FAQs

Got any questions about Wedding Photography?

You’re engaged — YAY!

But that means you’ve got lots of plan­ning to do — BOO!

Plan­ning a wed­ding can some­times seem stress­ful with soooooo much to do and sooooooo many things that you sud­den­ly need to become an expert about.

Like the 4 C’s of dia­monds, the dif­fer­ence between a ful­ly frost­ed, semi-naked or naked cake or the pro’s and con’s of food being sit down meal, fam­i­ly style, buf­fet or street food.

So the ides of this page is to bring togeth­er many of the ques­tions that cou­ples have asked me over the years, to give you a quick ref­er­ence guide to how I work and what to expect

Before the Day

Where are you based?

I live in Wolver­hamp­ton, West Mid­lands and pho­to­graph across Worces­ter­shire, Shrop­shire, Stafford­shire, War­wick­shire, Birm­ing­ham and the mid­lands. But have cam­era, will travel

Do we get a Contract?

Of course!!

I’m a Full-Time Pho­tog­ra­ph­er (95% wed­dings) and have been for 12 years.

So I want all my cou­ples to know exact­ly what is includ­ed and what they will get.

Are you Insured?

Abso-bloom­ing-lute­ly!! 

 I’m a pro­fes­sion­al pho­tog­ra­ph­er so have lia­bil­i­ty and indem­ni­ty insurance. 

How are payments made?

Pay­ments are usu­al­ly made via BACS. This allows me to avoid card fees, which ulti­mate­ly I’d have to pass on to my clients.

Do we meet before the wedding?

It’s fan­tas­tic to have a catch up before the wed­ding, to chat through your plans and find out what shenani­gans you’re plan­ning. Most of the time these are video calls because they’re super easy to organ­ise and it helps to keep down my car­bon footprint

What kit do you use?

I use Nikon mir­ror­less cam­eras. It’s a cam­era sys­tem I know well and have used for years. Pro­fes­sion­al build and they pro­duce great colours. Mir­ror­less means my cam­eras can be 100% silent when I need them to be, per­fect for dur­ing the wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny. They also allow me to take pho­tos in a less obvi­ous way too, which suits my ‘Nin­ja’ style!

You’ll always usu­al­ly see me at wed­dings with two cam­eras on a thing called a sling (which looks a bit like a horse’s bridal!) Why two cam­eras? Main­ly so I’ve got a choice of lens­es but it also means that I always have a back­up on me in case of equip­ment fail­ure (nev­er hap­pened but good to be pre­pared) I also have fur­ther back up equip­ment with me too, just in case.

Do we need a second photographer

This is prob­a­bly a ques­tion with dif­fer­ent answers for dif­fer­ent weddings.

If your wed­ding is all in the same place from prep through to par­ty then I feel very com­fort­able in being able to cap­ture every­thing by myself.

Should your wed­ding have mul­ti­ple loca­tions, maybe the two of you are get­ting read­ing in dif­fer­ent places, then a church wed­ding fol­lowed by anoth­er loca­tion for the recep­tion, then there is an argu­ment to say that a sec­ond pho­tog­ra­ph­er can be help­ful. It allows one of us to be with each of you in the morn­ing, then fol­low each of you to the church. 

How­ev­er, that’s not to say that I won’t do a damned good job by myself in a sit­u­a­tion like that! I tend to start my day with one of you, then head to the church to catch up with the oth­er one to see the day from their per­spec­tive too.

As a guide, I shoot over 90% of my wed­dings by myself

 

On the Day

What if you’re ill, or your camera breaks or you lose a memory card.…?

I’ve tried my hard­est to mit­i­gate any poten­tial risks inher­nant in what I do. 

As men­tioned above, I work with two cam­eras and  I car­ry spares. Mem­o­ry cards are dupli­cat­ed so each pho­to is tak­en twice, then when I get home I back­up twice and a third time to the cloud. 

I have insur­ance and also a huge net­work of fel­low pho­tog­ra­phers who help each oth­er out in an emergency.

Do you do group photos

Yup!

They’re nev­er a big part of the day, but an impor­tant thing for most cou­ples to have a few.

Plan it right and they don’t have to take over the whole afternoon

Do we have to pose

Nope!

I want to take pho­tos of you that look like.….you! Why pose when you can be yourselves?!

That’s not to say that I’ll leave to entire­ly to your own devices when we’re get­ting cou­ples pho­tos. I’ll be think­ing about the light, the back­ground, fram­ing etc and giv­ing lit­tle prompts and cues to help get the best pho­tos we can.

Do we need getting ready photos?

After over a decade of shoot­ing wed­dings I’ve learned how they ebb and flow, to know the beats that you get through­out the day. 

There’s a nat­ur­al ener­gy that starts to build as the cer­e­mo­ny approach­es and I think it’s won­der­ful to be able to doc­u­ment that.

It’s not real­ly about pho­tograph­ing hair and make­up being done, it’s about the peo­ple and how they’re feeling.

It’s also a great way for your wed­ding entourage to meet me and dis­cov­er that I’m a pret­ty chilled guy that isn’t going to be boss­ing them around all day! 

Do you take photos of the details?

I sure do!

Although I’m always focussed on the peo­ple, those details that you’ve cho­sen are the things that help to me the day about YOU. 

They’re your per­son­al choic­es that make your wed­ding dif­fer­ent to any oth­er cou­ple and I know how impor­tant they are.

 

After the Day

How long to see photos?

My aim is to get you a pre­view with­in 48 hours of your wed­ding, to give you a lit­tle taster of the day. 

There could be occa­sions when either hol­i­days or back-to-back wed­dings means that it will take a lit­tle longer, but I’ll let you know if this is going to be the case.

How long for our full gallery?

I can only give an esti­mate for this as my work­load can fluc­tu­ate huge­ly across the year.

But as a guide, expect it to be between 4–6 weeks

Do you retouch?

‘Pho­to­shop­ping’ seems to have become an every day verb these days and increas­ing­ly high tech smart phone cam­eras can make it hard to know what’s real, and what’s not.

I edit my pho­tos, but would describe my edit­ing as light touch, designed to enhance colours, in a time­less way.

What I don’t do is air­brush peo­ple or make pho­tos look rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent. My aim is to deliv­er authenticity.

 

How many photos?

Each wed­ding is dif­fer­ent and I don’t edit to reach a cer­tain num­ber or leave any moments on the ‘edit­ing room floor’.

But, as a guide, expect to have about 500 pho­tos in your gallery if I’m with you for the whole day.

 

Do you do albums?

I sure do.

If you haven’t includ­ed one in your pack­age then this can always be arranged after the wed­ding, a won­der­ful heir­loom of your spe­cial day

 

Get in Touch

If you like what you’ve read, if you’d like me to pho­to­graph your wed­ding — Nin­ja Style(!) — then just click the but­ton below to send me a message

Con­tact