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Social Media & Online Branding

Lesson 2 from: Wedding Photography

Jasmine Star

Social Media & Online Branding

Lesson 2 from: Wedding Photography

Jasmine Star

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Lesson Info

2. Social Media & Online Branding

Next Lesson: Audience Q&A

Lesson Info

Social Media & Online Branding

so social media online raining so okay this is the part where people gonna be like oh jasmine like if you're watching creative life I'm functioning assumption that you are pretty tech savvy and you like social media so I might burst over this depending on what you guys are giving me something on like what the internet hollers at me um let's talk a little bit more about this so I want to talk about social media for your brand and this is different in that just because you have facebook or just because you're on facebook wow I sound like I'm eating just because you have that facebook thing just because you're on facebook just because you're on twitter doesn't necessarily mean that you're using it to define your brand which is ok which is totally totally totally fine everyone does it their own way I just got on the twitter boat like maybe a year ago like everyone people have been doing this forever I didn't see the advantages of twitter because I was just like wasn't nobody cares I'm goin...

g to grocery store I hear that you're under arrest I know that I didn't really see the advantages until somebody like until I signed up for it and I started following other people I certainly like ok and I sort of thinking how can I use this teo push my brand forward if I'm going to be online I want to make it useful and so I try to use social media as a division of my brand small an extension of me in like small feeds and so I try not to use social media so much as conversations which I know people doing that's totally fine but for me in the way that I do find it just because I'm not that interesting to have conversations is going to be as a division of my brand I tweet about four times a day I talk about what I've used it for two is not everybody subscribes to the block what you can use your twitter feed for as an arse s of forms that you tweet out like hey I just blocked or whatever like this I think that twitter has been so advantageous in exposing people tio who I am some people don't read my block that's fine but they know about me through twitter a little bit some people I don't know we on twitter but they might follow me on facebook and I tried to use facebook as a division the brand to anything anything that I'm dealing with social media I'm trying to remember that it's a division of jasmine stars brand so you know if I'm in a bad mood get off twitter like negativity on twitter is a total downer I feel like I don't know if if a photographer were like they're in a bubble and client don't follow them on twitter or don't follow them on facebook but like they d'oh so like if you're just like I can't believe this client just bought me this album three years after her wedding date and I'm like if I was that client I was following you I might know that I might know they're bashing me crazy little social media story I'm shooting a wedding I going so I shot a wedding for we'll call it okay we'll tell her jane I should jane's wedding in two thousand and two thousand seven and jane's sister gets married in two thousand eight so lucky for me I book it that two thousand eight wedding and I'm so excited because I've already engaged with her family and their circle of friends we all connected on facebook we're all joking we're all the same age I like them I love them oh super happy to have the wedding so I go back are we cool are we cool okay okay anyway are we cool okay I'm sorry I'm sorry no no no I'm sorry I just I wasn't sure if you just like give this girl breath mint okay I shoot her sister's wedding and I go back and I'm like hey girls how's it going and so are small talk how's going blah blah and she said one of the brides mates said oh I saw jane's wedding album she's like it was really pretty great job only thank you so much she's like yeah can you tell my photographer to stop playing around on facebook and get my album then because I'm friends with her wedding forever oh I was like oh my camera battery just died excuse me like your clients follow you they know what they're doing if you're not posting their images and you're just like oh I'm at the pool today and you're running late with their images people is gonna catch up with you make sure you watch your p's and q's it's a division of your brand be careful be careful with it um I know I actually I was ill I'll be real for a sec I put out a tweet and I'm like two weeks ago I'm like how many tweets is too many tweets in a day and like the first responses were if you have to ask that question maybe you tweet too much and I was like esso I believe I was like I don't want to know the answer anymore I've kind of chosen I don't know like some people might drive people nuts I tweet like three or four times a day jenny thinks it's crazy he likes to tweet like once every other day he's like that's all people really don't know about me whatever some people think that's too much but I try to keep it again as a division of grant because I blocked every day and I use twitter a subset of lycan rs s I don't want the tour I don't want the feed on ly to ever be in our assess how boring no one's going to subscribe to this idea that I'm only out there for you to go to the block where you go to my new website or whatever the case may be I personalized I talk about jay took my dog I talk about the strange things that happen like last night I was talking to my mom and my mom is staying house sitting right now for at my house so she could be with polo my dog and she's remark so jazz man your house is so clean and I'm like I didn't tell her I got a professional clean because I know her and my dad were going teo I opted out on twitter like it's small things like that that probably nobody cares what that's fine you can go over but against small divisions of who you are in the small things in life allows people to connect um social media for your clients what I try to use social media for is a way for them to connect this is like a big thing I want to make sure that I'm giving my clients every reason for them to be a part of the conversation where I don't believe that we as photographers live in a bubble with social media like on ly photographers following photographers know a lot of other people who don't I follow other people who are like moms that are just really funny funny what is wrong with my dad and mom are rubbing off on the way dad mom have these like total like act like east l a accent so sometimes they talking like don't tell me that okay so I need to stop that need to be very careful what I really want to do is create conversation shins what are you doing with social media as a division of your brand to have people talk about you because again when people talk about you it's word of mouth any time any time they're going to say something about you you want the conversation to circle around the things that you're putting out on the web so how do you create conversations about whatyou dio course you could put it on twitter you put it on facebook but are you using anything different to me you stand out because of course what we do traditionally with facebook when we were facebook we will upload a picture from our portfolio or sometimes people upload entire albums like twenty five fifty pictures from from the alamo people on facebook and that's that's fine if that's what you want to do for me my name thing for facebook was at one I didn't want facebook to have all my pictures like that they could be publicly used for however many ways and I couldn't brained myself on facebook because facebook was facebook and yes I could put like um a picture credit on it but it wasn't necessarily meet what I do now is I put picture credit with the photo and I upload just two or three from the wedding with engagement session and then and this subsection I put a link back where they can go back to find a division of my brand to see more of heather and mark's engagement session please feel free to go to and then I offer a link to the block that's a way to be slightly different but I was really happy because as a division of my website ah you show it as my website and what happens here is they make the subject of websites that are specifically dealt for your clients they're called plus sites these places have been so awesome in creating conversations I always think that facebook is not for your bridal party and it's not for your girlfriends in regard to see photographers what facebook has done for me is I it's allowed me to get in contact with the bride's a fourth grade friend who wasn't invited to the wedding it wouldn't have access to my photos what I'm trying to do is create a conversation through the plus sites and differentiate me on facebook without having to put all my photos out on facebook this is just a place I have created something again I'm very it's very fashionable such a screen sorry I know that guy back there is like yelling at me okay so yeah the's are plus sites and basically it's very fashion ike my brand is like very fashion driven it's just something that I like is not everyone's cup of tea that's fine remember what am I doing repelling or connecting so basically what this is it's like a mini division of a website the story if you click on the story tap it will lead you to the block post that I wrote about the clients because again I want to talk about my experience with the clients to her fourth grade friend who wasn't invited to the wedding from my perspective the gallery images is you click on the gallery and it takes you to the wedding slideshow so no pictures are actually on facebook and it allows it allows me to tag my client and then my clients contact whoever else they want if they have their bridal party in the in the pictures they could tag their clients in it and they can also comment on the section I was speaking in oregon and I had blogged that morning on engagement session when somebody asked me what are these parasites I don't understand them I went to facebook and it seriously looked like I had planned it but I honest to god it was like let's just go to my client's website that I just posted her engagement sessions and I'll show you little plus it is well I went to the wall and within just a couple hours people had already felt filled up her wall with really positive things this is what I want to do I want to create conversations on the web and then I want the bride to feel validated by her decision that's what social media can allow you to do it validates her decision to use you to invest in you because what happens is if her friend sonia says karen pics or gorgeous we need to something we're gonna hang out together I love your pick big justin starr fan other people are saying level of love him all you look gorgeous that peter so handsome banging whatever whatever they're saying essentially is what they're saying good job choosing that photographer to document you and stephanie steel in oscar navarro and cam e and sonia's friends that are on their wall are going to see that they wrote on karen's wall it's this crazy little trickle down effect that social media has created for us to enable our clients to create conversations and yes tagging photos is awesome but what can you do to really change that facebook has become a major changer in the game that we're playing that game my game I invented this game whatever um so what happens then two is her friend say great job good job her friends her friends have notified her and then their friends have been notified that they're talking to karen what karen does she hyperlinks me to jazz in zara's a rockstar seriously brides to be if you have a picture wedding photographer want incredibly