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Recent Responses
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strobes. much more versatile. we use strobes for the majority of our work and only use alien bees when we need something more powerful, I pretty much only use them at churches, Ben uses them a little more.
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I don't really use the presets but I do like the color profiles, of which I use the Fuji 160.
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We typically do not have assistants during our engagement sessions unless we were both hired to shoot it. The UK session we were both there to assist each other. When it is a local session we use a light stand with a single flash, it's a very simple set-up :)
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Unfortunately there is no easy answer to this question because it changes a lot depending on the venue & what's going on (toasts, first dance, partying). For general reception lighting we have 2 off camera lights across the dance floor from each other and one on camera. For speeches we don't use much on camera flash and use a simply one light set-up slightly to the right or left (20degrees) of where I plan to shoot pointed at the center of the dance floor (or where ever the speeches are).
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We currently use ShootQ it costs money but is worth the time we save using it. You can send contracts with it, sends automatic invoices/emails/questionnaires, & keeps track of all of our leads.
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My vision is a lot better now that I got lasik done about 2 years ago, I used to have pretty awful vision.
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I still get a little nervous before every shoot but it gets easier. When I first started I memorized some go to poses and put people in front of what I thought was pretty doing the poses I knew, I made it simple! I now spend A LOT of time talking to client's during sessions, this makes it so much easier for couples to relax and fall in to poses where they look adorable and lovey.
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Depends what we're doing. For formals we'll either try to find shade (obviously) but if we can't we'll back light them with the sun and bring out the alien bee at full power to balance the light. For bride and groom portraits we may try to use it to our advantage and create a dramatic portrait using dramatic lighting with bright sunlight and dark shadows. We would just make the couple look at each other for these so we wouldn't have to blind them by staring in to the sun. As long as the couple is not squinting and looking at the camera, harsh light can work.
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We've only used the Phottix Stratos as our remote so we don't have many recommendations 8/
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We have started offering a 1-on-1 private workshop : http://carolineplusben.com/for-photographers/. No plans on doing a full on workshop any time soon.
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I have some pretty terrible jokes I make at sessions :)
I also talk to the clients a lot and really try to get the know them, I work really hard at making them feel comfortable in front of me, some clients are more difficult than others but it just means I have to pull a different trick out of the bag. -
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I've seen my fiancé do it a few times, it is just a completely different ball game and I've never had any desire to do it.
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I use an R-strap.
Well, there isn't much you can do about harsh lighting if it's during the ceremony, sometimes there is a magic angle that seems to work better than other angles, but the best way to deal with harsh lighting is really proper editing. I recently shot a ceremony with harsh lighting and ended up having to do a pit of burning and dodging to balance the light between the bride and groom (bride was in light, groom was not). -
It varies for formals depending on location... for churches I have an alien bee einstein, sometimes I use natural light if it's nice outside, or I use a simple OCF outside to bring in a little fill.
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I guess I ditched them in mid-June, and yes I ditched the PWs. My stratos have yet to fail me, although the batteries do seem to die more often.
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I've never used an album company that was less than $250 for a 10x10 30pg - Vision Art is around the more expensive range that you speak of while you can probably get a cheaper album from WHCC, Millers, or Zookbinder's photowrap matter page album. I do the album design myself with photojunction, I actually enjoy designing albums. I am currently limiting my album sizes to 10x10 only unless otherwise requested. The more options you give a client the harder it will be for them to make a decision. While I enjoy sizes other than square, I stick to square because it makes it much easier to provide a smaller parent album with it. I don't know if I would consider my spreads collages but you can see a little more about the albums here : http://sweetcarolinephoto.com/austin-wedding-photographer-albums/
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Caroline + Ben...’s Bio
Austin, TX
Half of a soon to be husband and wife wedding photography team.
