I think I've finally got the equipment I would need to actually pull off a wedding! I've got a decent camera, a handle mounted flash, a hot shoe mounted flash, a portable studio flash set
(partially malfunctioning, but I've got a work-around figured out), lenses to cover the range of 18mm to 500mm, an HD video camera, and the ability to borrow whatever else I might need from the nice folks over at
Village Photographers. (I'd probably end up using a Village Nikon D90 as my main camera, but don't tell my camera that because you might hurt its feelings.)
I can only think of three more things to make this happen:
1) Samples
2) Advertising
3) Clients
Where would I get wedding photo samples? Hey wait! I've been to weddings with a camera in hand...
When my friends, Chris and Lauren, got married, Lauren handed me her camera and told me to do my thing. She had a professional photographer there, but she wanted plenty of coverage. It was just a point-and-shoot camera, albeit a pretty good one. The point is that I didn't have full control and was unfamiliar with the camera, but I still came up with some pretty fantastic pictures. I pulled the images below from facebook, so the image quality is a bit degraded, but you'll get the point.
Next we have some from when I married my friends, Jimmie and Rebecca. You read that right, I was the officiant of their wedding along with the pastor of the church. So that's why I didn't take any pictures of the ceremony. That would have been REALLY distracting. I did have my own camera for these, but I didn't have an external flash; thankfully their reception was well lit.
Finally, we have some photos I took at my friends Drew and Betsy's wedding back in November 2011. I was actually in charge of videoing the ceremony, but it only made sense to take some stills too since I was doing it partly with a borrowed Nikon D90. I didn't feel the freedom to move around during the ceremony, so those are all from my aisle seat with ambient light only. I did have an external flash at the reception, but it was my small one instead of the big SunPak that I have now.
So... I've posted an ad on Craig'sList, and we'll see what happens. Below is what the ad says:
Wedding Photography on a Budget
Best wishes and congratulations! Weddings are great, but they can get really expensive really fast. You can spend thousands of dollars on the wedding photographer alone. But you don't have to!
I've been doing professional event photography with Village Photographers of Auburn, AL for over eight years, but I'm just now trying to get into the wedding business for myself. My lack of experience in the wedding market can be a big money saver for you.
If you've got money running out of your ears, then please pay someone who will bring in a full crew and has tons of experience doing weddings. It's (hopefully) a once-in-a-lifetime day; you're memories are worth the investment if you have the funds. That said, I have friends who paid thousands of dollars and had to fight to actually get what they paid for and paid extra for every print, while my wife and I got a friend of her father to shoot our wedding for a few hundred bucks, and we got all our images with basic edits, 4x6 prints, and full rights to print whatever else we wanted. Our friends have really great pictures. We have great pictures.
Usually, you get what you pay for. Sometimes, you get way more than you pay for--this could be one of those times. When I know the time, travel, and other expenses that will be involved in shooting your wedding, then I will quote you a price. The more weddings I have under my belt, the more the price will go up. Still, I intend to remain at the "bargain" end of the cost spectrum. Additionally, I work on a "reasonable satisfaction" guarantee; if you aren't reasonably satisfied with what I produce, then you decide how much the end product was actually worth and only pay me that. I've never had anybody ask for any of their money back.
I'm already on the hook for a photographer friend of mine, but I'd love to get some practice before her wedding in the fall of 2013.
Check out some samples of my work on my blog:
atPEaCePhotography.blogspot.com
I also have a
facebook page.
Contact me through facebook or leave me a message at 334 - 452 - 3PEC (that's 3732) with your name, contact info, and wedding date, and I'll get back in touch with you as soon as I can.
