My bride, Robin, decided to take her bridal portraits at her parents home in the early spring. We were able to capture some really unique images inside their home with the staircase and then we took their antique chaise lounge out into the garden for some beautiful portraits. The chaise has been a family heirloom since the Civil War and Robin's mother was really excited that she was able to use it in her bridal portraits. And last but not least, I have to give some love to the shoes! Robin wore these exquisite Valentino silver sequined pumps with her wedding dress. The shoes had their own photo shoot. That's just how my world works!

The Happy Affair Bridal Show at North Ridge Country Club was a great event. We were positioned in the lobby area of the club so that couples could have a spontaneous 'mini engagement session' in front of the fireplace when they arrived for the show. Then couples entered into the main ballroom to meet with other vendors and to hear the speaker, Stacie Francombe. Stacie is the Get Married Founder and President. She hosts a weekly television show on WeTV and also publishes a beautiful magazine. The focus of the show and magazine are to discuss current trends in the wedding industry. Here are a few of the trends Stacie mentioned in her presentation:
 
1. Non-linear aisle: Brides are personalizing the procession by altering the traditional aisle with a circle or a triangular double aisle, enabling the couple to enter from multiple spots with a central meeting point. Stephanie Davis, Get Married magazine editor-in-chief and new bride, wedded lake-side on a circular dock from which she and her groom entered. "Our family no longer has two sides, so everyone sat together and, as an added bonus, there wasn't a bad seat in the house!"

2. Comfort foods with a kick: Chef Wolfgang Puck believes that comfort foods have become more popular in the current economy. Think burgers, pizza, ribs, pot pie, and risotto--but comfort does not have to mean pedestrian. "Upgrade ingredients and prepare them with great expertise. Serve hors d'oeuvres like Kobe burgers, wild mushroom risotto, smoked salmon pizzas, slow-braised short ribs or a simple chicken pot pie with lobster," advises Puck.

3. Gifting techie gadgetry: Registries and wedding gifts have increasingly become more high tech. Brides want electronic recipe finders, books and charging plates, and matching his-and-hers PDA cases--all examples of great gadgets for the couple as well as thank-you gifts for parents and the wedding party.

4. Texture-inspired invitations: Top bridal designer Monique Lhuillier shares inspirations and details from her various collections: "A lot of fabric details from the dresses translate into the invitations. We use techniques of embossing to mimic textures and incorporate the same colors from the gowns into the invitations." Look for details you would see on the runway on your wedding invitations.

5. Old, new, borrowed and cobalt blue: From hints of blue in bridal fashion to saturated color throughout the wedding decor, "blues will be the most requested color in 2010," said Shane Murray of The Wedding Report. Bright cobalt blue is a hot hue for 2010, offering fresh, bold and atmospheric twist on the bluesy tradition.

6. Wear-again bridesmaid dresses: The urban legend of wearing a bridesmaids dress by choice after the wedding is a reality with the new silhouettes that mirror what is happening on the runway. Gorgeous and glamorous dresses with drop waists, bubble skirts and ruffles add an additional sense of style for bridesmaids to wear--and wear again.

7. Three-dimensional save-the-dates: Inform your friends and family of your wedding day with a twist. Three-dimensional elements on the save-the-dates, like a paper umbrella (signifying a  destination wedding), adds character, humor and relevance.

8. Old Hollywood glam, for men!: A return to Cary Grant's sense of style is making a comeback this year for grooms, looking charming and dapper in a white tuxedo with black-rimmed lapels. This cool old-school look brings back the sharp-looking vest and nostalgic pocket watch.

9. Blogger brides abound: Now more than ever, Get Married is seeing brides enjoy sharing snippets of surprises, ideas and images throughout their wedding planning experience. Personal blogs offer a space for brides to share, gather inspirations and explore. Check out Get Married's robust and newly designed wedding blog.

10. Personalized plus: From the décor designs and inspirational invites to a great gifts and super-fab favors, Get Married is observing brides' aspiration for distinctly personalized wedding details. Designing invitations, save-the-dates and thank-you cards and adding monograms to guest books, aisle runners and gifts (like cosmetic and travel bags) offers a hint of personal bridal style. An assortment of personalized décor, invitations, gifts and favors are available a www.shop.getmarried.com.

My beautiful bride, Jenny, took her bridal portraits at her parents home on Figure Eight Island. The perfect location for some unique interior shots and a great view of the intra-coastal waterway for some beautiful location shots. I love the images of Jenny with her dog, Brady. He is the sweetest dog and was so cute in the photos looking at Jenny. Jenny's lovely dress is a Vera Wang and they completed the look with a designer veil with handmade lace! Gorgeous!  

Why are Professional Photographers so expensive?
This article has been very well received by the photography community, and is published in the December 2009 edition of Professional Photographer Magazine.

