A New Chapter: Nature

Not sure if you have noticed or not, but 2014 is almost 25% done already! April is here, which means rainy days, warming up weather, and animals return back and become more active. For the past 4 months you may have noticed that I haven't been posting many blogs or pictures. I have actually been looking at my photography plan and decided it was time to switch over.

Quick History:

I started out doing photography of landscapes and it quickly grew into friends and family wanting portraits done. Shortly after that, I was requested to shoot a wedding. Excited about the opportunity, I purchased a pro level lens for portrait/wedding shots; Tamron 20-70mm f/2.8 with VC. It was an amazing lens and my research showed that it was a staple for any wedding. So I spent the money and purchased it with credit with a new camera that offered low light ability; Nikon D7000. At the time, I couldn't afford a full frame camera like a Nikon D600 (and still can't afford one). I decided I was going to really dig into portrait photography. I ended up doing dozen of photo sessions and ended up doing two weddings, pretty much breaking even with all my expenses the first year!


When I started this, I told myself I would only do weddings/events/portraits until I can afford a super telephoto lens (over 500mm). Well, the time is now! Last January, a new lens was introduced to the market that raddled the professional world and extreme nature hobbyists like myself.  Tamron released the SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD (Tamron's Official Page for this lens), at a very low price for this length of a lens. It's not as good as glass as the Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 200-400mm f/4G ED VR II Lens, but from the reviews and looking at the $5,000 price difference, you can see why my interest was captured. 

I've been following reviews for this lens for months. Watching YouTube channels for people's reviews; both professional and non-professional. Across the board, everyone was impressed. I could see some difference in the quality and not to mention the f stop is only 5 at the 150mm and the fastest the lens fully zoomed is only 6.3. This requires a relatively good day to get images and also the lens isn't weather sealed. However, the price again reflects all of this.

I was expecting to wait 5-6 years to get to this point to have a super telephoto zoom lens, but because of this release I'm ready to do it now. To start this process I listed my portrait lens on Craigslist for 900, taking a small hit on the retail price of the lens (about $500) with only a year worth of use. However, remember that I paid that lens off already last year. So I looked at this as selling old equipment and upgrading, so this lens will only end up costing me $200 dollars. With only a few contacts and a few no-shows, I decided to post on my personal Facebook page and was able to sell it in a week.

Now, up to that time I was in a slight chaos mode with my photography. I'm going to take a huge hit in sales because I am not able to do portraits anymore and I no longer have a wide angle lens to take landscapes! But, my real dream is to do nature photography. Capture animals in their element.

I will be making a new blog either this weekend or next weekend, on what I'm hoping this year will result in. I don't plan on making nearly as much as I did last year, or even half of it. But, I do plan on having much more fun!  Also, this lens is on back order for another few weeks. So I wont be able to shoot to much until then. 

This bird above was taken out of my double pane glass door and a screen door using my 70-300mm lens. That is why the image is a bit soft but I am hoping to get more of these type of shots, but much more sharp obviously, of many different types wildlife. 

Imagine the type of images with double the zoom!

2013 Year Review - The Good & Bad

I was able to think on this for a very long time and I felt it was worthwhile to share with those who read my blog. Part of this blog is to give those who want to start on the same trail as I did; make your hobby of photographing into something more.

Now that it is 2014, I can look back and go over the good and bad things that I ran into. I'll start with the bad.

The Bad:

Starting up is the second hardest thing with moving your photography from a simply hobby to something more. The amount of money to become a legitimate name to sell items was crazy. That alone took  7% of my earnings the first year. Getting an EIN, getting the tax number, application fees, license fees, fees, fees, and more fees. I started of not thinking this was a great idea, but it was. Make it your first year goal to make double your fee's, cover any cost through the year, and you can call it a successful year because you didn't spend one dime on photography (if you don't purchase any gear).

Time is the hardest thing for me. I work a full time job that can take 40-60+ hours a week of my time, all during the day hours. Since I like to take wildlife and landscape photos, this is the peek time for me to do that. So that narrowed my time to days off and weekends. Weekends I had to balance with family and friends, and last year they got the tail-end of the deal. I did two weddings, over a dozen portrait sessions, and some volunteer work. One wedding was about a total of 50 hours for all of the editing and live coverage, so you put that on top of the 40 I already work there isn't much time for a social life. I decided weddings are not something that will be in my 2014 goal, unless it is for a direct friend.

