p.3 #1 · How many images do your couples need to remember their day?
It is great to see shooters thinking about this aspect of wedding photography. Now, if only the couples would give the matter equal attention so that we can get back to focusing upon quality over quantity.
p.3 #2 · How many images do your couples need to remember their day?
Rusty-Tripod wrote:
It is great to see shooters thinking about this aspect of wedding photography. Now, if only the couples would give the matter equal attention so that we can get back to focusing upon quality over quantity.
Mmm, true. None of the couples we've actually booked, save one, asked about the number of pictures they'd receive, to my memory. However, budget brides in my experience are far more likely to worry about that, and the one bride who did at first wanted to have all of the pictures, and we had to let her know that that simply wasn't going to happen.
p.3 #3 · How many images do your couples need to remember their day?
None of the couples we've actually booked, save one, asked about the number of pictures they'd receive, to my memory. However, budget brides in my experience are far more likely to worry about that, and the one bride who did at first wanted to have all of the pictures, and we had to let her know that that simply wasn't going to happen.
That correlation may be due in part to the tendency of lower-priced photographers to itemize everything and to promise a certain number of images, thereby conditioning brides in that price range to focus on the number of images as a distinguishing factor. In other words, it may be at least partly our fault the budget brides are paying attention to the number of images.
I don't think brides were the first to ask, as a group, how many images they would get. I rather suspect that photographers were the first, as a group, to start talking about quantity as a feature. And that particular feature seems to be the kind of thing less-skilled photographers would most want to focus on.
p.3 #4 · How many images do your couples need to remember their day?
How many does the client need to remember their day? 50-75. Ok maybe 100 if they want a big album.
How many does a client expect or want because the way society has created their perception on reality? 500, 1000, 2000 or so.
This thread had me thinking over a year ago, why we deliver hundreds of proofs first then never hear back from the client for designing their album. We have changed our ways of doing things and it has been for the better.
We shoot the wedding and come home and do our normal processing blah blah blah. We then make a blog post with 20-40 images that are edited more than the standard proofs. Then we show them a slideshow of our 100-150 favorites. By now the client is in love with these 150 or less photos and feels she has to have her album designed with these. It is by now that they are usually asking for the album design with those images. We then pass on the rest of the proofs with our proofing gallery on zenfolio. Most times the client will ask to use only a few from the other proofs to have in their album. Best part, we are now done with albums within weeks of the wedding instead of years.
I know a lot of you will say why the hell am I letting the client pick all the photos in the album instead of just designing a sample album for them to make changes to. Well this is our business model and what we have pushed since day one. We give the client the freedom or let them think they are in control.
p.3 #6 · How many images do your couples need to remember their day?
AnthonyR wrote:
The worst part is that clients that expect 1000 pictures on their DVD also expect 300 pictures in their 40 pages album.
Are you managing expectations so that they would think differently. Put yourself in their shoes. You're handing them 1000 images and offering them a book - it is fair to assume that the book will include a sufficient number of images. It doesn't necessarily make sense that you offer them 40 pages but give them 1000 images to populate it.
p.3 #7 · How many images do your couples need to remember their day?
I don't deliver 1000 pictures. I'm talking about potential clients who expect 300 pictures in their album because the other photographer across de street deliver 1000+ pictures and a 300 pictures album. I try to manage their expectation during the first meeting, but sometimes the ''quality is more important than quantity'' speech doesn't work. They just want quantity.
p.3 #8 · How many images do your couples need to remember their day?
Photojournalism is the art of telling a story through one image. A photo essay is typically 12 or fewer images. So yes, your point is valid. Unfortunately, we live in a culture of "more is better." And even more unfortunately, most wedding photographers must cater to this culture because it is the people who are paying them.
p.3 #9 · How many images do your couples need to remember their day?
MrFotografer wrote:
Photojournalism is the art of telling a story through one image. A photo essay is typically 12 or fewer images. So yes, your point is valid. Unfortunately, we live in a culture of "more is better." And even more unfortunately, most wedding photographers must cater to this culture because it is the people who are paying them.
So...if you'd get your favourite photographer and pay him/her 5-10K to photograph you wouldn't be surprised when you only received 10-20 photographs?? I bet you'd be pretty upset. Come on, it's not the "culture" or the "society"! It's common sense. And I've met a lot of journalists in my life who photographed events all over the world,yet many would go crazy with weddings and deliver upwards 2000 images from a wedding. That's because you can't tell a wedding story in such small amount. While 2000 or even 1000 IMHO is way too much from a 1-day wedding, Anything under 100 is just bad journalism.
p.3 #10 · How many images do your couples need to remember their day?