In this digital age where everyone has cameras, scanners, and home "photo printers," we hear this all the time: How do professional (or personal) photographers charge $X for an 8x10 when they cost just $1.50 at the drugstore? Simply put, the customer is not just paying for the actual photograph; they're paying for time and expertise.

The average one-hour portrait session

First, let's look at the actual work involved:

• Travel to the session
• Setup, preparation, talking to the client, etc.
• Shoot the photos
• Travel from the session
• Load images onto a computer
• Back up the files on an external drive
• 2 - 4 hours of Adobe® Photoshop® time, including cropping, contrast, color, sharpening, and backing up edited photographs. Proof photos are also ordered.
• 2 - 3 hours to talk to the client, answer questions, receive order and payment, order their prints, receive and verify prints, package prints, schedule shipment, and ship.
• Possibly meet clients at the studio to review photos and place order. Meeting and travel time average 2 hours.

You can see how a one-hour session easily turns into an eight-hour day or more from start to finish. So when you see a personal photographer charging a $200 session fee for a one-hour photo shoot, the client is NOT paying them $200 per hour.

The eight-hour wedding

A wedding photographer typically meets with the bride and groom several times before and after the wedding. And it's not uncommon to end up with 1,000 - 2,000 photos, much more than a portrait session. Many photographers spend 40-60 hours working on one eight-hour wedding if you look at the time that is truly involved. Again, when a wedding photographer charges $4,000 for eight hours of coverage, clients are NOT paying them $500 an hour!

(Don't forget that the photographer runs the wedding day to some extent. A comfortable, confident wedding photographer can make a wedding day go more smoothly.)

The expertise and cost of doing business

Shooting professional photography is a skill acquired through years of experience. Even though now some DSLR's  cost under $1,000, taking professional portraits involves much more than a nice camera.

Most personal photographers take years to go from buying their first camera to making money with photography. In addition to learning how to use the camera, there is a mountain of other equipment and software programs used to edit and print photographs, run a website, etc. And don't forget backdrops, props, rent, utilities, insurance, etc!

In addition to the financial investment, photographers actually have to have people skills to make subjects comfortable in front of the camera. Posing people to look their best is a skill by itself. You could argue that posing is a more important skill than actually knowing how to use the camera. A poorly exposed photo can be saved, but a badly posed photo cannot.

The chain store photo studio

Chain stores do have their place. For a very cheap price you can run in, shoot some quick photos, and be done with it. But you get what you pay for.

Consider the time and effort that a personal photographer puts into photographs, compared to a chain store. Store sessions last just a few minutes, while a personal photographer takes the time to get to know the people, makes them comfortable, makes them laugh. If a baby is crying at a chain store, they often don't have the time (or the patience) to wait because everyone is in a hurry.

The truth is that many chain store studios lose money. In fact, Wal-Mart closed 500 of their portrait studios in 2007 because of the financial drain. What the chain stores bank on is a client coming in for quick, cheap photos...and while there, spending $200 on other items. They are there to get you in the door.

The real deal

Professional, personal photographers are just that--professionals. No different than a mechanic, dentist, doctor, or electrician. But a personal photographer often becomes a friend, someone who documents a family for generations with professional, personal photographs of cherished memories.

Maybe we need to help clients look at it this way: A pair of scissors costs $1.50 at the drugstore. Still, most people will gladly pay a lot more to hire a professional hair dresser to cut their hair.

The added attention and quality that a personal photographer gives is worth every penny.

Conclusion

We hope that those who have taken the time to read this page will have a better understanding of why professional photographs, created by a Personal Photographer are so expensive.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Shawn, Pamela and Gavin Richter - cofphoto@aol.com

Our website - Caught on Film Photography

Our photography forum - Learning Digital Photography Together

Here are a few samples of the bridal portraits we took of Hollis at the First Baptist Church downtown. The church has some really cool architectural details like these arched doorways, and I loved the black and white marble floor. The stained glass is very beautiful, and I think Hollis looked quite angelic standing next to it! My favorites are the photos of Hollis in front of the flowered tree on the front steps of the church. With all of the concrete, streetlights and cars, being able to capture the beautiful color of the tree in the background was a happy surprise! We also took photos at the State Capital across the street from the church and we were able to get some photos with gorgeous light. So pretty!