Selling photos was the third hardest part. Pricing things is one of the trickiest things. You don't want to be to cheap to not be taken serious, and you don't want to be to expensive to not get the sale. Pricing your prints to where if someone really wants it they will buy it is the goal. I think I found the price point mid year through, but it had very little profit in it for me. This made me re-think of what I wanted to do with my photos, which is covered in the Good part!

The Good:

The portrait lens I purchased; paid off. Quarter of my camera body; paid off. Web hosting, licensing fees, and operation costs; paid off. Extra gear I purchased this year; half paid off. I made more money on this the first year than I thought I would. I was almost able to come off this year as even, and I probably could have if I didn't turn down as many gigs as I did. Look above at the time paragraph in the Bad Section above.

I had fun. Once past the bad part of getting everything started up, I had a lot of fun. I met a lot of fun people, learned more than I thought a was available, and really found something I enjoy doing. This first year was simply a test for me to see if this was something I wanted to get into, and at the end of the year to see if my interest is the same as it was a year ago. To my surprise it was not, it is actually more than what I started out with. I'm looking into buying hunting blinds, camo gear, booking cruises/tours to get out of Wisconsin photographs, and doing youtube videos on how I edit my photos. This is something I really want to do and for the longest time it was hard for me to concentrate on anything but work.

A New Year. I'm continuing to go through with selling my photographs but at a different level. I sold over a 150 prints, ranging from 4x6 all the way up to 24"x36". Those large photos are extra special to me as I know they are being hung up where more than just the family can see them. They found that photograph to be something special that they wanted on their wall to make them feel happier and anyone else that walks by and looks at it. So instead of just selling prints, I have now decided to sell this more as an art instead of as a product to get out. The smallest print will now be 8:x12" and the largest is 40"x60" and also removed a lot of the "just have it on there as an option because it's cheap".

So hopefully the above gave you an insight of what I had to go through last year and helps you decide if you are ready to take the next step in your photography. I can already see the first question; "How much time total last year did you spend on photography". Well, I was always on my computer looking at my past images and playing with them. If we put that to the side and count the actual time photography for money and for product; less than 1000 hours. Which ends up being just over 40 days out of the year, so if we round that out to actual days worked; about quarter of the year was spent on photography.


If you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them here, or visit my facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/StevenSantamourPhotography

I hope you had a great 2013 and hope you take 2014 by the grip and get your photographs you dream of! My New Years resolution is to get more wild life photos, which requires blinds and traveling.

wisconsin photos

Backing Up With Carbonite

I have come up to my 18th post, and my 1st product review! The product I am going to review ties in with my previous blog about backing up your computer. There are already tons of reviews on how to backup with Windows Backup or the Mac Time machine, so I will just cover the software I use. My choice of cloud storage and online backup; Carbonite. 

I spent many months researching online storage, doing a trial if they allowed me. Anything that didn't offer a trial I simply skipped over. These days, the best products normally have a free trial time and online storage and backups are no different. After months of comparing prices, storage size, and backup capability I ended up with Carbonite.

Overall, this is a very simple set-up and forget backup solution. To use Carbonite you must install the software used to do their backups. The program that is installed is Carbonite InfoCenter, and is the main way you will interact with it (yes there are others, which will be covered later). The installation and initial setup took under 5 minutes, and you then get to the main screen:

As you can see from the main screen, it is currently backed up 85k+ files totaling in 567GB (0.5TB) in size. It also shows that it is currently backing up 873 files that are 157 GB of total size. There is also an easy switch to turn on or off the backups. You are also constantly able to see how long your subscription lasts in the top right corner of the program.

The next screen I am going to cover is the settings screen:

Here is where you are able to control, as a "master" setting, what is being backed up and how how often. On the right of the screen you can see what it automatically backs up; Desktop, Documents, Music, Pictures, and other files that you have created.  You are also able to right-click on any file, or folder, and tell Carbonite to back it up. 

