Breaking into the Business of Wedding Photography

Being in the professional wedding photography business since nineteen eighty six , I have often been asked how one could become a wedding photographer . I typically dodge the question with a word of advice about having to love photography and the usual note that the average photographer only makes  twenty four thousand dollars per year , but not this time. This time I have decided to dive in, dig deep , and walk through the details of what I believe it takes to start a professional wedding photography business .

As we move forward , I will step you through the foundational knowledge you will need to have, the equipment you will need, the software that the pros use, how to gain experience, how to build your portfolio, setting your price once you have all of the above, and I will discuss the behind the scenes processes and daily routine . In closing I will give some tips on how to turn your website into a marketing tool .

Gainesville Florida is a extremely competitive arena for a wedding photographer but I have been able to break in and carve out a small piece of the pie for myself. It will be no easy task , but with some pointers and a lot of hard work, you too can be a wedding photographer.

In the world of digital cameras , it is easy for a person to buy an inexpensive camera and memory card, run out and start snapping pictures all willy nilly, that they then display as screen savers on their pc . After doing this for a few days its easy to think that one is developing photographic skill . I can not count the number of people that have asked me to critique a photo for them, that they were particularly fond of , and had no idea what I mean when I asked what aperture value the camera was set on when the picture was captured . They usually can guess correctly when I ask if they had used off camera lighting , but have no clue about the shutter speed used to take the photo .

I will usually ask questions like this, not to make the person feel that they don’t understand photography as much as I do, but rather to help them understand that photography is far more than taking a lot of snap shots. They need to grasp why the entire depth of field in a landscape photograph is altogether in focus when a portrait photograph has the subject in focus but the back ground is blurred. They will want to grasp why they are getting harsh shadows under the subjects chin , but photos in magazines have no harsh lighting lines. These are the basic points of knowledge a photographer must have.

I will also introduce you to some beginning ideas of composition. This is one of the most important ideas of photography but it is one of the most overlooked . If you take a look through you portfolio of snapshots, you will notice that most of your subjects are directly centered in the shot . Although this seems to make sense, it is the easiest to spot mark of an unskilled photographer.

Lets start with defining some terms:

1. aperture
   • In photography , an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels.
   • The smaller the aperture the shorter the depth of field. This is good for portraits
   • The bigger the aperture, the greater the depth of field. This is good for landscape shots
2. shutter speed
   • In photography , shutter speed is a common term used to discuss exposure time, the effective length of time a shutter is open.
3. lighting
   • Lighting is any on camera, off camera, or natural lighting source that is used and manipulated to create artistic affects in your photographs.
4. lens speed
   • Lens speed refers to the greatest aperture diameter, or smallest f-number, of a photographic lens. A lens with a larger maximum aperture, that is a smaller minimum f-number, is a fast lens because it delivers more light intensity to the focal plane, allowing a faster shutter speed.
5. composition
   • composition is the placement or arrangement of visual elements or ingredients in a work of art, as distinct from the subject of a work.

In part two, I will go into more detail on the terms I defined above and then move into the equipment you will need.