I’ve started photographing and listing the lost dogs and cats at the Clay County Animal shelter and was particularly moved by these pups, found in a ditch in Flora.  I listed them Thursday and both were adopted Saturday.   I  wish more people would turn animals over to the shelter correctly, to the animal control officer, and pay the $15 per animal fee, rather than dumping them.

Here is a link to a current listing of pets needing homes at the Clay County Animal Shelter.  And here is a link to the Facebook Fur a Good Paws site, where we list adoption events and post more pics.

When Kristen asked if I had a washtub for some pictures during Jady’s 6 month pictures, I told her I had something better, a bathtub.  I dragged it out of  storage and we had fun with it.  I know babies in bathtubs have been “done,” and we took lots of other types of pictures.  Still, the bathtub ones are some of my favorites, for no other real reason than Jady just looks so cute.

I saw news on Facebook last night that Corinna Dodge was killed in a car accident Monday morning.   I’m shaken by this and saddened.  I can’t imagine the grief of her parents and loved ones.  I took Corinna’s senior pictures two years ago and set the slideshow to a song she chose.   I went back, added in more images from her session and am posting it here.  I’ve been trying to get a version of this on FB, so it can be more readily shared with her friends, but I’m not having much luck with all of that yet.

Slideshow link here

And a larger, downloadable, executable file of the slideshow for her friends to keep.  Link here.

The best thing about people photography is the people.   I get to meet such interesting people who I wouldn’t have met otherwise, such as Ross and Lynn from Newton.  I’m working up images now of their new addition, Eli.    There are so many cute ones, but I wanted to post a couple of the baseball baby pics I was particularly proud of before Ross heads off to spring training.

February walks with Ada and Zoe.

I’m still catching up blogging sessions from late last fall.  Here are some photos from Elliot Kessler’s session that I love.

With bridal fair season upon us, I’ve been fielding a lot of e-mails and phone calls about wedding photography.   I trust that anyone who talks to me on the phone gets that I try to be helpful.  I’m more interested in helping people find a good photographer for their wedding than I am in “bagging” the wedding.  I’m not greedy, and I only want 5-10 weddings a year, so that I can give them all the attention they deserve in and around my portraits and life.  So, I try to help people when they call me on the phone.  Some things I realize that I’m saying often enough I should just go ahead and make a blog post about it at the risk of offending some fellow photographers.  If so, apologies are offered in advance.  This is just my opinion, and if it offends, I’d rather be open about what I think.

My wedding prices range from $2000-$3000 for wedding coverage, an engagement session, table cards, my time at the wedding, a gallery online and an album.   By looking at the other established wedding photography studios available within a couple of hours, I’m charging the “going rate” or the average charge, but hopefully far exceeding ordinary expectations.   That said, I know that southern Illinois is a cheap market, and increasingly I field a lot of phone calls and e-mails from startup photographers about how to do things and how to get into this market.  What amazes me is that many, if not all of these people starting up in photography start with weddings.  They start with weddings because the money is “good,” because someone begs them to shoot the wedding, because if they don’t shoot the wedding, they are told noone else will.  And then next thing you know, they’re a wedding photographer.  They charge from between $500-and $1000 and they think that is “a lot of money.”  And a lot of them shoot pretty pictures every once in a while, so how can it hurt?

I’m as much of a bargain shopper as the next person, but I like to know what I’m buying.  With that in mind, here are some very important questions to ask everyone, but specifically  the $1000 wedding photographers.

First, how many weddings have they shot?  Otherwise stated as, do you want to risk being one of the first five weddings in a photographer’s possibly very short photography career?  It could work out just fine, but it is a gamble, because shooting a wedding is not  easy.  And more importantly, shooting a wedding is in conditions that most people, even avid camera buffs or new photographers have never shot in before.  Most churches are far darker than they are used to shooting in, and trust me, you don’t want them using flash for your ceremony after the processional, so they are going to have to have the knowledge, the experience and the equipment to handle shooting in low light conditions all day long.