The next screen is the bread and butter of the program, the Restore. 

This is going to be the overall window that you will be using with the program as this is the section you are able to restore your files. You have three options; search, browse, and full system restore. 

Search and Restore:

This is the main screen of the search and restore section. You can simply type in the name of the file you wish to restore, explore recently deleted files, or explore previous version of files. Overall, this is very simple of running a search on your computer. For example, If i wanted to recover one of my panorama photos I could simply search for Pano:

There are many results as I have had many different versions, and for this demo I actually deleted some of the files prior to the screenshots. The files in red are those, and it shows that I have a few months to restore them if I want before Carbonite deletes it from their servers. 

Browse Your Backup:

As you can see, this view is very similar to you navigating through your computer. You would navigate to where the file was located, and you will then be able to right-click on it and either choose to restore it (puts it back to the same location) or restore it to a different location.

The last screen is exactly what it sounds, it restores all your files. 

You are also able to access your files on your phone via a free app as well as from a web browser. This allows you to download files to your phone or share images via a private link you control. This didn't sway for or against the product, but it is a nice plus to have.

Lastly, they do have some pretty good videos and how to's on their site. This software is very simple, does exactly what it says. It did take about a week and a half to backup my whole computer initially, but only took 3 minutes to restore a 5GB folder of files.  I also have an unlimited storage limit and the price is very low for this.

Make sure you look at the difference between the plans and think about what it offers. Is the extra 40-60 dollars worth the courier service? If your computer goes down, can you wait days without your computer or do you want them to ship you the recovery?  

Want to check it out, here is a link that will benefit you as well as me (refer a friend link, and we both get something out of it). 

Check out Carbonite

Backing It Up....Your Files

**Warning, Long Blog Ahead**

Photographs, accounting files, other documents, bookmarks, favorites, and saved game files. What would happen if you lost everything right this very moment? What would it do to you personally and financially if your computer was stolen, or if the hard drive failed?

These were the questions I was asking myself when I took my first wedding gig. What would happen if my computer would crash while I was editing the photos? Could I financially handle this type of a loss? What is the cost of getting a backup? Should I have multiple back-ups, onsite and offsite? How do I get started?

Well this blog is going to help you understand the importance of backing up your computer and/or your personal files.

Step 1:

Understanding what a backup is. Generally, backups have only two purposes. Recover data from accidental happenings (example: deleting the wrong file), or if your hard drive becomes corrupt, and the other is to recover data from a point earlier in time (example: if you made changes to a document and you clicked save, you could go back before the change).  Another thing to understand, backups generally (some can) do not restore your complete computer (such as the Operating system and program files) functionality.

Be sure you understand the language of your backup software. Backups that can fully restore your computer tend to reference this backup as a "Drive Image Backup". If the software only states it does file backups, assume it will only save your files and not the Operating System or programs on the computer. This also affect how much storage is needed for backups; Drive Image backups will result in much larger storage needs.

Step Two:

Understand the storage needs. The most important thing about a backup, is making sure you have the room to store them. If you plan on just doing file backups, not a Drive Image Backup, you can simply right click on the folder where the files are located and add up all of the file sizes. You can also select multiple folders by using pressing ctrl prior to each click, then right click on any of the folders and go to properties. It will give you the total amount of memory it is using.

Step Three:

Decide on storage location(s). This is almost as important as step two, as you can have all the space in the world but if you can't access the backups what good are they? You also need to decide are you going to have multiple locations of your backups and if you are going to have them offsite (different location than your computer, such as not being at your home or office). Generally, I support having both onsite and offsite backups. Online backup solutions are so inexpensive and so are onsite. Also, for onsite storage do you want to use an external hard drive? **Please note, backing up to a different partition is not the same as backing up to a different drive. If you partition a drive into four partitions (think of cutting a pie into 4 pieces), and your hard drive fails (think of your pie being thrown against the wall) all of the partitions will most likely fail with it. So you will want to save your backups to a different hard drive.  You can buy cheap internal hard drives that are easy to install in majority of your computers, use an external hard drive (though the writing speeds are normally slower) that connects directly to the computer, or use a Network Access Storage Device (NAS) that connects to your switch. Then there is also the cloud storage.