talented and super fun one she's your girl I want that word of mouth referral to come to me when she says that that is a stamp of gold any time you can have a client who's out there being your promoter I commonly joke that I have a lot of don king's oh you're my donkey no donkey was a major boxing promoter I think he's a little throw like everybody needs a donkey I don't want one for two thousand ten my goal is to have twenty four don kings out there being like jazz star jobs got to knock it out just all we'll talk it out that's what I want that's what I really want that's what everybody wants and here's the thing I'm not doing it anything I'm not selling like my breath in a jar and being like for forty nine ninety five you can't no this is free like us show it is a thirty nine dollars subscription that ikea for my website actually it was my wedding photographer so I don't pay for my website I told him you were done on my wedding for doctor you could hook me up and actually he totally did he's really nice but anyway I just want to keep it all revealing I'm like I think I really don't but he's really anyway um he so anyway but the cost of the website sorry the cost of web site is thirty nine dollars a month this comes as a division of it and this has really become a huge thing for my business again creating conversations and what happens is people don't have to leave facebook to have a division of the jazz and start brand so I couldn't you couldn't fight with facebook about trying to bring yourself on there but you could bring things into it now which has become a huge thing also um last week I launched a new web site and I was so so so excited it was time I had the same website for about two years and in a way that's pretty much old school I loved my website and he didn't know how to reinvent it um but one thing that I was able to do which I really really really loved was bring in an element of facebook they wanted to have a magazine field without being distinctly magazine that was like a big thing I know that it's fashion and I know that if you go on my block it's a magazine but the problem is it's been there done that and I see people kind of replicating how can I rethink the magazine and keep it entirely my own so we just have hints of magazine hints of fashion in there and one thing that I incorporated was I like texan pictures when I look through magazines it's just this thing I have a huge typography fan and so I wrote down I think thirty different things that I think about love he holds the door open and tucks you in at night for me that's love and so when people come to my website they might think that's totally cheesy awesome repels you if you think it's cute we might be friends I went to zach curious one light workshop my very first year of business because I was so intimidated my flash and I had no idea how to use it so I'm like I want to go to this flash guru well the problem was he knew so much about last night knew nothing it was a little bit of my head I think I might prematurely I will say though I want to lay with the most powerful piece of business knowledge or whatever you can call it and he said he told a story and I'm probably gonna kill it zach please forgive me but he told the story of a total number one okay number one so zack told me this not me he told the class they went to his one night workshop and he told the class about this story this photographer who really wanted to shoot the world series now this photographer was really good and he believed in his ability shoot the world series but nobody would hire him for larger gangs so he finally landed the gig in like podunk yusa and they have him shooting t ball games well he's so frustrated because he clearly knows of his ability to succeed but he's shooting t ball games and he's shooting the table games like he was shooting a t ball game it didn't hit him until one day when he realised if I shoot this table game like I was shooting the world siri's I will eventually shoot the world siri's lo and behold a few years later he shoots the world series and garnishes of tons of awards for his work that story which has nothing to do with flash or the one like workshop revolutionized my life because I was shooting the proverbial t ball wedding I was shooting the tebow wedding like it was a table wedding I was shooting in church basements where they had like streamers hanging from the basketball court and I was shooting it like it was a streamer filled basketball court wedding the minute I had changed my perspective and shot these weddings like I was shooting it for grace armand or martha stewart weddings was when I started really moving towards what I wanted to dio and ideally not even I'm not even not even exaggerate I'm making this up the next wedding that he shot after going to zack's workshop I shot in this church and my daddy's a pastor I've said this before and I shouldn't say things about god's house but this church was just ugly I mean the my heart my eyes are scared to go into this church on dh so I was like this is where we have to shoot this wedding and I was so scared because the church lady comes up to me she says there's no flash photography and I'm just like you're silhouetted it's so dark in here I can't see you how can I not use flash in this church and she says those are just the rules so I have a minor panic attack and then I just have to think okay this situation is going to be really really bad so I tell jd to stand in the hallway where he has like awful lighting but still lighting and then I run upon the stage and I hide behind planters at the church and I shot the entire wedding from behind because they were up on a stage and the entire ceremony is pitch black that had been lighting on the bride and groom and I couldn't shoot up on them because the stage was literally like six feet off the ground and then they were sitting on top of it it was like I was shooting a twelve percent twelfth person I'm talking so fast like hanging great okay so I'm hiding behind the planters and I'm shooting the bridegroom and then we go across the street to their church gym where they have streamers and they have a korean style potluck and I set up this computer and they do a same day wedding slideshow edit and ask people are standing around the computer with the paper plates and they're kimchi I booked five weddings from that singular church that I thought would be awful what happened was the girls were watching this felt if they thought and felt that if jasmine can make that church look like what we're saying imagine what she could do with our church that revolutionized business so if you feel like you're shooting kind of ghetto fabulous wedding take the ghetto out and just shoot them fabulously and that's one thing that I walked away with from zack's workshop so yes he has a sagely beard indeed he's very smart things yes okay that's a little bit of a tangent that was great well craig's just a fan you think everything I do is great but it's really not okay or it's a little get back to your presentation okay so let's see I think okay we're we anything we need to back up where were we really that I'm going to find any the whole time okay thank you I was really just testing you putting on this but okay actually to total sino again because I'm so random in law school they employ something called the socratic method based after socrates and what socrates firmly believed that if you had to verbalize your argument it would further either making more convinced of your argument or you'd really realize that you were wrong you have to actually fight for what you're doing fight for the argument he put on the spot it was the worst experience in law school ever because you'd be sitting there reading a case of the anne and the professor out of I don't know forty students the class would call on you and he would be like jasmine what is your thought on and I'm just like and then they ask you and then they ask you to you know to really um argue your point argue why and they won't they won't let up until they believe that you figured it out because you can't have to cut the fluff right like do you know what you're talking about do you not I kind of believe the socratic method as much as I hate it so when we're shooting and so I'm going to be asking you questions I mean I I want you guys to fight for what you guys want to fight for and I want you guys to vocalize what you guys really really want I'm going to push you I know miss thing over here has so much you have so much gear you have enough here for ten people you're going to see what I shoot we're going to see how light I travel with and if you want all your gear at the end of at the end of creative life I want you to fight for and I want you to define firmly and believe me why you would need each piece and make good socratic method employed so yes okay so I'll put you on the spot always hyo okay so where we left right now I was talking about the website how I wanted my again because remember when people are contacting me um they're coming from tu tu tu moz either my blood or my website ideally I want them coming to my website because it's the most professional version of myself and an addendum I want to add because sometimes oh my god all the time I say things and it comes out I'm just like oh god come back I'm like uh okay I said that we don't pay for my website and that is true but the reason why I don't pay for the website was I was the very first website show it sight to ever be created so I was the guinea pig we went through thanh of headaches you know we went we made a lot of mistakes so as very gracious gift I was given a free website so it's not like I'm diva and I get free stuff it was we worked really hard on it was a thank you gift so that's the clarification so so here what I want to do is I want people to feel like they know me that they can connect with me but I don't want it to be a static experience I wanted to see how I would be able to create social media and one really good thing about show is there as much marketers as they are website hosting solution for website solution so hear this brainy feature came out and I'm one of the first people to use it it's not really it's not available until september but when I heard it was coming out I was like you guys have to like please let me do it please there like we're not so sure I mean I don't care I wanted so what happens is you can embed a little tiny facebook button and what happens is that people can log in and they can if they're log in to facebook they can leave comments on your website and those comments stay with the website for as long as the website is going and people can like a tte the time that he took put took the screen capture there was one thousand thirty five people who liked the website that stuff stays on facebook that stuff creates conversations it goes back to not only doing facebook but using facebook to further define you whenever somebody leaves a comments it shows up on the wall and it adds a link to my website that is powerful marketing at its finest it's not just a website it's a mode for me tomorrow get myself in different way and I was going to doom or screen captures but crais had this um idea of maybe going to the web so I'm gonna try it I don't know how good the internet is but I want to just bring out a couple like this is like two minutes the mouse isn't so great hold on here we go and we're gonna go up craig can I welcome navigate away from page you want the full screen experience okay okay that's it so this is what I don't know we have audio but what people will say when they first come they'll come here and again it starts off with a video of me not because I think I'm cool or in fancy I want to break down any type of preconceived notion I'm talking to the camera directly I'm putting videos music people having fun that's a word that I won't associate with my brand as you have a gate away from the website which is what I showed you guys there