Selecting Your Wedding Photographer.

Possibly the hardest decision when preparing for a wedding is the selection of the wedding photographer. A wedding is the most expensive party you will ever throw and once it is over, all you have are your memories. Your photographs should be something quite special.

So how do you select a photographer? Generally, the best way is by personal reference from a friend or colleague who has had experience with a photographer. If you ask around, check the images that were taken, ask how it was on the day and how well the process went. Selection comes down to the style of photography, the personality of the photographer, cost and how well you get on with the photographer when talking to them. You must meet with the photographer and spend some time getting to know them. It will make it easier on the day. If no one has experience with a photographer,then a google search or yellow pages is next. Most photographer will have a web page and the best way of narrowing it down is to search through their web pages and look at the images. How do they look? Are they well composed? Is there detail in the dress? Do they look natural?

There are two distinct styles that wedding photographers fall into. The photojournalist who tries to be the fly on the wall and capture events as they happen and the traditional wedding photographer who directs and poses. Most photographer fall somewhere in between these two using a combination of photojournalism and traditional photography. It comes down to personal choice and what you like in your photography.

Consider also the impact that the photographer will have on the actual day. How long do you want them there, do you want both bride and groom getting ready images, do you want a real cake cutting and bridal waltz? All very important to the day but will impact on cost. The reception is a big part of the day but often forgotten. A new product on the market is the photo booth, a really fun way to get images of your guests from your wedding.

So what is your money paying for? A wedding photographer requires many skills. The most important is seeing light and their ability to use the light. In photography, light is everything and the way a person is positioned within the light can be the difference between an average photograph and an amazing photograph. Photographers need equipment that can handle the different lighting conditions found during a typical wedding shoot and the technical skills that allow them to photograph in all conditions. This means expensive lenses and a variety of portable lighting gear. It takes a lot of experience, training and commitment to do it well.
Further, they need the organisational skills needed to shoot family and group photos, time management skills to get it all the photos needed from the day, problem solving skills as there are always different scenarios that arise during the day. After the wedding, there is post production, editing techniques, graphic design for albums and canvas prints, and the ability to pull it all together. Print quality and album quality is everything if your memories are going to last. Wedding photographers could charge less by compromising on the quality of their products, but it would be the couple who pay for it later.

So how much should you pay for your wedding photography? The Australian Institute of Professional Photography (AIPP) states at least 10% of your total wedding budget should be directed towards your photography. Photography, like everything else, comes down to “you get what you paid for”.  A quality photographer costs a little bit more because they bring to the table creative experience, technical experience and spend a lot of time on your images ensuring that they are perfect. They do not compromise on quality, neither should you.

There will obviously be a huge difference in the final images and the products when comparing an $800 photographer with a $5000 photographer. This difference will be in quality, quality of the actual image, quality of the albums and prints and the quality of service. This is one of the most important days in your life, do not compromise on quality. There can be no greater disappointment then getting your photos after the events and thinking "I wish I had of gone somewhere else."

All of these factors are important, however if you do not get on with your photographer it will be a long day. You must meet with your photographer before the day and you need to get to know them. You have to trust that they know what they are doing and enjoy their company. With wedding photography, there has to be a lot of trust involved. If you do not believe in what the photographer is saying, it will show in the photos. Many photographer offer an engagement shoot as part of the package. A great way of getting to know them and see how they photograph.

Timing on the day is vital. A run down of the day should be organised before the big day, timing, locations and events. This should include any special needs you may have for the day. Locations you like, people you want photos of. This needs to be locked down before the day, it goes to quickly to make it up as you go.

Look for photographers accredited with the AIPP, these photographers are part of an education system that allows photographers to improve their skills while being mentored and taught by the best photographers in the business. There is also an accreditation system in place that you must pass to become accredited.

Wedding days should be fantastic days, select your photographer carefully and you will have photographs to treasure forever. Remember, don't let little things spoil your day. Enjoy every moment so when you look at your photos, the memories come flooding back.

Malcolm Gillham

Leiden Studios

Low Light Photograph

Welcome to Leiden Studios first educational post.

This image was actually posted on Facebook late last year with some of the details that go with the image, but I thought it was a great way to start a discussion about how Leiden Studios goes about it's image creation.

Nicole was one of our beautiful brides from last year. The image was taken on the second floor of Cactus Saloon in Flinders Street Townsville and our thanks goes to Cactus Saloon for the use of their premises. A lot of what we do could not be done without the co-operation of the clubs and pubs around Townsville.

