of my batteries the night before, clean my lenses, and I pack everything up so I’m ready to go in the morning.
The day of the wedding I arrive early. If the ceremony and reception are in the same venue, I like to survey the area to familiarize myself with the location. If bridal prep is in the same location, I meet up with the bride to go over any last minute details. My assistant will meet up with me at the venue and I fill them in with any important information or what I would like them to focus on that day. If my clients have hired a videographer through me, I will go and check in with them to make sure they have their film schedule.
Then the most exciting part of the day comes, I get to photograph the wedding! The time I spend photographing actually depends on the client. I offer a few different wedding packages ranging from 5 hours of coverage to unlimited. If you would like me there photographing from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed, then the unlimited package is for you!
When I get home, I download all the photographs to my hard drive. I then will transfer the images to two other hard drives. The last thing I do is burn the images to DVDs. As you can see, I’m very protective of my images!
Depending upon the length and type of wedding, I can photograph between 800-3000 images. This also includes whatever my 2nd photographer has captured too. After all the images have been transferred, the editing process begins. It takes me approximately 20-60 hours to edit a wedding.
A good percentage of what I make from a wedding goes back into my business. Hard drive storage, new equipment, maintenance of my website, gas/mileage for my car, and hiring assistants or a 2nd photographer for a wedding.
As you can see, wedding photographers are spending more time in front of a computer than behind a camera. It’s just a sign that we are living in a digital world.
Graphs and some information courtesy of ISPWP
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