Internal Hard drive - You can normally take an old hard drive from one of your older computers and put it into your current computer. You can then use that specifically for backup purposes. Or you can purchase them new for around $65 for 1TB of storage.

External Hard Drives - For simplicity of this, you can purchase external drives for around $85 for 1TB of storage. If you have USB 3 ports on your computer, be sure to get a external drive that supports it. It will reduce your backup/restore time dramatically.

NAS- This is a bit more advanced than the other, and another huge area. For simplicity, they are generally the same as an External hard drive that connect to your switch via an ethernet cable. These generally cost $100 for 1TB of storage

Cloud (internet storage) - There are hundreds of companies that offer online storage, search around or read my blog about Carbonite (which is what I currently recommend for cloud storage).

Step Four:

Decide on your software(s). There are literally millions of titles out on the market to backup your files and computer as a whole. The price ranges can go from free-hundreds (some thousands) of dollars, depending on what you want to do.

In both operating systems, Mac and Windows, have built in back-up software. These are very basic, but very effective backup options. In Windows 7 it is called, "Back Up and Restore" and in Mac (Snow Leopard and up) it is called "Time Machine".

I personally use the Back Up and Restore along with Carbonite.

Step Five:

Put your backup plan into action.


Now that you have your files backed up, don't assume everything is good. Test your backups before trusting them. Understand how to use them before you actually need them. To do this, simply move one of your folders to another location and attempt to restore it. This way if the backups aren't working correctly, you didn't actually lose anything since you can just move the folder back.

My Current Backup set-up:

Currently, My computer is set to run backups every Tuesday and Friday with the windows backup utility. These backups are then saved on my second internal hard drive. Then on Saturday, windows backup utility backs up my second internal hard drive and saves that backup to a third internal hard drive. So, within my finger tips I have 3 locations of where the file can be found; My main hard drive, backups on the second hard drive, and a backup of the backup on my third drive.

I then use Carbonite as my off-site backups. Because the drives are all located in my apartment, you have to think of the worse. If my apartment would catch on fire, most likely all three drives are going to be worthless. To resolve that, I currently have Carbonite backing up all of my files, ALONG WITH doing a Drive Image Backup (or a mirror backup). Because of the way Carbonite works, with my Window Backups, I have 100% certainty that for over 1 month all of my files are safe and fully recoverable. I will be writing a review on Carbonite shortly.

The amount of data that I am backing up; 370 GB or .3TB of information. This does not include my operating system or program files.

Use this this link to Carbonite.

Photographs - Why Do I Always Have to Crop?!

In the last few weeks I have done a few senior portrait sessions. One thing that I had to explain, or will probably end up needing to explain why my photographs aren't the same as you taking in your photos to Wal-mart or Walgreens. This may end up confusing you more, but I hope this answers a few questions.

In school you always here "You're going to use this in every day life, you should learn how to do it!". I am finally finding out that depending on your field this may, or may not, be true. In photography, math is becoming a huge factor once I started getting into the mechanics of photography. While math is important on determining the print... Printing a photo, actually starts with the camera.

To explain why the photos I take are recommended to print in the 2:3 aspect (8"x12"), we need to actually look at my camera and more specifically the sensor of the camera. The camera actually takes the image in the 2:3 ratio, so when I am lining up the shot I am using all the space. If I know the image is going to be used for an 8x10, I actually have to picture the squares in my head when I take the pictures and then crop the image to that format.

Cropped 4:5 Ratio (8x10)

Not Cropped 2:3 ratio (8x12)

Cropped 4:3 Ratio (9x12)

As you can see from the two images, you lose a lot of the picture in the cropped 4:5 Ratio compared to what was being shot in the camera. I personally do not like to crop my images unless it is absolutely required, meaning my lens wasn't long enough and need to crop into the subject. I try to do all of my work in the camera so I don't have to spend so long cropping and editing later. My goal in the above shot was to show how alert the bird was, in the cropped version it just isn't seen. It looses my goal of the image. Yes, I will agree I like how the eye looks better in the cropped version but It doesn't tell the story that I wanted to tell.