are video snippets in between each section why I want people to see me shooting I don't want this to be an idea of what they see I want them to visually see who the person is behind the lens why I want to I want people to know who I am as you navigate through the sight you will see again the personal quotes um and yes the first few sections are business related but the rest all of these sections on here aren't me some people might think you like yourself too much that's completely the opposite I want people to feel like they know me but how can I do that if you are not putting yourself on the web how can they really feel like they know you so as you navigate through these through the sections is a star struck section little word on the street and basically people who have written me letters I will event incorporate their words word of mouth through the website so that they can talk a little bit more about it so I don't have to I mean could you imagine I'm really great I'm a fun photographer you know it's like how boring is that you want to hear from somebody else who was actually behind the lens is this amazing bright I'm shooting her in september karen very very very sweet email and of course I asked for permission why be able to incorporate the website and they love that I want people to hear from her experience and she specifically says you inspired us to be confident knowing that we would produce better pictures when we feel great and youtube and you put two camera shy people at ease in front of your lens that's what I want this non model to say to say to other people because sometimes people come to my website they think are they all models are they real people these are normal people looking extra fabulous so again that's all basically this section is about me we go to the featured section that is all about me again not because if you come off them but just because of where I've been featured thie about section this is like a big part it's not it's written in first person if there's a big picture of who I am because I want people to know what my face looks like even real estate agents they have their picture on those little tiny door things that get on your door advertisements not because they think their particular cute but because people when they see somebody they feel instantly whether or not they could trust that person how many of us shy away from putting a bio picture on the website shame on you say hire me trust me but I won't show you what I looked like you know it's just so strange also what I have in the about section is a huge component to who I am which rubs people the wrong way but I don't can't remember I want to repel or want to connect I openly talk about my faith because I know that I wouldn't be where I am today if if it wasn't for god now I get it some people think that's your cup of tea that's awesome but listen when I wanted it with oranges and incense I didn't walk out of his way out of her office thinking you like buddha you can't clean my teeth those are two entirely separate things if you think that I can't see your wedding because I like god perfect we're not supposed to be a match awesome great I could recommend other people who are not still convicted is I either way it doesn't really matter and lastly also threw my bag bio section three pages bio section I want people to know me there's a picture of jd and I and I openly think him on the web for what he does for me I think it is a competitive advantage that I have to shoot with my spouse doesn't necessarily mean that everybody has to you but I think that as a future bride to know that she's hiring a couple who works together consistently on every wedding and who enjoys the pleasure I actually like jd like I did with the guy a long time I actually genuinely like him I would probably hang out with him had we not been married and I'll try to convince him to marry me I like him I want the world to know that two I love love I believe in the institution of marriage and I'm not just talking a big game I I want people to know that about me a documentary section because I'm a firm believer in video video is transforming the web but how many of us are actually leveraging it I hire a professional film crew documentary career to follow me on this I have a few videos that you can click through here I mean getting another one later this year and here's another page all about me you know people are like we are bored if you I totally get it it's totally fine I want people teo hire me because they want to hang out with me as the school over it just tells what the banalities that I like you guys really think very if you haven't it'll change your life I love it I create think very goodness I never say no to dessert uh I wear my cowboy boots daily I talk about the things lip gloss girls as friends this has nothing to do with who I am is a photographer but has everything to do with who I am as a person if you don't think lit classes the girl's best friend awesome that's great we might know I might not be your photographer or I might it doesn't matter I'm giving you enough reason to conjure a distinct feeling about whether or not you like me go through the collections page and you'll notice again what's that a picture of me so you go to the contact paige hold on wait for it is there a picture of me right I want people to feel like they know me very professional version of me I think that that's the power that our website can do if you could really do that how do you sit on the web by being you showing people exactly who you are in the most professional version possible okay so now we're going to go back to our presentation so this is where we left off and one cool thing was I spoke again to doj explained how great everything was so if you go to get show it dot com backslash creative life you will get one month free I understand that this might not be everybody's cup of tea I get it not every what what basically show it is and actually notes on twitter that people were asking what plus sites what a plus it is ah plus site is a subdivision of your main website that you can create free as using using show it so you'll get one month free to figure out if you like it um you have to download you've to go to this link and download it within forty eight hours that's the only caveat but that's it again if you like it awesome if you don't like it it's not for you equally is awesome but make sure that whatever website solution you're using your able to one showcase who you are using social media showcase who you are in the most unique way possible I've seen so many people use I'm template websites and I'm sorry like I'm not gonna look at anybody on the internet guys I feel like I'm talking just you but tippet websites are a disservice to who we are is artists I will just say that I'm going to be quite honest tommy hilfiger and our bonnie and diane von furstenberg and zac posen do not all have the same website with their collections rotating out of it we want to sit here and say we're artists were so unique but we'll use the same thing everybody else is but see how different I am by my pictures it's not fair to who you are it's not fair to your capability of success and a point of distinction how can you be unique on the web crazy things entirely your own I'm sorry if I rub people the wrong way I just feel so strongly about that so we could have a little bit more about what is in my bag this is going to be one thing teo I have all of this information out on my block I'm a firm believer in like dissemination of knowledge another big word pronounce sted right thank god I was like this is the definition of knowledge eh so we're just gonna talk about what's in my bag and primarily talk about what I take with me a different points of the day jd and I are lucky enough to shoot destination weddings quite often and we've learned that travelling light is the best way to go and we want to be as inconspicuous as possible we don't want to get stopped by customs and go shoot internationally and we want to be able to pick up everything and curate with us on the plane we shoot a destination wedding wait don't check any packs just roll and like my daddy is a marine so we learned as children to path like one bag so that's just how you roll so I take a carry on and I take the purse that you I saw me with I stick my computer in my in my purse I stick my makeup bag in a twister back in my purse in my carry on I take my bag clothes jd carries his our backpack which I'll show you right now and in the carry on he takes his suit a change of clothes and our chutes acts and that's what I'll show you guys how we travel everything has to be on me because god forbid one bag gets rerouted and my entire days thrown off they hire me to be professional and I will treat everything especially and worst case scenario like you get to a place and you need a jacket my jacket it's better than losing your back you know like totally that's definitely the case and how we travel so lawrence I think how's my bag thank you very much and I think we also have another back back there okay so this is what we travel with awesome so this right here is a bag that I shoot with when I shoot engagement sessions this is all that he take when I taken engagement session everything um I don't know how much how it's filled up right now but I'll go through it all show exactly how I shoot but on an engagement session I don't even bother taking my purse I stick my wallet back here I seek my phone and my keys I keep two lenses in here and one on my camera I only take three lines with me on engagement session I know what I need I don't need anything extra I take my phone and I keep a camera body in here and then I keep an extra camera body in the car just for in case purposes but I'm going to show you what happens here so on a wedding day how we travel is in this big backpack this is a backpack that I've been using from the beginning of my business it's a it's a ten but backpack um but and the zipper's broken but I can't get rid of it like before we came on like creative lives ladies like we should go buy back this looks really good on you can't be on the internet showing your bag and I was just like you're right you're so right well he went to go away come back and I just couldn't with us and go like I feel like it's been I'm just so blamed blindly loyal to things it's ridiculous but it's still treated so good and it has to give us any problems we never get stopped we go through airports because it just looks like a black backpack it looks like something you travel with I don't want anything because if I leave it down somebody snatch it up and they literally khun take my entire business on their back so it's pretty pretty nondescript this right here I brought you used in three years but I don't want to know what I want what I use and I'll you know all all showing I have the photo flex multi disk what it is it's a reflector and it's a diffuser five and one I have a gold side have silver side on if you unzip it it's white if you turn around it's white as a white your factor and it's also a diffuser should do it now okay okay you guys you guys are in control I think like I dont you use reflectors but I always feel like one day I'm going to be in a pension anita reflector but I haven't used in three years so maybe not I don't know just be careful opening it okay so here's the gold side here's the silver side if you and zip it like so you have gold silver completely silver and in the diffuser um I haven't used in three years but I take it with me to every wedding I just get so nervous that one day I'll use it I don't feel like you're so not professional so that's that okay sixty seconds because I'll talk a little bit more about that tomorrow but for me I don't try to find good locations I tryto find good light because with good light you could make any location look amazing look for natural reflectors which is what I'll talk about tomorrow so instead of saying I'm going