Ian Ivey wrote:
This perceived "need" for 500 or more images is less than 10 years old, and is a product of two things: 1) a shift to digital photography that reduced the marginal cost of one additional image to just a few cents, and 2) the widespread amateur use of cameras and social media to document and publish everything. These aren't bad things, they're just new.
Just thirty years ago, delivering 300 images from a wedding was a huge volume. And good photographers achieved fantastic results with 100-150 images. Even 150 was a lot for the couple to sort through.
150 is still a lot for the couple to sort through. More than that is literally impossible to digest or keep in your head -- they blur together in the mind so much that they lose their power.
Technology makes it possible to deliver 500 images, or 1000, or 2000. We can easily think of a list of 500 things to photograph, any one of which could be a lovely image to have. But the collection of every conceivable individually valuable image from a wedding day is not inherently more valuable than a collection of 50 of those images.
At some point -- some number higher than 50 and probably lower than 200 -- the next additional image intrudes on the vital role of the imagination in remembering the wedding. ...Show more →
I've been browsing through old threads and the wisdom of this post stuck out to me again.
p.3 #12 · How many images do your couples need to remember their day?
D. Diggler wrote:
How many images are you delivering?
Too many! We were under 400 for our last wedding, which I liked, but in the mid 500s for the last few before that. My ideal would be somewhere around 200, I think. For this year's weddings, I'm going to try to keep them all at or under 400...we'll see. I have trouble with culling.
p.3 #13 · How many images do your couples need to remember their day?
I usually tell couples that there are usually 100-200 choice images and the rest are of your guests, family portraits, dancing to show as many guests as possible. Most of the time, for me, that ranges between the mid-600-800 range.
p.3 #14 · How many images do your couples need to remember their day?
david1234 wrote:
if i have second shooters (great ones) i usually deliver around 600-900 just enough to not be overwhelming
This is me for full coverage. Six hour or less I average 200-400. I also state right on my website average is 50-100 images per active hour of shooting.
To add.
Ian Ivey wrote:
I don't think brides were the first to ask, as a group, how many images they would get. I rather suspect that photographers were the first, as a group, to start talking about quantity as a feature. And that particular feature seems to be the kind of thing less-skilled photographers would most want to focus on.
This is another reason I have on my website 50-100 images per active hour. I hope it lets others know when they are 'shopping', book me or not... what a professional usually delivers.
I also feel many professionals dont give enough of this type of info on their websites. I state a staring range, and average spent, how files get delivered, basics that come with all packages(online gallery/thank you cards or Save the Dates) average per hour for images, and they all get post produced. What is the average person to think when armatures list all the specifics and the pros are vague unless you email them? We are surely partially to blame... Get over your competition will see what you are charging or what you offer... also get over you Have to get them for a consult to give Any info...The new generation wants instant gratification and info, give it.
I also feel you can show enough work, style, and personality on your website... they should already be sold before the consult. A consult should just seal the deal.( I know it doesnt happen every time but I hope you get my point) Give the high tech 'instageneration' the info... Another reason not to use a hack half ass freebie website. On another pro forum a fellow vendor always says "sell the sizzle"! Sell your sizzle before they even email you... 'educate' them before they email you...
p.3 #16 · How many images do your couples need to remember their day?
600-900 is about my number too, though I will say it TOTALLY depends on your style. We market "moments" and hence, try to deliver all the unique (flattering, high quality) moments we come across. Also, as a female, I know how picky brides can be about "how they look" in photos, so I try to deliver as many different expressions as I can from the portraits. It all adds up. That number is out of the 2300 frames I shot at my last wedding and my second's 1700 ::shrugs::
p.3 #17 · How many images do your couples need to remember their day?
For me, about 50-75 can do any wedding justice which is about what I put in an album. The reason I deliver 400-600 is just pressure and expectation, I can see why - people like (or think they like) choice.
I've looked a some friends web wedding galleries and after 6 pages still on pre-ceremony I am bored rigid.
p.3 #19 · How many images do your couples need to remember their day?
Jeff Simpson wrote:
you must shoot some boring weddings then
Quite an assumption. Most albums are meant to tell the story of the day, do yours need 500 pictures in them to accomplish this? Video editing is often about saying the same thing with the same impact with less footage and I think photographers could do well to think along these lines.