This is the same to the other photographs that I sell on my site, portraits, and other images that I have printed. To me cropping an image changes the story that I was telling, in reality you are changing the art. 

So what really comes down to is that the cameras are really built to take images in the 2:3 ration, but the print that majority everyone wants is a 4:5 ratio (8"x10") or a 4.25:5.5 ratio (8.5"x11").

If you ever come across this, I would recommend printing it in the true ratio and get your print with a border. You can hide this border with a frame or mounting it. This way you get the full image and story, instead of just a piece of it. When you take them into Wal-Mart or Walgreens, they are actually cropping the image for you. I'm betting if you look at the negatives, or the actual image on your memory card, the print isn't the full image you took.

The drawback of getting 3:2 ratio prints? Hard to find frames for them. Luckily, the internet can help that out these days and can be remedied by browsing for frames for a few minutes.

Actually printing photos have more math in them beyond just the ratios that I did not cover, such as pixels per inch and/or dots per inch (there is a war between those PPI and DPI). What resolution the photo needs to be in order to get a 'good print'. And the information keeps going on an on for when you want to determine if that image can be printed at a 20"x30" size.

If you have any questions about printing, please feel free to send me a message over facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StevenSantamourPhotography
Twitter: @SteveSFoto
or the comments below and I will be sure to answer them in the next blog or over the FB page. 

Explaining the Cost of a Photograph

Recently, I have been asked why I can offer my prints for so much less than many other photographers but my limited edition print costs so much more. I'm hoping this blog can iron out some those questions and help you understand the price of a picture or photograph.

In photography, the photograph is a product of the photographer. This product came to be with the cost of equipment, travel expenses, licenses, permits, time, and the actual cost of printing it. Not all photographers use the same equipment, travel around the world or print their photos themselves. Because of that, their price reflect what they invest in their photos.

Starting off with equipment this is the biggest investments a photographer will spend their profits and their own money in. Prior to starting to charge for my photos, I had already spent over $3,000...that's right over $3,000 in equipment. I started with a basic camera body, but I learned that buy the best glass you can afford. You can take the most expensive camera body and put on cheap glass (camera lens) and your photos wont be as good as if you reverse the scenario; cheap body with high quality glass you will actually get better photos. Over time I learned why tripods costs so much after the cheaper ones wouldn't even hold my camera because of the weight. I'm not saying that photos are only as good as your equipment, but you can't sell a picture if it's not sharp. Some wedding photographers charge $4k or more, but they can offer so many more options than what I can. For example, if the church doesn't allow flash photography I wouldn't have any options but to not use flash. Those who charge more may have options such as setting up equipment to increase the lighting in the church which would get around the no flash rule and therefor resulting in better photos.

I don't plan on doing portrait and event photography forever, my main goal is to become a nature and landscape photographer. For me to get these landscape and nature shots, I need to travel. Hotels, gas, oil changes costs add up quickly. My trip to South Carolina would have been pretty expensive if I went there just to get a few shots. I was lucky enough that my lifestyle already had traveling in it to help reduce these costs. Wisconsin also has great locations for what I like to take pictures of, so that also works out. However, I also want to be able to go on a cruise to Alaska and get less common photographs than what someone would normally see.

Permits and licenses are another factor when taking photographs. This includes a permit to shoot on private land such as in a Zoo or private establishment (example: http://county.milwaukee.gov/Photography9057.htm). Some cities require you to purchase a photographer's license just to be able to professional shoot within their city limits (Milwaukee for example is $100, http://www.milwaukee.gov/ImageLibrary/Groups/ccLicenses/profphoto.pdf). We aren't able to just walk in, set-up our equipment, snap some shots, and sell them. Like us with photo rights, private establishments have their own rights on who can come in and use their property for commercial use. Mainly, if you disrupt the flow of traffic on a sidewalk or walkway you will most likely need a permit.