toe use is not going to use this reflection and I'm goingto cast a little bit of light right here which looks cool looks a little artificial for my liking but whatever he's illuminated just in the way that I want him to but if I could do that naturally by the use of a brick wall by the use of a floor by the use of like red clay dirt that's what I'm gonna use because it gives like this totally natural effect without having to bring in and and you know it's totally I'm going to say it I mean a woman ever got it whatever okay I'll e I just feel so dorky like if I'm shooting at like the montage with seat regis it's like hold on you know it's a very are this fancy wedding what they pay me a lot of money I've seen photographers I'm not even lying with three people want the main shooter one photographer is like this and another for talkers bouncing flash innit to put light on the subject which I think is a brilliant idea but like what are you kidding me you couldn't pay me enough money like to be like this you know at the st regis clothes pose like it's like an angel no victoria no no no no no that's getting on facebook um uh you know I wouldn't friend you're not even my okay I'm just kidding I don't care I'm ugly pictures didn't matter personal preference it's just not my thing but because but I'm gonna show you how I've compensated for it tomorrow when we're actually live shooting but that's a really good question people asked all the time so I'm stuck with a shoe tech this is carrie I shoot with the five d mark to jd has the five d and we have a five d as backup always have a back up no matter what you totally needed and if you can't afford a second camera rent a second camera for the day when you're shooting because they're paying you to be professional and if you don't have backup care that is non professional so I have my lovely five d mark too when I carry my bag oh okay we'll talk with these guys are on top but I like it here I am a natural photographer and talk about off camera lighting first this right here is a ready like twenty it's a son pack it is like I don't know twenty five dollars this little sekar I mean look I even lost the cap to it it's so get out but I won't throw it away I'm blindly loyal to stuff it's like I think twenty five thirty dollars and this thing will totally help out in a pinch I don't and now I feel like I'm luckier to get locations and wedding rooms where brides are getting ready with more natural light but in the beginning I was working with a lot smaller budgets and they would be getting ready at home or they would be getting ready in like a country club with a really really really dark lighting and he didn't know how to compensate for it and there's something about like flash that yes you could shoot with flash and yes you can get the job done but it loses a little bit of that beautiful nous that naturalist and sometimes when you shoot with a light that's just pin like somebody can hold it I've actually had a bridesmaid hold this on a dress off to my right shoulder just standing right behind me pin lights just like the bodice of the dress and then a nice gradation of light down the bottom really really really pretty network super well if during the reception there's centerpieces and I'll be talking about this later if there's centerpieces and things of that nature on dh it's really really really dark and they won't bring up the house lights jd will stand and pin light it because some clients will pay for pin lighting so the difference okay we won't talk about wedding details when you walk into reception room there's up lighting which is colored lighting around the room in dark spots to create depth of the room which I absolutely love if they have a large enough budget that also pay for pin lighting so up lighting goes around the corners and different colors to cast a nice warm glow to the room blue pinks purples and the pin lighting is it is it is this colored this temperature so if they have been lighting around the room the light the centerpieces but sometimes it's too hot on the on the on the table in the center piece o j d will hold another light to compensate to add light to the table that's really nice we also have this video light and um we bought I don't think this works this diffuser works well but we bought it needs like twenty bucks judy how much was the the light the camera like this one ok so these were seventy five dollars and I bought them because I had to shoot details for like thirty five tables for an indoor venue that was just detail shots and I knew that I was going to get pin lighting so j d about two of these and he just stood at a distance with his arms out like this and asked like it cast really nice glow and sometimes when you're in a pinch and you want to create a and ami and as if there was a pin lighting having assistant hold an off camera light as small as this is this you know seventy five bucks you're not traveling with a big thing and it's really really really nice we have two options you have like a thirty dollar option but the battery life and this is like maybe maybe a half hour which is not so good the battery life on these or like two hours which is really nice and it's a wider wider cast of light okay so this is cool this is my set up this is my set up when I go on an engagement session so I just pulled out my camera my five d mark two now we move on to the lenses okay this is the twenty four one point four this is a really wide lens and I won't use this too much using maura's environmental shots I know the photographers who like to shoot wide and I think it's so beautiful I just don't think I'm that good it in fact if I want to get a wide shot I'll shoot it with my fifty and I'll just back up of it which is kind of ridiculous but it's kind of what I prefer on the five d mark to it kind of just distorts the edges just a tiny bit and it kind of gives it this larger than life effect which works really well you'll see tomorrow during the ceremony I will bring this out and I'll stand at the very end and all kind of crouch down at like sai level don't tilt the camera up a little bit because it gives it like this godly effect it's super super super wide you can get the top of the ceiling you can get the death of how deep the room is the subjects are nice and focusing tilt it up a little bit kind hasn't at rock star field any time that you will look at like rock star advertisements or promo piece is the camera and on this from zach is down here and tilt it up it gives him like this larger than life of feet like a larger than life feel not good for shooting brides that way but when you want to shoot when you want to shoot detailed things like that it's awesome sometimes at the beach to to get a cool sunset shot that's what I use but I bring this out I use is maybe maybe eight percent when I shoot the the other half of how much I'm shooting are composed of these two lenses the fifty one point two and the eighty five one point two and you will have noticed that I only really ever shoot with fix lenses I feel like fix lenses have defined my style distinctly I used my number one go to lens was the twenty four to seventy two point eight I use that little lens I crank that baby out as much as I could its like a cyst sweet spot lends its I call it please forgive me my lazy girl wins you could put it on a go route ruth you get why I get high you know you have move but you also don't get depth at a two point eight minutes it's pretty wide but you don't get this like complete drop off and it's for me I didn't feel like that lens was sharp enough ever because of the variations between how tightened how wide you can shoot when you shoot with fifty how you zoom in as you walk close and how you seem out is you walk far but for me what has happened is it forces me to become fully engaged in what is going on if there's laughter I dart in and if I want them I have acquired a moment I come back out and the eighty five is it takes a little bit longer to focus but look at me it's the beast of the lens I mean it's really heavy it's probably three or four pounds and you don't get any creamier or buttery pictures than with this lens this is the most perfect portrait lens if you are a portrait photographer get eighty five jd I shoot with a eighty five one point two and jd shoots with eighty five one point eight the price difference between the two is about a thousand dollars I would definitely invest in the one point eight two see if you like it or you could rent it first but this lens is so beautiful and part of what I alluded to earlier today's we're going to try I'm gonna show hopefully tomorrow how we can shoot ten different poses in a really in a ten by ten square and part of it has to do with switching lenses literally I can stand in the same position they could be in the same light and I could do nothing but simply change my lens and I get an entirely different picture where I got something a little bit fashioning attitude e with the fifty I could put on the eighty five get in nice and close and all of a sudden it becomes this deeply romantic picture simply by changing a lens that's that that's the variation so on an engagement shoot I'm using the fifty goodness probably fifty percent of the time I'm using eighty five like ninety percent of the time and I might bring out the twenty four just like a if you like wide shots if I want to get really close and the couple's laughing you know twenty four just really does a good thing for that also during a reception after the former lances after the first dance after the father daughter in the mother son I put the eighty five away I never need eighty five at a reception because it's too tight and it's really dark I don't really need to get that close to subjects the only bags are the only camera the only lenses I will keep in my bag are these too if somebody calls me up to size hey can you get a picture of us I swap out my twenty four I put on my fifty get stan in the distance and the flash will you know illuminate them enough and hopefully I can get enough ambient light around the room twenty four is what I shoot so much of the dancing pictures with people people are dancing they mean they like their guests but they don't want like a ton of pictures of just two people dancing they want the story to be told and sometimes like when people are goofing around on the dance floor it's funny it's a funny picture to get somebody doing the worm on the dance floor but it's a funnier picture to get everybody's reaction to him doing the worm on the dance floor and that's what the twenty four does I feel like I'm talking trash are we okay once is like we're bored okay so that's what I take and this is what I start my this is what I start my day off with you guys will see when I shoot the wedding these three lenses are in my bag and we're going to dip into one lens extra that I take when I shoot the wedding net one lens is this little baby that I love because with it that's my hundred millimeter macro this thing you know I bring it out one today that one today is for rings and people are just like is it worth it well the hundred millimeter I s came out if you have the money for it totally get it this has a little bit of like a focus issue it's not my bestest friends but when this thing locks in you could not possibly get a prettier bring picture and you can't achieve this look you can't achieve the look of getting really sharp rings and all that detail that gorgeous depth of field without having a macro lens occasionally if there's a extreme detail in a bouquet I will bring up the macro lens sometimes interesting but that's about it so I bought one lens to shoot rings on ly because I couldn't get that look that I really wanted this um sixteen thirty five I haven't used this lens in probably about nine months um because it's not my style anymore I'm I must I'm a fixed I'm a fixed blends photographer and the sixteen is so wide and I just felt like I don't shoot wide but it's such