Two Important Wedding Photography Questions We're Rarely Asked

As wedding photographers, it's no surprise that we meet with a lot of brides. And their mothers. So it goes without saying that we have become professionals at answering questions about wedding photography as well just about everything else that has to do with weddings.

I guess it's precisely because we answer so many questions that we've become aware of the questions that aren't being asked. And the ones that should be.

I think the first question stems more from my personal conviction than from the hearts of brides. But if they knew ins and outs of wedding photography, my bet is that more brides would be asking this question, "what is your backup strategy and how do you protect my files against data loss and corruption?" Or, more simply stated, "what do you do to make sure you don't lose our pictures?!"

From my brief research, i've picked up that approximately 7% of hard drives crash in their first year, and by the end of the second year, that number climbs closer to 20%. Yikes! That means that if your wedding pictures are being saved on a drive that's at least two years old, then there's a one in five chance that that drive will crash. That's comforting.

While this article is not a primer on digital backup and media protection, I do hope that it encourages more brides to simply ask the question. For what it's worth, we maintain copies of every wedding, including one offsite in the event our studio burns down, until our product has been delivered and archived online.

The second obvious question that's rarely asked is, "how many weddings have you been the lead shooter for?" Well, I’ve been the lead for just about all the weddings we do. But, this is a question you may want to ask if you’re looking at bigger studios with several photographers.

 In these days of website templates, it's rather easy for photographers to come by some great photos and fancy websites which really make them appear established. I encourage brides to ask for links to view complete wedding galleries from recent weddings as this will give them a good idea of what they might expect to receive. Anyone can come up with a few good shots for their website. But it's much more difficult to come by a complete and impressive gallery.

www.crystalimagephoto.com