Time. Like any job a photographer is paid just for using his time for the photo. With me, I don't live off of my photography. I actually use any and all profits to purchase and upgrade my photography equipment and website. How does a photographer figure out how much to charge? I go off of a few variables: Are you going to order prints from me, is the photo session/event only for a few hours, is it an all day event, is it on a Sunday? I also want everyone to be able to have at least one photo taken of them that they can be happy about. If you can only afford 35 dollars for a photo session, you can only expect me to give you so much time, use so much of my equipment, and offer you limited options. If you can afford 800 dollars for me to shoot an event, you can expect me to work my ass off the whole time. You can expect I will take time on photos to ensure they have the perfect color settings, exposure, crop, and other edits. You can expect me to offer you a discount on photo orders.

Cost of Printing. I don't print my photos at home, I don't have the cash to purchase a professional printer (those are about 800 now). I don't want to be in charge of printing, packaging, and shipping. Because of this, I use my website to do all of that for me. Because of that, they take a % out of the sale and I have a yearly fee for them to host my site. So when I came up with my pricing I had to figure out how much did I want to make on each photo I sold, how much it costs the photo to make, and how much of that I was going to pay to my web host. I believe I have found myself a great price for me and for you.

Limited Edition. So why is my limited edition print so expensive? First lets define what a limited edition photo is; A limited edition is normally hand signed and numbered by the artist, here is also a specified amount of prints that will be available, and once these specified amount of prints are exhausted it will no longer be printed.

So I will use my "Layers of Love" as an example. I first decided what I wanted it printed on. I found out that aluminium printing is a bit expensive, but the prints are waterproof. It is also done with recycled material and offers more detail than traditional printing mediums (canvas or paper). Because of these factors, I decided to go with this medium. I then decided on print sizes. I though this photo would look great down a hallway, so I picked 8x12. I also thought it would look good in a larger room so I decided to go with 16” x 24”. I also felt that there may be a few people out there that would want it larger than life, so I also chose 24” x 36”. Now to make this limited edition, I have to choose how many prints I want to offer. I figured a small number would be best so I decided on 25 and 25 for the first two sizes. On the last one, after finding how much it costs just to have it printed I decided to keep that at a very low number of 3. Now, the pricing of these photos. First is the cost of the printing was taken, added to the half day of shooting I did to get this shot, and then the profit estimate. I needed to determine a number that was fair to me, but worthwhile to still purchase. Once these 53 prints are sold, I can no longer print this photo which then makes it worthless to me. So I put a price on the photo; If someone asked me how much for me to buy the copyright of that photo, how much would that be. After I researched online on what a shot could go for, I divided that by 53 and added the total of the Cost and Time.

A picture of "Layers of Love" being displayed still wrapped from shipping

I've been asked, what if I print beyond the 53 photos? I technically can be sued. I am actually lowering the value of your print because it is no longer as limited as it previously was believed to be. So there is many reasons why I would not want to print beyond the specified amount of prints. By giving certificates, which I actually do print myself, it has very specific information about the print and print series to ensure that this is in fact a limited edition print.

Future limited editions. I also plan on keeping my limited editions to a very few. I decided that at the very most I will have one new limited edition each year. I want these photos to be my very top photos, so those who own the photos have even a higher appreciation of the photograph beyond just looking at it. I want them to be happy with their investment. By doing this, I am hoping that this will only increase the value in my limited edition prints.

So I hope this helps you understand why a photographer charges what they charge.

Also check out my website for photographs you can order: http://santamour.smugmug.com/

A Wedding: Photographers' Aftermath

First, congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Dave Nelson! Again, thank you for allowing me (and talking me into) photographing your wedding. This has opened my eyes to event photography and what I thought was simple to a field of high respect.

So what I hope to cover in this blog is what my thought process was, how I was feeling, and what I did to get shots that I got. I just wrapped up my first edit through of all the photos (a bit over 500 total) and will be looking through them one more time before uploading them for them to see.