a beautiful storytelling lens if you have the capability of shooting wide my brain doesn't think in that capacity I tried did I wanted to be uber creative but it doesn't work it's not a good fit for me if you can like he shot a photo this morning and I just told the whole story like in this room and I'm just like oh that's the beauty of that leads I still keep it around because every so often a bride will get married in front of the venue and she wants from this all the way up to the church steeple and this is the ones that you can get with that so that's a sixty to thirty five um this is granddaddy surma leland's this is what I will shoot this is what I carry so I'm still keeping the twenty four eighty five and fifty in my bag as in shooting ceremony and keep this online on the camera so what did I replace this one's win for the ceremony this lens and I was depending on the location I went to theo yesterday to just check it out and I don't know the layout of what the wedding will be for sure but I'm pretty sure just the layout and how things are and we'll probably have to use this lens almost the entire time I might swap it out for the twenty four to get a wide shot but this kind of gives me the death that I need and I don't I'm never that photographer to go up to the writing room so in order to be to get those hats a reaction photos and emotion photos and exchanging of the rings photos is this lens this was the second lens that I bought because I knew that I wanted to be a wedding photographer and it's very very very hard to shoot the wedding without this life because you can't have so money pull back pictures people want the reaction of the groom seeing the bride is she wants him ill and as they exchange vows I get a shot of him looking at her and her looking at him and yes you could kind of sort of get that with the eighty five but teo get just that framing of the face this is the only ones that will allow you to do that so that's why I did that and here is my little nice lazy girl lends I won't ever get rid of this one it's a good lens I mean it really is it's not great it's just good to twenty four to seventy I mean look at this you know like twenty for me I mean it's just it's a nice len for a while I was using this lens for family formals I mean it really rocks out you could just you have to move too much but then I felt like I wasn't getting the kind of pretty photos that I wanted so if you could believe it if I if I can shoot the family formals with fifty backup allowed you guys hear me like I don't know like it's fine but the fifty weeks usually formals this is beautiful like it's a beautiful beautiful beautiful lens and so but jd carries with him so if I feel like I'm in a pinch which I might be on friday because there's so little room in theo I'm already thinking about like family formals on like the way that the setup is going and I'm just sitting there thinking man like where is cocktail have to break down or we have room to shoot I don't want to shoot outside because if we should outside it's gonna be a really bright light and I looked at theo and like one side is like completely completely completely open it's a parking lot and as cool as I want to be it's just that's not what mom wants to hang on the mantel on the opposite side it's so so so hot like the light is hot um they're scheduled rain for friday so we could be good because we're getting completely overcast skies which is awesome but some people don't like shooting with it I love it I wish you guys every day and twice on sunday I really I love it I love that life if that's the case we could put the baby anywhere but I might have to bring this after family formals and that's it that's our entire setup that's what we take I really really for those that being h or watching I wanna use the affiliate link because I really want the thirty five thirty five millimetre actually I wanted to be cool enough like I'm like I told you the the day before we came to seattle was like goodbye thirty five so I looked like totally cool when I take out my lenses so he went to go buy it and they did have it so I can't be cool just be I'm not cool why am I getting from it but I want the thirty five because to me to thirty five will get it's a little bit wider than what I prefer to shoot but it's an in between between fifty and and eighty five I'm in the fifty and the twenty four like there's that twenty forced to ride to shoot ports with but the thirty five is what I grew up looking at that's what really a lot of like fashion so that's gonna be my next lens what I recommend to people is renting the lens first to see if it's a good fit people always ask me what's your favorite linds don't ask me what my favorite lenses like you need to first figure out what is your style look through photographs not wedding related look any type of photography that you like figure out that's what I want to shoot then you work backwards from that point you don't say okay we'll chase darkness shoots of this lens therefore I will use this lens that is how this lens was my purchase my wedding photographer this is his beggar lens david j favorite lens was a sixteen to thirty five I bought the sixteen thirty five totally not my style but whatever I think we all do it but for those who are watching and have our liberty to like work backwards figure out the type of heart you want first my favorite have a photography is fashion in editorial and that is done just clean portrait's nothing too wide strong people looking beautiful is that some people that's not a committee totally fine happens to question quick question just to clarify folks on twitter what is the ceremony the big lens what's the millimeter it's seventy two two hundred I s few pointy great thank you just you never use a tripod no always handheld even for the following camel and a couple weeks ago I didn't think you post on my lot friend leader for those who are watching and I'm not familiar with what I do every week and a half to two weeks maybe it's not during the slow season I'm all about that I will post a cue which frequently asked questions and people that questions people ask me all the time I cannot possibly respond to email to everybody female it's physically impossible so I used the ethic you post as a division of who I am to speak to them personally as well as two other people who asked the same question now the questions were answered was how do you how do you shoot in dark ceremonies and churches without flash and I spoke and I actually listed my exit data data from those photos and people are just how can you shoot that without a tripod I was shooting it twenty thirty fifty second at twenty five hundred so I don't know I just d'oh like I was going to talk about where to talk about what we think what I do and how I stand it maybe I look a little silly like maybe I'll stand there and so you kind of stand a little with your feet apart and sometimes like to get with a nice sturdy stand that kind of create a tripod with hands and take a deep breath she study huh shoot or if it's really really dark and there's a good oh sorry okay I think there's a pillar lean your body against a pillar and then you you essentially become the tripod so I don't necessary could you just imagine like trying to shoot a ceremony like did you getting what is me so I should ceremonies that lasts an hour and then us eight minutes like I became dependent on a tripod I think they would be a disservice to me so again I don't have trouble with stuff so also um jd do you have the camera flash oh no I meant the reception lady did you bring the tripod and okay okay so while they're getting that um I want to talk a little bit about what I use for reception lighting so what I used to be mounted on my camera okay internet does this look this organized I mean house in an ordinary okay I hate being with a nice way okay well victoria I saw you're gonna feel yourself okay so this is my lighting setup whom I was not the flash so what else shoot during the reception is I always like to light sources because even with artificial lighting I'm tryingto always drive for that natural lighting affect how I can achieve that is by mounting my camera I'm a huge fan of the bounce card you can leave it there but um I'm a huge fan inbounds part this is I drink flash is not me I haven't used that flashing probably I don't know four years um I use the bounce flat I use bounce card and I have this little rig and please I totally wish I invented this rig because I could make millions people always ask me about it but I have no idea I went to sammy's camera and I just said hey guys I need I need to get this pocket wizard transceiver to my camera and I don't want a velcro to decide because again it goes back to looking dorky forgive me it's totally my flaw I know it doesn't feel like you just look dorky so why do the creative little ring for me and I just screwed in the bottom akira then I get this and I just plug it into my sediment camera and then what we have mounted elsewhere so this is my cameras are for the reception I have my transceiver popular transceiver sounds hard and if I was in this room I would use the bounds hard this way quit the mail car thousand in except well this way so get this flash bounce it back up to the wall and now I have this huge white reflector bouncing light back onto the dance floor that's the pretty light that's the glory like that's not the bluish like move in your face life on my off camera flash I have this it was literally ninety five dollars it's a sun pack three eighty three it's a cheap little tiny flash I couldn't afford anything but there but at the end of day this is all I need because I said it toe one sixteenth of a power it's tiny it's a tiny burst of flash and we'll set this flash up in the corner of the reception where it's not noticeable or if the if there's a band and they have high speakers I will set up my off camera flash by the speakers so what ideo um actually I wish this wasn't bill sting it okay so jenny built is this morning but what how we travel with this is we just take it off this rig back here and we fold it down so it fits into a suitcase so this is we actually take the set of when we travel with us elsewhere so this goes into the suitcase if it's the body of a suitcase this is a tripod should I don't have to open the tribe yeah although what tribe but looks like but it's really tiny and actually it was ridiculous because I didn't have a lot of money and I just bought the cheapest tripod and I was just like wow that's pretty ghetto but I really appreciate it now because the big week re then just recently re invested in a nice tripod which is awesome but it doesn't fit into our bags so up here we've been using this for four years so this will just do it just fine but when we're at home we use a little bit of a nicer studio tripod we set up the tripod next to this speaker by the bands or in a corner and then we just put this little one sixteenth power back up here reading tio here so all it is is a little tiny flat a tiny bit of diffused flash and then we just rig this transceiver we just literally it's pretty pretty ghetto we just thread this in here and then just hang the transceiver like this so that's our set up and we set this up in the corner and all I'm trying to do is to create a second light source I don't move it around on the wedding day I don't want to you know could you just imagine me running around the dance floor like like no no way so this is what set up it's not it's not it's not secured so that's why it's falling but usually it's nicer s so now that I've created a miss are there any questions that jd could you come so that it like j t is like my the other half my brain and like my best friend and this is much like life I make messes and then he just kind of cleans it up so cool so I think he's just going to gather this stuff and he'll take off to the side sorry guys I'm sorry levy thank you thank you judge when you just use that for