AboutJohn Wilson Expertise Over 25 years specializing exclusively in professional wedding photography. I can answer most questions relating directly to wedding photography concerning the business, film, digital, traditional & digital labs, marketing, effects, pricing & packaging, shooting outdoors and in-studio with multiple flash, color management and creating magazine style wedding albums. I can't answer questions regarding other fields of photography. I am a full-time self-employed pro wedding photographer.
Experience About 25 years experience photographing weddings professionally. Past 3 years shooting digital exclusively.
Education/Credentials Going to photography seminars and reading all the wedding photography books I can find then applying the techniques and new styles I've learned with each wedding. You always need to grow and learn to keep up in this field. With each new wedding you photograph, you must challenge yourself to do better work than your previous wedding. You must always have the goal of making the wedding photographs for a bride & groom be the best photographs they have seen of any wedding.
Expert: John Wilson Date: 1/7/2008 Subject: Wedding Photography
Question QUESTION: I am intrested in becoming a wedding photographer but I don't know what to do to get started or anything really. I love weddings and I love to take pictures so I'm thinking that it would be a good career for me. Thanks so much, Sheena
ANSWER: Hi Sheena,
Thank you for your question about getting started in wedding photography. You mentioned you love weddings and you love to take pictures. That's a great start for becoming a wedding photographer.
I would like to recommend purchasing a couple wedding photography books. Read them, study the photography samples and as you do so you will have to ask yourself if you are up to it.
Besides having great and reliable photography equipment and back-up equipment with you which you are completely familiar in the operation of, as the photographer you will also have to have mature social skills. You will need to be able to know how to deal personally, sensitively and politely with a variety of different people. You will need to be able to quickly gain their trust, confidence and cooperation. You will need to be able to "take charge" without coming across as being "bossy" or "rude".
So it's great to love people besides loving weddings and loving to take pictures. Wedding photography is people photography and it is people photography on a day when many people are very emotional and stress often runs high. You have to respectfully interact with people dealing with a variety of emotions and feelings.
Unless you set rules in the wedding contract that no one else is allowed to take pictures, you will have to learn to deal with a bunch of amateur digital photographers who think they are as good a photographer (usually better) than you are as the professional photographer the bride herself chose over them! The amateurs will take up valuable time you could have posing and shooting. The amateurs will have the bride and groom smiling so much that the bride and groom may get tired of smiling so much and so their smiles may start being less genuine in your own photographs. Sometimes amateurs become hacklers who make every sarcastic comment they can think of because they fancy themselves as a better photographer than you. They do this without thoughtfully considering they are actually hurting the feelings of the bride and upsetting most of the other guests with their rudeness. What makes this difficult for me is that 99% of the time I know those amateurs knowledge and skills will probably never in their life time even scratch the surface of the knowledge and skills I have acquired over the last 25 years. But, I keep my cool and gain more respect from those who hired me.
To learn some more about the art, science and business of wedding photography, you may also visit my website at http://www.weddingphotographics.net
Wedding Photographer John Wilson
Chattanooga, Tennessee
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QUESTION:
Thanks for the recent anwser to my question it was great information for me to get an outlook for what I'm dealing with. Do I need to take any classes in college or anything to be able to start a career in this field? How do I start exactly what things do I need to have myself and how do I start in with someone else that already has their business going? Or is it a good idea to start out with someone else, I'm really not sure I'm currently going to college but for a paralegal and I can already tell its not my passion. I've looked at your site and your photographs are beautiful. How did you start out with making yourself known, did you start out with someone already big or did you just go out on your own? Thanks so much, Sheena
ANSWER: Formal training or acquiring credentials is not a licensing requirement anywhere in the United States. To go into business as a wedding photographer, you merely go to city hall and pay the license fee. So to answer your first question, you don't "need" to take classes or courses. Though I've attended seminars over the years, most of what I've learned has come from buying and studying every book on wedding photography and photoshop I can find.
When I first started photography as a hobby around 28 years ago, I had a couple of high school friends getting married. They asked me to photograph their wedding. I bought my first couple of wedding photography books. The 35mm film I shot of their wedding was my wedding gift to them. The loved their wedding pictures - but then - their wedding pictures were free. But this still resulted in word of mouth advertising for me.
About 25 years ago I went professional with wedding photography. Back then I still relied mostly on word of mouth. Even today over 70% of the weddings we book are from referrals. Paid advertising has never been worth it. Today, I rely on my website and go to bridal shows which have been well promoted and where I anticipate a lot of brides ready to hire. This year I didn't participate in the 2008 Chattanooga Bridal Show because I already have about 20 weddings booked and that particular bridal show was not appropriately promoted. More time and money was spent on getting vendors to participate. I stopped by the show and saw a lot less brides then what there was last year. These are some of the other things you should do as a self-employed wedding photographer - is checking up on bridal shows like this - understand your market. There were over 20 photographers at the bridal show. With that many, brides would be overwhelmed with photography options. I wonder how many of those photographers at the show felt like they needed to "give away the farm" in order to get brides to pick them over all the other participating photographers?
Might as well not go to bridal show and rely on word of mouth and my website to bring in the remaining weddings I will shoot this year - and at my regular fair pricing.
The best overall advice I think I can give you - learn your professional digital camera equipment very well. Buy and study every book you can find on wedding photography. THEN approach an established photographer to work as an assistant. If you can take courses, it will help. Above all, genuinely care about always making your photography better than the last wedding you shot. Your goal should always be to make the wedding pictures a couple receive from you be the best wedding pictures they have ever seen anywhere - and have your work FAIRLY priced. This will get you more work than you can handle.
QUESTION: How do I try to get on with someone else who does wedding photography? Like I would any other job?
Answer Some photographers and especially studios might want to do a background check. You fill out the standard job application. But to work as a photographer, it would be better if you could also approach them with a portfolio of photography work. This usually consists of around 20 8x10s (color and b&w) OR 20 color and b&w 11x14s.
You might even be expected to use your own equipment since your own equipment would save them the cost of the equipment if they provided it as well as training you on the use of their particular digital cameras etc. With this thought and possibility in mind, you should make sure you are very familiar with your digital camera and other equipment. The good news about being completely competent with your own equipment as well as wedding photography in general is that you should expect to be able to negotiate for a higher starting rate. This is where a great portfolio of your work would also be useful.
When you are ready to go self-employed, be prepared for some slow times. This is where you should have at least 4 to 6 months of your salary saved up and setting in the bank to get you through the slow times. The slow times are usually around October through February. Don't let the slow times make you feel bad and wonder if you made a mistake! The slow times are absolutely natural. You simply must be financially prepared and mentally ready to anticipate it - you will be ok.
Of course, to get some sample for your portfolio ready to approach a photographer or studio, you might offer to photograph a friend's wedding who doesn't have the budget for a pro. Be sure everyone at the wedding knows you are an amateur looking for the experience and that you would appreciate their help. Make sure everyone knows you are providing the photography as a gift to the bride/groom. I would also recommend to start shooting at least 3 hours before the Ceremony time with everyone available so you can practise a lot of the techniques, poses etc., you learned from studying wedding photography books.
Best of luck to you and if you stay dedicated and committed to excellence as a wedding photographer, I believe you will find it to be a very rewarding career.
John Wilson
Wedding Photographics
Chattanooga, Tennessee