My equipment list:

• Nikon D7000 + Grip
• Tamron 20-70mm 2.8
• Nikon 55mm 2.8 Macro
• Tamron 70-300mm 
• Battery charger for the car/wall
• SB-700
• 20 AA battries (for flash)
• Two batteries for camera (one in camera one in grip)
• Lens Pen
• Lens Air Blower
• Lint free cloths
• Four 32gb Scandisk SD cards
• Business cards
• Body Strap (quick purchase from Best Buy on the way out to the church)
• Large shoulder bag to carry this all

1/200 sec at f / 2.8, ISO 800, 36mm

I started out at the Brides parent's house (about 15 mins from the church), and at the same time my friend that I hired to be the 2nd photographer went to a hotel where the guys where getting ready (which I just got the photos he took late 7/28 evening). All of the girls had their make-up and hair done, and where just finishing up what looked to be lunch. So right away I started to shoot detail shots instead of getting shots of them putting food in their mouths. I started out with the dress, the flowers, and jewelry. While doing this I would keep a close eye on the bride, and her parents, hoping to catch those candid shots. This hour and a half went by very fast and I ended up taking just over 100 pictures in that time. I wanted to use natural light and not a flash because I wanted them to look at the photos and it spark a memory of this is what it looked like in the room they where in, instead of seeing a fake light or an unnatural bright room that doesn't exist in the house. All of the shots at the house were taken with the 20-70mm lens. Some of the detail shots were taken with the macro lens.

One of the things I was concerned is giving the ladies the privacy while they where getting ready, while at the same time catching candid photos. I knew this was one drawback of being a male photographer photographing the ladies getting ready. I started getting better pictures when I started to talk with everyone, instead of hiding against the wall. Everyone seemed to shake of their nerves about the camera following them around.

They started to load up the truck to head to the church, I felt this was the best time to pack up myself and get to the church and meet-up with the other photographer to get some empty church shots and get photos of people walking in. I felt these shots were important as both the bride and groom would be tucked away in a room and wont get to see much of these events. I also coordinated how I would like the wedding shot with the other photographer; I would shoot the party walking down from the floor and he would catch candid's throughout the wedding and covering a few shots in case I miss focus or exposure, or in case his angle would better since he would be on the balcony. I found this part of the day the most strenuous and it wasn't because of the precise moments that needed to be recorded, but the amount of squatting and moving that I had to do. Even though I was comfortable walking in front of someone else to get the shot I was looking for, I didn't want to ruin their own experience by standing in front of them. I took my shot and moved out of the way, I tried not to spend more than a few seconds when I was in front of people sitting.

1/10 sec at f / 3.2, ISO 400, 24 mm

The above picture I asked if they could scoot in so I could set next to them. They smiled and slid down so I could sit and after the shot I said thanks and continued to crouch and walk through the church. With the wedding kiss coming up, I took a spot in the middle aisle so I could be directly in line with them. To make the angle interesting, I lined just right of the cross on the back wall and put the couple to the left of it. Once I got the shot I wanted, I moved out of the way so others could have a clear shot with their cameras.

At this point, I thought the hard part was over. I was pleased with the shots I got so far and I was relieved that the important shots were done.....I was wrong. The hardest part was the posed shots after the wedding with family and the bridal party.




One of the photos was a group shots of all of the members that were married in the same church as the newly weds. This was when I first got hit by a wow factor of the history this family has. I was in a slight rush to get this shot done so I could clear out the church a bit for other photos. This was the moment I realized that these photos were more important than any of the shots taken during the wedding. These were photographs that recorded not only this moment during their wedding day, but as a recording of history for them to have and to share down with future members. This also made me realize that these photos needed to be perfect and that these photos are what everyone are going to be looking for. I also started to use flash at this time to help me get a quicker shutter speed as the first few shots were blurry do to movement for those that were standing. Primary reason for the slower shutter speed as I had to increase my aperture to make sure everyone was in focus.

Once this was done I then took a few more shots of just of the newly weds, which I had ideas when I visit the previous week. These shots went quick and got them out of the church and let them have time alone before they had to go to the reception. This was a perfect time for me to stretch out and take a look around the reception area as I haven't been there yet. This was only 15 minutes from the church and was a nice ride. The reception was at a museum which they rented out for the evening. Visitors had free reign of it and as long as I didn't use flash I had permission to take pictures for the wedding in it.  I also was able to get some detail shots of the set-up while nobody was in the area.

