First Friday Five – 3

• By Beck Photography
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Welcome back to First Friday Five. Here are five more useful tips to help you plan and have a successful photography experience at your wedding.

  White chalk.  It’s bound to happen that your white dress can get some dirt on it by the end of the wedding.  I’ve learned to bring along some white chalk because it works wonders as a temporary cover up for those spots.  I can always photoshop a mark out for a picture, but you may want to have a bridesmaid carry a piece in her purse as well so you can do a touch up throughout the day.

  Second photographer.  I have stressed the importance of a second photographer before, but now I have a perfect example of why I never leave home without one!  We are at a very festive wedding shooting the hora – I’m down on the floor and the second photographer is on a ladder. Things get crazy and the remote to my flash flies off the camera, leaving me with only one camera to shoot with.  The second photographer on the ladder captures the wonderful faces of the bride and groom as they are raised in the chairs.  No one wants to miss that shot – and we didn’t!

  Need more time?  If you have contracted with me for unlimited time – Great – I love to shoot, however if you budget is tighter and you have only contacted for part of the reception, rest assured that you can always request I stay longer while at the reception.  If you are only part way through dinner or the cake hasn’t been cut, you just need to ask!

  Copyright.  This is one of the most misunderstood parts of any contract.  Many people contact me and say they want the copyright.  Once we have a conversation about this, what they are really wanting is the ability to reproduce images if they buy a DVD.  I never give up the copyright but I do give you permission to make enlargements for your personal use.

  Formal family pictures.  You need them and you will be sorry if you don’t have them later.  While I love to approach weddings in a documentary fashion, there are certain groups that need to be photographed.  We outline this in the planning session and I try to help you not go overboard with this.  When ever I have shot a wedding without at least photographing the bride and groom with their immediate families, we were all sorry later.  You can’t go back and repeat them (well you can but this is hard and expensive) and I have never made an album for a client where they have not included a sampling of these pictures.