The basic set up has a door to the left of Nicole that goes out onto a deck and provides a natural light source coming across her from left to right. She is place next to the door with her head turned towards the light source. Having her face the other way would put her face into shadow and would need to be corrected by either filling with flash or video light or similar, or a reflector. The last option would still be difficult to get enough light into her face.

Most of our photography is done in "manual" mode with the highlight alert set to on. Weddings are all about the dress and nothing spoils a shoot more that over exposing the dress and losing detail, especially if a lot of money has been spent on the dress. We also shoot all our images in "raw" rather than jpgs as this retains all the details of the image and allows us to make decisions on the image later in post production.

So for this shot the details were ISO 3200, f2.8 @ 1/125 second. This allows you to keep the depth of field narrow and focused on Nicole. You could play with the numbers and allow more detail in the barrels to come out, but you need to keep a close eye on the shutter speed to ensure a sharp image. The ISO could go to 6400 remembering that noise will increase at this number. However I would rather a sharp image with noise than a soft image without.

So the options would be to decrease the shutter speed, maybe with an increase in aperture, this will lighten the barrels and give a bit more detail in the raw image. However our look is probably a bit more dark and moody and by shooting in raw format we can bring back detail in the shadows in post production.

It would also be difficult to photograph this image on any auto mode. The camera would read the image as dark and try to lighten it. Taking a spot reading from the dress would under expose the image. I'll post and article at a later date about why the cameras does that, but it is out of the scope of this article.

So our raw image looked like this straight out of the camera. Not a lot needed post production which is exactly what we are trying to achieve on our shoots. One of the worst things with Photoshop is the notion that "I can fix that in Photoshop". More time is wasted trying to fix technical problems with the original capture than anything else in photography. Those new to the industry commonly make that mistake, I know I did. You only make it once though, no mater what your Photoshop skills, a poorly captured image will never look as good as a well captured image, ever. Get it right in camera the first time. Take a little time with the capture, and have a look at the image on the back of the camera. In doubt, check the histogram. Still in doubt, then do a bracket exposure around your current exposure.

Looking at the raw image, all it needed was a little straightening, the door is distracting so it is removed, the image is converted to Black & White using Nik software and a slight HDR effect is added also in Nik to increase the detail in the barrels and the dress. The right side of the face was lightened a little using Shadows/highlights in Image>Adjustments and to add a little more detail into the barrels.

The image has pride of place in Phil & Nicole's wedding album. Thanks to the couple, their wedding was a wonderful event, one we will not forget and we look forward to working with them in the future.

Any comment are welcome.

David Jodi & Family

Nice family shoot in their newly renovated house near the Townsville Golf Club. The house is an old Queenslander so have fantastic available light, and lot of spots to take the photos. Has to be said that the house was absolutely immaculate as well. The family has a couple of twins and a new born baby. Nearly forgot the dog.





Kelly and Mal went to this shoot, one of the great advantages of having three photographers in the business is we will always send two photographers to a shoot. It takes a bit if pressure of the first photographer and gives a different perspective to the shoot. We will continue to use two photographers at our shoots as long as it is available.

Talking about photography.

Hi all

With the advent of Facebook, yes it took us a long time to actually start using it, a lot of our actual photographs are now posted on that site instead of this blog. With this in mind we have decided to use this site more as a educational site to show what we do and more importantly, how we do it.

There are a lot of photographers out there, many are fantastic at what they do, many have an incredible eye for detail or creativity and produce some stunning results. Unfortunately there are a lot out here that start by getting one of the modern hi tech cameras and start taking photographs. Some of these take good photographs and decide it might be a good way to earn some extra money, so they turn "pro".

There is a lot more to photography than setting the camera to P and firing away, and this is the problem that is common in Professional photography. A photographer needs to have the basic technical knowledge to be able to shoot in all conditions, they need the equipment to be able to shoot in all conditions and be creative enough to work with whatever is in front of them.

By basics I mean getting the knowledge to understand f-stops, shutter speeds and ISO. How they interact and how they can be used to produce stunning images that simply do not need huge amounts of Photoshopping to get the result. How to see light and use it to it's best effect and how to work with the people being photographed.

We hope that you find our articles helpful, and if you disagree with comments by all means let us know.

The team at

Leiden Studios.