Second, what kind of camera are they shooting with for their main camera, and what is their BACKUP camera?

Without getting too technical, most $1000 wedding photographers use $1000 cameras (or less)  and cheap lenses.   This might seem all fine and well, and great photographers can take great pictures with the worst camera, right?  RIGHT! GREAT photographers, with TONS of experience CAN take great pictures with crappy cameras, because they know how to work within the restraints.  But, new photographers need all the help they can get.  About three years ago, the digital slr market made a huge jump in its ability to handle something you should care very much about:  low light shooting.  Because that is precisely what your wedding ceremony is going to be.  I won’t even use my cameras older than three years in a ceremony or have junked any images accidentally taken during that time by second shooters, because the images were either out of focus (slow shutter speeds from low light) or too grainy (high iso from low light)for me to consider acceptable.

With Nikon, the jump came with the Nikon D3, followed by the D700, the D3x and the D3s.  With Canon, it started with the 5d and is in the Mark series cameras newer than three years.  Basically, I wouldn’t have anyone shoot my wedding with anything older than a D3 or D700 (unless they were someone who I consider a photography master).   My reason is because the files themselves in low light conditions will look bad.  I could care less what camera people use shooting portraits, and in my opinion that hardly matters, because for portraits, the photographer can choose and control the  conditions within which they know they can work.  But weddings aren’t like that.  You have to be able to shoot in whatever lighting conditions you’re given.

And, for the record, the cameras that I consider acceptable are all $2500 or up, with the D3 series in the $5000 range.  When I’m at a wedding, I have two D700’s and now a D3s on site along with backup gear and a case load of lenses, almost all $1000 and up.  Do I buy these things because I like camera equipment?  YES!  But, I buy these things for weddings, because they enable me to take BETTER pictures for my clients.  And THAT’s what I really care about.

After the experience and the camera question, I’d want to know about their external  flashes.    They have to have at least two flashes,  in case the first one goes out, which happens, and you don’t want to have it happen at your wedding.  Then I’d ask how they light formals, and I’d look at their reception images closely to see if they’re using off camera flash during the reception so that their reception pictures don’t look more or less like the “happy snaps” your friends take at the reception.

Then I’d talk to them about timeline.  Make sure you can shoot your formals how you want without a penalty if you don’t want to see one another beforehand.   Find out what is included.

Make sure the images you’re looking at are by the photographer who would be shooting your wedding.  I know of one fairly local photographer who advertises a cheap price, books himself up, then tries to book other brides with associates who he’s training and will “oversee” in post-production.  That’s ridiculous.  If you can’t see the other photographer’s work, don’t book them, because if they screw up your wedding pictures there is no fixing them after the fact, no matter what they’d have you believe.

Photographers are like anyone else, they’ll want to show you their best work.  Make sure you’re looking at sample images from ALL portions of a wedding, unless you plan to get married in an open field under a tree somewhere, in which case, feel free to disregard the regular ceremony, reception and formal pics.

Bottomline, I care about helping people and am only writing these things because I think there’s a lot of uncertainty in our market about what you’re really paying for and how to compare photographer one to photographer two.

I know it seems overwhelming at times, and I hope this helps a few people tell the differences in the market place other than pictures and price.

Here’s wishing you all the best.

I’m working at adding my fall weddings to the blog.  Until then, you can see  images  from my weddings here on my FB business page.  I’ve become a fan of  tagging brides and grooms in their wedding photos on FB, and need to catch the blog back up.

I always love to photograph my wedding couples’ new families.  Matt and Tera brought in their adorable daughter,  Danica, before Christmas.  She has the biggest smile and the sweetest temperament.

Wow, am I ever behind on my blog!   I’ll get started on posting some favorites from recent sessions and weddings.  My nephew, Graham, is a senior this year at Effingham High School.  We’re going to do some football pictures in the spring, but did some outside and studio pics before the weather turned cold.  Here are some favorites.