Looking for a Wedding Photographer?

Anybody out there looking for a wedding photographer? Because I'm still looking for somebody to be my first full-blown wedding! (I shot a surprise wedding at my church a couple years ago, but I don't count that one because it was REALLY informal. It's a great story, even so.)

I'm penciled in for a friend's wedding in late June, and I've got a lead on one in early June and one in August. The end of April is pretty open. May is going to be pretty wrapped up with graduations, but that schedule isn't set in stone yet either. Now is the time to book me before I get enough wedding experience to justify raising my rates.

Speaking of rates, here's how I'd break it down for my first couple weddings:

$50 + $50 per hour on site + $0.555 per mile round-trip from Tallassee, AL.

That gets you whatever coverage you want of the "getting ready," bridal portraits, groomal (I made that word up) portraits, wedding party photos, ceremony photos, reception photos, etc. I take the pictures, cull the bad ones, do appropriate tweaks and touch-ups on the keepers, and deliver them to you with full printing and usage rights on a DVD or CDs. I retain the right to use the best of the best as samples here on my blog and other social media outlets.

I can arrange printing through a 3rd party service (probably Mpix), but I'd charge an extra $20 for the time and effort to set it up (might be worth it, these are wedding photos, and I haven't been thrilled with some of my recent Sam's results).

An additional $25 would get you a very basic single-angle video. The cost of a somewhat more elaborate video would depend on what equipment I am able to purchase/rent/borrow/steal if the bride wants it.

Here's some of what I've done as just a guest at weddings:

This first one, it wasn't even my camera. It was the bride's, and so I had to figure out how to make it behave on the fly. These pics were pulled from Facebook, and have not been tweaked or adjusted.

This one it was my camera, but I was without a good external flash, and it was before I got quality editing software.

These are getting close to what you might expect, but were shot on a borrowed Nikon D90.

Here's my Pinterest board of the kind of wedding photos I'd like to emulate.

Call me at 334-452-3PEC or email me at pecaspers(at)gmail(dot)com to set something up.


Here are a few shots from that surprise wedding I mentioned, just for kicks and giggles.

Photography and Internet Marketing

Along with a number of Tallassee area small business owners (plus one pastor), I attended a seminar about marketing and the importance of managing your presence in digital and social media. Michael Blinder of Blinder Media Group spent just under two hours talking to us about current trends in both traditional and digital advertising. We learned about a number of things with great acronyms like SoLoMo, RoBO, SEO, and more. It was fascinating stuff, and I'm not being sarcastic.

Besides photography and ministry, I'm also a communication theory nerd and a computer geek. The majority of the seminar was a reminder of things I already knew or applying familiar concepts in ways that were new to me. On the tech side, I learned some great things about the way Internet searches and digital ad serving has changed in the past few years. Again, fascinating stuff.

But why am I posting this on my photography blog?

One of the things he talked a lot about toward the end of his presentation was how vital it is for companies to claim their listings in the most significant directories and to keep that data consistent. He mentioned specifically Google+ Places and how it affects where your business shows up in Google Maps results. What interests me as a photographer looking for revenue streams is that most small businesses have really bad pictures on their websites, Facebook pages, etc. OR that they have none at all--which might actually be better.

Look for a small business social media photo package to be detailed in a post later. For now, thanks to The Tallassee Tribune for bringing Mr. Binder in, and to 1220 Cafe for hosting us (those cookies were AMAZING).