the reception he said that's just the reception if I ever felt like I was in a pickle I might use it for um the wedding ceremony but I kind of feel like it is a bit of it is a bit of late um as a photographer and my goal is to be as transparent as possible if I could do the wedding and have people not notice me that's why I did a really good job I'll just say that course people do notice me so I'm not as transparent as I like to be as much of that but if you have to light sources on the wedding day so I'm like shooting here and we have an off camera light here it might too much in my opinion it might be too much of a distraction but the beauty of the pocket wizards is that last year I'm sorry look last year I used the off camera flash this set up in two ceremonies I shot twenty eight weddings last year so twenty six of them were went without the second light set up the beauty of using the pocket wizard is I could turn off the pocket wizard here use my direct used to use this flash whenever I wanted teo and then if I felt like as they were walking down the aisle and everybody was using flash I could just turn on turn this puppy back on and then it would be like an ambient flash it wouldn't be as distracting but sometimes you do get in a pickle and it's really dark yesterday when we went to theo they were putting up these black curtains to go over the windows and then I got like this nervous twitch in my eye I was like there's gonna be black windows e o god and so then I my first thought was I have to bring out the off cara flash craig then let me know that they're putting black curtains over the windows for the event the following day so we will have natural light but it will be overcast so who knows here I am talking big game and I might have to use it I don't know yet we'll see I asked craig what the ambient light would look like and there are these stay trump lights from the ceiling and I asked him all can those go on and he's like I don't know yet and so I know that they're finding on hanging chandelier and there's strong like white christmas lights is sort of the larger kind like the italian style anything like that I mean although I don't care if I could put my eighty five on and shoot like at a one point to pick up that andy and light no flash a plan that is going to be a balm picture because it's what people are seeing with their natural I if you can document the event as if people really saw it it reminds him of what it felt like to be there nobody ever sees life in flash you know does anybody want to retweet that I feel like that was way deep you should like snap like jazz snap snap okay ah yes e get a sneak peek of fridays I can show you exactly you're talking about okay okay this is totally not in my presentation but this is such a great question and I couldn't oh I should probably get out of that room I'm so computers abby okay why's it coming here okay I'm gonna go to the back end of my block um something else like wanna sing until I think so quiet like please can going on twelve see we've got so many people retweeting nobody sees life flash I get many many okay great so this is my this is the back end of my of my blog's this is what I see I have a custom built log er c here we go so this is a sneak peek don't show anybody of what's coming out on friday I haven't run the story yet I gotta do that at some point right um well we're gonna go all the way down or looking they're looking just getting and you guys will be here okay so here you go that's a pretty little girl that's right okay so here are the reception details this was shot thiss was shot with the fifty or the eighty five I'm pretty sure this was a fifty depending so what happens is ok I have to tell you oh lord even just talk about the store gives me like angina okay so the bride and groom didn't want to see each other before the ceremony but I knew that they were bringing in a a coordinator and an event designer they're two different things I have always dreamt of working with this event designer and I worked with him a couple to go and he always just such amazing work well they don't want to see to the professor money I call the quarter and I'm just like listening you have to get them to see each other before the ceremony because there's not enough time to get all the detailed photos I know she's had a very detail intensive wedding and she's like okay I'll see what I can do she agreed to see each other before the ceremony which is a total godsend because when I walked into the ballroom it was over the top it was over the top and I knew I needed time and it takes time to set up your camera takes time but their flesh next time just feel the room okay this is gonna sound ridiculous right so I'm shooting the details and I just take a step back and I realized ok you're sucking right now just you need a minute I needed to take a deep breath because you're just shooting just a shoot so I was like all right take a step back take a deep breath re composers off and frequency the room okay so these are all the thoughts that are going through my mind because I'm having a panic attack people are coming into the room in twenty minutes and you have to get it done they clearly want the wedding published that's not that's not a fact a questionable fact I then knew they want the wedding publish another work went into it the onus lies on me like I am the bearer of whether of not their ideas are gonna get executed photographically it's like ok jd sets up the light in the back corner of the room and I'm trying to whittle with my fiddle with like my settings finally I'm just like pumping you know what you do I shot this at a one point two I so six forty there's pin lighting on the shutter speed I'm guessing was about sixty because you can get nice ambient lighting so all those little tiny light dots are just candles that air still indian lighting there's some light fixtures but what is truly lighting this is the light that's coming from the pen lighting above and just a little pop of light from the light source in the back that's and could you imagine I'm shooting that at a one point two and I'm still being able to get the details because everything around my angle in this only concert practice and I'll be able to talk hopefully we will talk about this on the wedding day I don't know why well I don't know if there's time in the in the timeline to actually do this but I really want to teach people how to shoot in such a way that you can get multiple things and focus again you'll see in this picture you could distinctly distinctly see the cool light back here for my flash but it's just it's adding depth to the room in this back corner and it's illuminating this there we go again here we go again I actually created a back lighting source through the pin light I got around the back side of the table this is where the groom was sitting on the back lighting that we hear I have ambient light in the background and I'm bouncing my flash just like I showed you here on the wall that was behind me but the wall it wasn't it wasn't a wallet was actually this kind of material so it was only a tiny bit of light that was being reflected not as beautiful as I would like but it still worked in this situation um here again I have seen ng with a video light not that not the larger video like that the pin light there was a pin lighting on the cake but it got too hot in one space so I simply had another person hold it to balance the light and I was still able to pick up ambient light in the background now this is what up slashes okay here we go this is video late um my what you see them lightly uh illuminated with is my off camera flash which is sitting over here in this corner but it's a tiny tiny tiny bit of light and this is what I'm shooting vertically and then we see if I shoot yes so again video light here so in this case I have three light sources which is my absolute most favorite way to shoot because if I can get the off camera flash to illuminate them that's not directly on my flash this doesn't look so flashy literally and then we have the video light over here that's like that nice little like do we like it like that I could shoot first dances like this you know this is actually good question nate asked if it was a video is the videographer okay yeah that's how you can get that nice slick and so jd actually was standing next to me on for not shooting with his flash at all because I only have the pocket wizard so I'm using to like jd shooting with one so it's harder for him to get the types of photos that I get but he's learned to use what he has and so he just stood next to the videographer because he had been on first light is his warmer and it's broader than just like that like poof of light and he just shot wide open as well so that's that's that okay no no one's gonna want to get my black friday but thinking about thinking about looking like I pre blocked the entire week to come out here because I know it's going to be busy so thinking and advance like if you're going to go on vacation if you're going to go on a considerate because he'll be gone for two weeks like riding a block I'll be gone for two weeks no no no that's the easy way of photographers we like easy way why don't we trust try pre writing two or three bum post about anything because I knew what my week was gonna look like this you think like in the mist of shooting a wedding would be like his blog's no not at all I am and I'm going home I work like yesterday uh chase called me out he's oh you better get that out tell everybody what you're what you're used to spell it think it's not such a kona which is s a c h I m sorry it's such ancona at such ancona is s a c h I n k h o h are you single wait love connection I could shoot the way business okay right there you go I'm just totally based on this file I told you but I do that I do that and I hopefully the camera wasn't filming going on a drink water and I spilled it down my shirt okay happy third anniversary who I don't know maybe was another jasmine okay that was uh the long answer to the question so I went through all my gear what is the lenses lighting okay bag prep for the night before this is like some people might yes o tane okay so I was just informed that it's two pm why don't we hire you guys fill in what what were we trying to go on a lunch break e I have two more points and each of around five minutes of peace really okay okay yeah well keep a real real real minutes and somebody gave me the five minute mark craig's gonna be like I need a lunch break back tonight for some people do differently I am kleiner type a personality and jamie takes care of the bags and it drives him nuts we arguing and yet I would if I could theoretically have my bag packed two weeks moving and I probably would but he's more like get up and go kind of guy and so we had to have a conversation and be like okay so on wedding days like as the first shooter I'm just begging you to please have the bag ready on friday night if we have a saturday wedding what this consist up and he might be able to better it's your questions but what I usually requested him is to have all the cameras clean to have all the lenses clean and their caps put on in the back I want all of the cards reformatted the night before nothing is worse than showing up a wedding and reforming and realizing you get to a car and you're like oh my god this is last week's engaging the session and I don't remember if I backed it up you never want to be in that position it's it's stress inducing I clearly you guys see him over excitable and I don't really need that in my life I don't know what they're like reform at this card or not all of that has to be done all the batteries have been recharged and pre placed in the batteries like there's no sense in going to the reception and be like double a and your flash no no everything's already ready to go all the off camera lights set up already and already charged that's a huge thing and just being able to confidently