What to Ask Your Wedding Photographer - Experience

Welcome back to another installment of me answering popular “what to ask your wedding photographer” questions. If you read the last section about Availability, you'll know in this series I’m starting with the Brides.com list of 39 questions. The “Availability” questions were super straight forward and common sense, as we get into questions about experience I'll be doing a bit more editorializing on the actual questions and the reasoning behind them because this is a BIG thing in the wedding industry. (paste fake it until you make it text)

Experience

How long have you been photographing weddings? How many have you done?

For me, I've been photographing professionally since 2005 and started in weddings in 2007 by apprenticing with other photographers - giving me great insight into things that worked and that didn’t. I had the technical skill set but wanted to really understand the specific flow of a wedding day and work on the softer skills you need like managing timelines, keeping parents happy, and making things like the wedding party photos fun while getting the range of shots you've hired me for. Since that time, I've photographed hundreds of weddings, I've spoken at national photography conventions, won awards for my photography multiple times, been published across print and the web, and invited to join the ranks of The World's Best Wedding Photographers.

About the question: This seems like a basic question but it's really important in the new(ish) climate of social media. What many planning couples unfamiliar with our industry don't always realize is that with no barrier to entry, there are some photographers who may have never actually photographed a wedding even though their portfolio looks otherwise. Our industry has tons of workshops where new photographers can attend a beautifully designed set up with models (who know what to do in front of a camera) and on-trend decor and have the hosts tell them settings to use, how to compose the shot, and direct the models for them. To be fair, this is a good way to learn lots of skills, but just be sure that the work is not mis-representing the experience or skills the photographer has to work under the pressure (time & emotion) of a real wedding day.

Have you shot weddings similar in size and style to ours?

Yes! I've photographed everything from just two brides, their witnesses, and the officiant when Washington was one of the only states to allow same sex weddings to 300+ Indian weddings and even 600+ person Eritrean weddings. Sometimes all in the same location, sometimes with the added logistics of multiple locations and travel. Additionally, I'm comfortable in indoor and outdoor spaces!

About the question:

Can we see a full gallery?

About the question: This is such a crucial question and I apologize in advance because I have *so many thoughts* about this. You absolutely have to see full galleries. This will tell you so much more about a photographer's skills. I'm going to tell you what to look for and what it says about the photographer:

• Color

• Diversity of composition

• Fake smiles

• Distracting backgrounds

• Details in the highlights and shadows

• Redundancy

• Individual couples' personalities

• Emotion within poses / connection

• Weak categories (strong in all settings)

Have you shot at the venue? If not, site visit?

Have you worked with the other vendors?