A Photography Primer
Questions to Ask Potential Photographers
Photography Tips

Our Experience
I'd read enough about wedding photography to know what I wanted -- a journalistic/artistic style, someone who would follow our wedding as it happened rather than trying to control it, a mix of black & white and color photos, and a mix of candids and posed shots. We knew we didn't want the huge wedding print on our living room wall, but we did want some beautiful, professional, formal color photos -- which we'd want done with a medium fomat camera. Then we wanted most of our other photos to be candid, capturing the essence and emotional tone of the day, and taken with an artistic eye for detail and composition. Armed with this knowledge and our list of questions, we went off to interview some photographers.

We met the first photographer (recommended by the Inn) at the Inn, and he basically went into a little sales pitch right away. He was very nice, but we were immediately turned off by the pictures, which seemed to be standard wedding fare, and by his definite views on wedding photography (which didn't match ours). Of course, his price was very reasonable -- but we couldn't bring ourselves to hire him. As we were leaving the Inn, he pointed out that some of the photos on the walls were his. They were stunning shots, all stills, of natural subjects (trees, frogs, flowers), and it seemed clear that his heart was in those photos while the money was in wedding photography.

The second photographer, Maureen Edwards DeFries, met us at our apartment. She didn't jump into telling us all about herself, but just suggested that we look at the albums she'd brought (she had about six with her), and sat there quietly while we gazed at her beautiful photographs, oohing and ahhing along the way. She told us that she always brought an assistant with her -- the assistant would take pictures of Jim getting ready while Maureen would take pictures of me getting ready, the assistant would help set up formal shots, and would provide additional coverage, mainly taking color shots while Maureen took black and white pictures. She usually shoots for 7-8 hours, and takes 700-800 exposures. She follows the style of the wedding, and doesn't intrude in any way -- in fact, she told us she'd want us to forget she was there. She uses a mixture of black and white and color, 35mm and medium format, leaning more heavily toward candid black and white 35mm shots. She brings enough film with her to photograph three weddings, and brings about five or six different cameras. She said she would be there if she broke her leg or had any other minor catastrophe -- the only way she wouldn't make it was if she was in the hospital -- in which case she does have backup photographers she could call. She was very nice, told us we were really cute together, and said she'd love to photograph our wedding.

Of course, she was three times more expensive than the first (though not more expensive than the photographer Jim's parents had found), and of course we wanted her anyway. After seriously considering how important the pictures were to us and thinking about what else we could scale back, we decided to book Maureen.

A Photography Primer

I recommend reading up on photography before interviewing photographers -- most wedding planning books at least go over the basics, which is all you need to know. The great thing about determining the type of photography you want is that you can weed people out over the phone if they don't match your criteria and only meet with the most promising candidates.

Here's some very basic information which I gleaned from books (I'm far from being an expert on photography):

• There are two basic types of cameras -- medium format and 35mm.
• The advantage to medium format cameras is that they use a larger negative, so the resulting photos are richer in color and can be enlarged to mural-size proportions. The disadvantage is that they require the use of a tripod as well as requiring the subjects to hold still -- this means posed shots rather than candids.
• The advantage to 35mm cameras is that are wonderful for black and white photography and are portable and fast, so they are ideal for candid shots
• The disadvantage to 35mm is that the negatives are smaller so the prints can't be enlarged as much.

There are also many styles of wedding photography, and you'll want to find a photographer whose style fits well with yours. For example, standard wedding photographers generally use only medium format cameras, which results in many beautiful posed and special effects shots. However, you may not get many pictures of people looking natural, and sometimes these photographers tend to be a bit pushy and to orchestrate the event rather than simply filming it. The journalistic photographer, on the other hand, tends to use 35mm, lots of black and white film, and likes to hang back and watch the action unfold, documenting exactly what happens on the wedding day rather than trying to control events. An artistic photographer looks for a beautiful and/or artistic shot above all else (he or she may be less concerned with a photograph of the smiling bride and groom than with the way the light catches someone's face). Really, there are as many styles as there are photographers, and many photographers blend a bit of each style into their work.

Questions to Ask Potential Photographers

• What is a typical wedding you're shooting like?
• What are some of the best things that have happened when shooting a wedding?
• What are some of the problems you've encountered shooting weddings and how did you handle them?
• What kind of equipment do you use?
• Do you use black and white film, color film, or a combination of both?
• Describe your photographic style.
• What kind of education and training do you have?
• What would happen if you got sick and were unable to shoot our wedding?

Photography Tips

• Be prepared with a list of questions to ask (see above). Listen carefully to the answers you receive -- you'll learn a lot about your photographer as a person from his or her answers.
• Remember, your photographer is the one wedding vendor with whom you'll spend the most time. He or she will be there during some of the most intimate, emotional, and intense moments of your life. Make sure that you choose someone you feel comfortable with and someone who respects your needs and wishes. If you have any doubts about a photographer, no matter how small, you probably shouldn't hire that person.
• Make sure you as much of a photographer's work as you can. Ask to see an album with one complete wedding from beginning to end rather than a compilation of the photographer's (or, worse, studio's) best work.
• If you're dealing with a studio, make sure the photographer you meet with is the same one who'll be shooting your wedding.
• Sometimes, price-wise, you can do better a la carte rather than a whole package, but the packages are generally a better deal if you are going to want lots of prints or a professionally-done album. Try to realistically estimate how many prints you and your families will want, and what kind of album you'll want, then break down the prices and compare which way you'll get a better deal.