say I'm a professional and I will approach this shoot the same way any other professional way what chase jarvis I don't think I don't know I think you have people reformatting his cards in advance the way that he would approach like a ninety or a huge shoot like that I want I want to approach it the same way how many how many cards do I take um but I have I think we probably take somewhere in the ballpark of sixty five or seventy gigs so I I uh we should rob but I also should j j it's ridiculous everything I see on my side shows and on the block is j peg I started shooting j peg and it's just what I'm used to and actually forced me really fast given on exposure because with j p you can't really mess around and so I felt like my learning curve induced by my own I couldn't afford to buy all the cards if I shot rock so my only option was to shoot j but if I felt like if I'm shooting j peg I can't screw up because I don't have the latitude as I would with raw but I don't know what it is about those raw files it's theoretically I know it's like one in the same I get it but something what room means more yeah robin more absolutely intel she was rock on the wedding day I should run which I know it's ridiculous but whatever it is what I like jake and think believe we've got to a point where I can afford to make that stupid decision it is what it is that's what I do I engage in session on any time session on a portrait session today I can't I'm in control of my exposure's I can control the situation and if I totally botched it up I could be like let's go back do it again on a wedding day I choose to shoot raw because my clients are paying me well enough to not make that mistake that's why that decision okay release by really quick related question on apb from people on average how many photos are you taking on the wedding uh it's hard from anita our wedding I'm thinking I'm roughly getting in the way I'm probably shooting around twenty five hundred three thousand jd shooting around fifteen hun two thousand what the client will see will be between eight hundred thousand images online usually though I promised my client I tell my clients I shoot one hundred images an hour so if they contact contract me for eight hours at minimum they will get eight hundred images but roughly it comes around the ballpark I'm usually hitting that eleven hundred zone until clients again under promise and over deliver clients think that their wedding was that much more amazing because they're getting that eleven hundred I was like wow we had a lot going on I know what I could d'oh so thanks yeah was long judgement I don't know if we'll get into this in the future but out of those eight hundred how many of them do you touch up in post um e two hundred okay and that's part of the contract everything that goes on line has been touched up in light room so anything the client sees will have gone through for a nice clean cheque up and I feel good with it and more than anything mike goal is I'm talking a big game and what if it doesn't really happen but my goal is to shoot it right at a camera that's what we should all strive for I don't need to depend on light room or aperture to fix my mistakes I need to fix my mistakes so that light room is just like it's like icing on top of the cake that's what I wanted to be in it theoretically I don't want like my photoshopped images to look too different for my life but images just don't that's just my personal style I want photos still photos so um the clients will get favorites folder and what the favorites folder is comprised of our photos that I edited for the slide show so I edit photos onto a slide show on then I get that folder and uploaded to their online gallery and I label that jazz is favorites and then there's six other folders like bride perhaps groom prep ceremony formal pictures bride and groom reception and all of those photos are having in in light room and I tell my clients there's a global retouching all your photos look pretty skin will look like skin skies will be blue but anything for fine retouching with through photo shop will have been in the favorites holder anything that goes into the album will have been fine tooth fine tuned through photo shop but the rest of the gallery the images they're getting high res images if they order a disc they will be retouched and like that's time anything you're spending beyond like light rooming and just making pretty is time and money like if a client want to do that then she could pay me separately for that yeah we like they're images online they're online gallery is that all to show it or use like a third outsource this's great because there's gonna be a giveaway to for this like the companies that I one thing I want to clarify to the companies that have so kindly like given away swag to give away like on the internet for these contests the's the companies that I worked with forever and there their main thing for me was like hey we support you have used them from the beginning and they're all like friends of mine like at I think there's a quote and I'm totally gonna botch it but at the end of the day people will do friend we will do business with the friends and do you know that do you know this quote because you're not in your head I okay okay something along lines at the end of the day you will do business with friends and at the end of the day you will still do business with your friends like you kind of I prefer to work with people you trust and so the people that have given away this wagon so awesome I met nathan whole rights of photographers edit through him and his wife for a photography couple in like chattanooga tennessee she now she babies and he's gone on and created this like outsourcing for your post production what that does for for me I forgot the question what are you talking about just went online okay okay okay okay that was question so what he does is after the wedding and we'll talk about this more on saturday but after the wedding I go through that cold images so the um eight hundred to a thousand images will go onto a hard drive and then I said that hard drive to photographers at it they edit the photos in five to seven business days and they upload them to a new online gallery so completely I am done with my wedding on wednesday that's why I want quick her on my client's caesar block post on tuesday or wednesday of the falling weak the client sees there I tell them it takes three to four weeks that they're saying they're images online two and a half weeks after their wedding some clients are not even home from their honeymoon when their photos are already online under promise over deliver and I think that is even as achievable by out outsourcing because back in the day when people were shooting film I used to love sitting home I used to development on my own you shot your film and you either one develop it on your own or most probably you would be sending it to a lab you found entrusted now that we shoot digitally we now feel like we should shoot we shouldn't do that most processing we should do the print fulfillment we should do the up what we should do it all but why why why because we just because we can doesn't mean we should I wanted I I started this business that I could be a professional photographer not a professional light murmur those are two distinctly things like I won the first two I had too much to learn I didn't know how to shoot a camera I don't know how to use at the time like like room wasn't out there was a dui bridge I don't know how to use bridge I didn't know how to use an album designs software didn't upload pictures I don't know how to create slide show I didn't know so all these things and I said okay I don't like designing albums I didn't become a photographer to become a designer he decided to outsource amalgam design I don't like post processing it takes me like four it was taking a week and a half to post process and one wedding the problem was the second year my business I was shooting forty weddings that means that the delay delay delay delay some kinds wouldn't see their pictures online for six or seven weeks in a digital age are you tripping like no way like there are other people like myself who are having the client see their images two and half weeks after the wedding and if you're not getting your images online for eight nine weeks you look really really bad because in their client's mind how how come you know so that's what outsourcing has done for me so one hundred percent I answer questions sorry craig was right okay I have two seconds to go over the pre wedding checklist what you want before before the wedding day is to have a checklist of everything you need so that you don't have tio think about it what goes into the checklist we need to make sure that we have a camera bag your camera bag is full on remember we already went to the camera bag the prep nights we grab the bag we grab our shoot sacks will be giving away a shoots active people watching online I absolutely love she's back one of my friends invented it and she's brilliant for it that's what I shoot with it just keeps whatever I need on me on the day we make sure don't have a computer hard readers and our charger's eye at weddings I don't know if I'll be able to do it for lauren billy's my goal is to do it for lauren billy's but I don't know all of the time it's a great seemed a slide show so I take my computer my card readers I also take protein bars because we don't eat on wedding days like get sent us like an email and he's like what do you think the crew will have ah break on the wedding day and I'm like I'll break what is that one day you know maybe maybe the crew have like breaks I don't know I usually don't have one and that's usually what happens is all the guests have to be served dinner and then the vendors get their meal but then by that time the speeches start fumbled and to start at least for the weddings that a shoe and so I don't have time to eat so it's take a granola bar or a protein bar we make sure that we have those in bag I have the wedding itinerary and I'll show you on the wedding day what I should like what I like daniella made this awesome itinerary but is like four feet five peaches long like I'm not going to throw the way maybe like hold on let me see I simply get whatever I terry it is great on the scratch paper and just write down where do I need to be how is this item applicable to me nobody needs to be putting out five pages you know when is the flowers delivered I don't care that's not permanent so I make my own emergency contact I emailed my clients a week before and like on an emergency whom I contacting please give me two two three four numbers most of the time it is the best man maid of honor or the mother of the bride those of the numbers that I'm getting um I asked her even though I have probably shot it that many before I'm still asking her to send me all the addresses where I need to be I need to make sure that the lines of communication are not crossed I want her to send me where I need to be if she's getting it in her home I need to know the direct address of our home she's getting married at a church and I've shot there before it doesn't matter I want her to give me the hours to the church so that I can have tangible guess lawyer and me I want to say here is the email you sent me and here are the addresses she requested for me to be at it's never happened that I ended up at the wrong location but still making sure that we're on the same lines of communication um all addresses and they always pack an extra pair of shoes that's just what I deal like I don't think I'll be shooting in hills for this wedding but most probably I usually shoot it heals and then threw out when the reception starts in the light school dark I switch into flats I won't have that case for friday because I think I'm gonna wear flats and not take the funk but whatever like so that's what how our bags are all set up ready to go and on the day up