What a perfect day to put photos of my 'winter bride' on the blog! We woke up to 4-5 inches of snow this morning and a temperature of 9 degrees with wind chill! Very usual for Raleigh, North Carolina!
These photos were taken in Wilmington with much milder temperatures on a pleasantly warm day in late November. We decided to create our own 'snowfall' on the steps of the courthouse. My mom and assistant Jill each had a bag of snow that they threw at our lovely bride. Elena was the perfect person to represent our 'winter bride' because she is gorgeous and also from Russia. This girl understands cold! The lovely dress is and Enzoani from A Carolina Wedding. The moment I saw this dress, I knew I wanted to accessorize it with a black sash. I decided to go for a glamorous 'Imperial Russian' feel once I saw the incredible necklace that Jan with Amuse Artisanal Finery offered to let us borrow. The color of that necklace with smoky sapphires became our inspiration. The make up was expertly done by the talented Amy Kennison of Mac and the lovely bouquet was designed by Salt Harbor Designs.  We shot on location at one of my favorite locations- The City Club.

I so enjoyed showing my work at the beautiful Dudley Mansion open house a few weeks ago! Of course, I brought my camera along to capture how amazing this home is for a wedding location. Parlett Picket, the daughter of Jim and Cyndi Pickett, is the event coordinator and is currently booking weddings for 2010!

The rental of the home includes access to the house for the week of the wedding. Wedding guests have access to the first floor and the front and back gardens. The gorgeous bride's dressing suite includes the use of two bedrooms and groom's entertainment suite includes the use of the private gym, gaming room and a 20 seat movie theatre. Space can also be rented for bridesmaid's luncheons, rehearsal dinners, a post wedding brunch. Another amazing feature of having your wedding at the mansion is the 1961 Rolls Royce. Great for photos- I must say!

The open house featured the vision of the ladies of The Dessert Divas. The team of fabulous bakers is multi-talented and they also do event and floral design. So you can have a gorgeous and tasty cake and amazing decor to go along with it! The total package! The Divas decorated the pretty in pink bridesmaid's luncheon table with a design inspired by pink rosebuds. They also made a very unique cake fashioned after the chandelier hanging in the bride's room of the mansion!

 

The story behind this shoot is kind of entertaining. I bought this vintage 1950's prom dress from Ebay for the awesome price of $30 as an Alice in Wonderland halloween costume for my daughter. When it arrived in a beat up old Budwiser beer box, my daughter said it was not her style. I knew it was a bit over the top for a 7th grader and decided it would be cool for something else- I just didn't know what. The dress was super small. I guess it is true that people were smaller in previous generations, because that dress was little- probably a size 2.

I was looking around for models with red hair for my fall bridal shoot, and I met with Alison to consider her as a model. She just happened to be a perfect size 2. I brought the vintage dress with me to her fitting to just see if it would work for something and suggested that Alison try it. She fit the dress perfectly and lit up with excitement at the thought of modeling in it. The light blue color looked great with her hair color and we decided to skip the traditional bridal gown and go for a vintage/bohemian bridal look. To update the look of the dress, I cut off the bottom of the dress and made it shorter and added some new ribbon. I decided to feature Alison's beautiful hair and have it down in loose spiral curls. I bought jewelry, hair accessories and shoes and ended up making the bouquet myself in the car on the way to the shoot! I guess the moral of the story is that you can have a unique, creative look on a very small amount of money. We had Alison's makeup professionally done by the fabulous Amy Kennison of Mac. Amy completely translated my vision into reality and she looked amazing. The shoot took place at Orton Plantation Gardens. The perfect place to find fall color! 

I am so excited to announce that one of my photos will be featured on the cover of The Bride's Book magazine. It is always a huge thrill to be featured on a cover and I am so pleased that the image is one of the photos that I took of Rachel at the Dudley Mansion this past July. Congratulations to all of my ladies involved in this shoot! Tonya with A Carolina Wedding, Jennifer with Salt Harbor Designs, Amy Kennison with Mac makeup, and Jan Wutkowski with Amuse Artisanal Finery.

This post depicts our second in a series of 'model bridal shoots'.  We are pleased to feature our gorgeous model, Rachel, as our 'Summer Bride'. My goal is to photograph a bride for each season. I love styling each shoot; looking for the perfect model, choosing the colors, the jewelry, hair and make up. It has been such a great collaborative experience working with my favorite vendors to create such fantastic images. Rachel braved the extreme July heat and was the perfect bride. We enjoyed having such a beautiful location and send many thanks to, Cindy and Ron Picket, the owners of the Dudley Mansion.  I am also very excited to announce that one of these images has been chosen for an upcoming cover for a local magazine. Keep posted for more details when the magazine comes out this October!!!

The dress is an Enzoani, borrowed from A Carolina Wedding Bridal Salon
The flowers are designed by Salt Harbor Designs
The accessories are by aMuse
Make up by Amy Kennison with Mac: akennison@ec.rr.com, (910) 622-4473
The photos were shot at the historic Dudley Mansion in Wilmington. The mansion was built by the first governor of North Carolina in the late 1700's. It is now a privately owned residence and the owners have decided to offer their home as a wedding and reception event space.