At this point I've been standing for about 4 hours (only 30 minutes were sitting, while driving from and to locations). I was super thirsty because of the heat of the church and my legs were cramping, so I quickly got some shots and started to slowly hydrate with the water fountain inside the museum. I also had to watch the time as I wanted to get a picture of the couple driving up to the museum (I told them to call me or text me when they were about to pull up). I was also able to introduce myself to the DJ and the dinner coordinator during this time and give them my business card. When I got the text, I went up to the front and was able to get 5 minutes of sit time on the bench and once they pulled up there was no more sitting until dinner was served (2 hours from then). From this point, it was very fun for me. This was my favorite part of the evening was capturing the candid moments. Moments the couple wouldn't see, moments of family and friends laughing and smiling, moments of tears over the happy moments, and of just everyone dancing and having fun.

I didn't realize this until he sun started to go down that I was actually very lucky! The canvas that was used, that everyone sat under for the reception, was white. I was able to use it as one huge reflector umbrella and was able to fill up the whole area with my SB-700. This was perfect as I was able to shoot well into the night. One of the other things, that I was hoping they wouldn't get with another photographer, is I was able to talk to the ranger to do some photos in the back of the car. Was some of my last shots of the night and they are really neat. While walking back inside from the car, they instantly held hands while walking down back to the museum. I instantly saw the last photo of the night, and to me represented them ending the night together walking away together.

1/80 sec at f / 2.8, ISO 3200, 48mm

I left shortly after and got home. I right away got the images copied over to the computer and ran a backup. I also then took the other memory card (I had my camera set to shoot duplicates on the second memory card) and put it into a fireproof safe. I also edited three images for the Bride right away so she could share them right away and use them for Facebook. I didn't only do this for her, but for her to post images of what I took so everyone can see what type of photos I will have compared to those who uploaded via their phones. I wanted them to be eager to see my photos before printing their own photos, hoping they would order mine instead. I did realize, however, that I forgot to put my watermark on those images since I was in a rush. However, I did get a few messages through FB asking when they would be up ready to see. I told them my goal is to have them up by August 3rd or shortly after.

At this point it looks like I should be delivering over 500 photos, and because of some of the things that happened (certain stains on clothes) I actually touched each photo to make sure things were perfect. This was something I didn't expect to do but since I love editing photos was fun to do. It added a good chunk of time I didn't expect to do, so make sure you take that into consideration if you decide to photograph a wedding. It took me about a total of 24 hours to edit these photos and since I just got another 100+ from the other photographer I expect to spend another 6 hours. that would be a total of 40 hours spent for this wedding. So when you are attempting to price out a wedding, this one took me a work week of time. When you put this on top of another full time job, it was very wake, work, sleep type of week. So for those who are reading this that wonder why a photographer charges what they do, I hope this helps you understand their prices. For those that read this to that are looking into wedding photography, I hope this helps you to pick a worthwhile price for you.

Overall, I'm 99% happy with the results of this event. There's a few shots that I thought I had, that ended up being blurry when I looked on the computer. Once of them was a request photo from the Bride's parents of them standing in front of a section in the museum that has history with their family. Beyond that one photo and a few candid's that didn't turn out that I thought they did, I think they will enjoy the photos greatly.

Photo taken by: Curtis Gibeaut Jr. 

At the end of the day, I only ended up using one battery and one bar out of the second. I used half of the battery power in the SB-700 and had about 400 shots left on the first set of memory cards. I didn't drive any shot, though I did shoot it a drive setting which I changed the FPS to 3 instead of the full 6. The only time I drove my shots was during the cutting of the cake in which she stuffed cake into his face. All other shots I waited for the shot and took it, and I don't think I missed anything because of this. A few shots where blurry because I didn't watch my shutter speed but I think this is why my first wedding turned out so well. I pictured the shot in my head, composed my shot, and waited for the moment to happen. If it didn't I moved to the next shot.

Feel free to visit my website at: http://santamour.smugmug.com/ to view my gallery (not of the wedding photos as the rest are being kept private for the families to share). Also, please visit and like my facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/StevenSantamourPhotography