Wedding Photographer CD only?

sineadc1984

Hi,
Just wondering if anyone has experience of photographers that do a reasonable cd only package? Or how I would go about contacting a photography student trying to build up their portfolio and would be interested in shooting a wedding.
Thanks in advance

Most photographers offer CD-Only packages, don't they?

Rarely do they give the full size photos, but I know plenty that do it.

clint_silver

sineadc1984 wrote: »

Hi,
Just wondering if anyone has experience of photographers that do a reasonable cd only package? Or how I would go about contacting a photography student trying to build up their portfolio and would be interested in shooting a wedding.
Thanks in advance

Boards.ie photography section. You'll get what you pay for. You can make no demands or have expectation of quality. You will be looking to get lucky that they'll at least have some skill behind a lens.
But I'm sure you know this.

sineadc1984

Thanks for the replies. Found someone last night!! The 3 or 4 photographers I had contacted didn't do the cd only package. Cheapest price I had gotten from the photographers I had contacted was €1400 and we simply just don't have that to spend. Thankfully I found someone through work who's does a decent cd only package and are local to where we are getting wed!! Thanks again!!

Gatica

sineadc1984 wrote: »

Hi,
Just wondering if anyone has experience of photographers that do a reasonable cd only package? Or how I would go about contacting a photography student trying to build up their portfolio and would be interested in shooting a wedding.
Thanks in advance

We're getting a CD only package. Our photographer said they're high-res, how high I don't know, but I presume it must be decent enough quality.

We also considered going the student route before (but then turned out I had more budget). We were gonna contact the photography department at the University and ask to see some portfolios or if any students would be interested in shooting a wedding.
I checked our some pics from the Uni photography society website. Some of them were really lovely and impressive and gave an idea of what they could do. Sure, some of it could be fluky but there were many photos from the same student, so seemed like they were good enough.
If you're on a tight budget, I'd defo recommend trying doing that. We had friends that did that before us and their photos came out great. I know it's taking a risk, but if you need to make a saving, what else can you do? Their only regret was that due to the inexperience of the photographer, they never got any posed whole family shots. They didn't think of this til they laid out their albums.
You could have one of your bridal party in charge of a list of shots though if you're worried.

jaspertheghost

where is the wedding??? im getting married in 2 wks and my friend is doing the photos, she`s a student but does some amazing pics, shes doing it cheap...could see if she wants more business if its convienient

Sleepy

Be careful judging a photographers work on something that's not weddings. There are world-famous professional landscape photographers, macro photographers (extreme close-ups), fashion photographers etc. that wouldn't be able to produce a good wedding album.

The "find a student looking to build up a portfolio" route is a complete gamble and, if you're okay risking not getting a good storybook album / range of shots of your wedding that's fine. Don't, however, expect to see an album of you looking as good as the shots you'll see in a professional wedding photographer's brochure though.

All that said, I'm going down the route of having a talented amateur photographer myself. Mainly due to budget, I'll admit but also because I know her work, like her style of photography and I've discussed it with her in advance so she's comfortable with the expectation level: we'll be happy with a handful of good photos to frame in the house / have for the aunties etc. and don't expect her to match the level of a top level professional.

It really is horses for courses, if I had no budget constraints I'd probably try coax Fajitas! from the photography forum into shooting our wedding but afaik he doesn't do weddings any more, focusing instead on fine art and fashion work. There's a sticky on the Photography forum for people offering / looking for photography services so maybe post in there with your date and budget and see what offers you get.

Whoever you decide to go for, ask to see a good sample of their work. If you're really scrimping on budget and going for someone who's never done a wedding before, pay attention to their portraiture shots rather than the fabulous landscape shots they might have. For anyone who's done weddings before, ask to see ALL the shots they took from a single wedding rather than a "best of" collection.

It's a sad fact that so many brides end up disappointed with the photos of their wedding day. The main reason for this isn't, in my experience, bad photographers but unrealistic expectations. The best fashion and wedding photographers in the world may be able to make a regular girl who's a size 14 look like a size 10 model but most can't and certainly won't be able to get anything near it if you don't want to pose for the photos (i.e. go down the reportage / documentary style route).

Regardless of who you have photographing the day, ask any friends you know that are into photography to take lots of shots for you. Even us amateurs "get lucky" sometimes and I know of a few cases where the couples have created albums out of their friends shots because they were so disappointed with the photographer they hired's results.

sineadc1984

jaspertheghost wrote: »

where is the wedding??? im getting married in 2 wks and my friend is doing the photos, she`s a student but does some amazing pics, shes doing it cheap...could see if she wants more business if its convienient

The wedding is here http://moongatesite.com/ its in Mount Leinster wexford/carlow border. Ceremony and reception are in the one place. It'd be great if you could find out from your friend for me.

@ GATICA Thanks a million definately going to look into the uni student side of things.

@ SLEEPY Thanks for your reply some great advice there I have managed to find one decent package cd only which is all I need I've worked on the printing photo's side of things since i was 16 so am pretty handy at the editing etc and I can do my own story book album through contacts in work thats the only reason I was going down the amatuer route. Alot of friends are handy with a camera so I will have those too its mainly just to have someone that can organise a few group shots.

I've seen so many people pay a fortune for wedding albums only for the albums to be thrown in a press and the fact that I know how much it costs for the photographer to actually print the pics makes me reluctant to get anything other than a cd only package. I know you can't put a price on the skill involved and their professionalism but the mark up is huge. We have a budget of 10k for our entire wedding and intend on sticking to it!! Being a DIY bride is a pain my my ass!! :D:D:D:D

Sleepy

We're on a similar budget ourselves so definitely understand you doing similar to what we're doing. I really think a lot of photographers do themselves a disservice by not managing expectations better.

the_syco

Get someone with a wedding portfolio, or someone who can take good photos in low light settings (alot of churches have low light). Too little light, or too much light (too bright a flash) can ruin a shot. Photoshop can only do so much.

If getting someone who hasn't shot a wedding before, ensure that they have at least two cameras in case one fails, or at least some sort of a backup plan.

For the "CD only" package, check how many images do they put on the CD, how many are of good resolution, and what resolution this is.

clint_silver

I tend to question this policy.

Ok, granted if someone starts a thread saying "Wedding photographer" and when you click in you see "please click on gerryscameras.ie we're the bestest photographers around"

thats advertising.

But if a regular poster comes in and asks "does anyone know a wedding photographer that does cds", someone who actually does that, ala mrmoo, and sees the post should be allowed post, "hi, yes, my company do photos on cd heres my contact details". Its not shilling, theyre not advertising, its responding to a request and theyve declared their interest.

How is that different then when an independent person goes "mr moo does that, here's his contact details".

neither case would be considered advertising IMO.

iguana

I've deleted about half of this thread as it was completely off topic and spam related. Clint if you wish to start a discussion on site wide policies there are places to do that, this isn't one of them.

clint_silver

iguana wrote: »

I've deleted about half of this thread as it was completely off topic and spam related. Clint if you wish to start a discussion on site wide policies there are places to do that, this isn't one of them.

Fair point iguana. Duly noted.