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

This is an amazing event to be involved in - and I feel as if I was involved all the way in Switzerland! Jasmine Star is so natural and genuine in front of the camera that she makes you feel as if you are her best friend. Seeing her shoot, watching the way that she uses the natural light and being walked through the problems you might encounter is invaluable. Even if you are not interested in photography or weddings, her business advice is spot on. Creative Live and Jasmine did an amazing job and I am so glad I bought the course. To be able to go back to a video and see how something was done, again and again is well worth the price. I'm also exciting to be contributing to new workshops for 2011 - can't wait to see what you guys come up with! It's true that some of the footage has yet to come through (would love to see the bridal prep stuff!) but it was so exciting to see the new footage of Laura and Billy outside, I think it will be worth the wait. Buy this course and be truly inspired! Emma Godfrey

a Creativelive Student
 

I watched this live back in August 2010 and since the first day it was on my list to buy. Finally bought it as part of the end of year pack in December 2010 and only just got around to watching the full five days. I'm not a wedding photographer, nor do I have plans to become one any time soon. I was interested in this course because of the business sessions on marketing, branding and so on. If you're interested in becoming a wedding photographer this is a must buy no question. If, like me, you're only interested in the business sections this is a valuable course, but there is a better option available from CreativeLIVE. The new 'Building your Wedding Photography Business' course by Jasmine consolidates all this business information from this course into a two day course. Another good addition to your to buy list should be Children's Portrait Photography with Tamara Lackey. This has by far the best business section of any of the CreativeLIVE courses. Combined these two courses and you will be set up and profitable in no time. Back to this wedding course. As others have said there are audio issues here and there but they are at worst annoying and don't really effect the overall experience. I think you can see from the course content if you are an aspiring wedding photographer this is the course for you. Five days of content from an award winning wedding photographer. As I'm not a wedding photographer I can't really add much more. I just wanted to say it's a great course. Fun to watch. Invaluable information. I really appreciate CreativeLIVE being here to offer these courses. Thanks guys!

a Creativelive Student
 

Jasmine is an amazing educator, who really gave it her all in this stellar course! Love how detailed her instructions were - down to such nuances as the bride's shoulder position! Big thanks to Jasmine and creativeLIVE for bringing this wealth of information to the community. Totally worth the buy! I can appreciate how grassroots and "live taping" the filming approach is, but I think I wouldn't mind giving most of that flavor up in favor of a more edited version :) You know - cut out the bits where the camera is just recording black and the pieces missing audio. And where is this missing footage promised from the guy you can see taping Jasmine from across the street?? Anyway, amazing course, and hopefully you guys can figure out the video/audio/mic stuff so that it doesn't get in the way of absorbing all this amazing content.

Student Work

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