Lessons

Lesson Info

Signature Weddings

Up until I would say, june, july, the summer of two thousand seven, by that time, I had already been shooting for about a year and a half, but I had only been I had been shooting on my own for about six months every so often, like the universe god, whatever you believe in will throw you something and it's your opportunity toe absolutely maximize the opportunity that you have been given. I view these opportunities within my business as what I referred to a signature weddings, and this is I want to talk about my first two signature wedding, so before I even talk about signature weddings, I think we should define what a signature wedding is. This is all made up. This is my own content, like, please don't quote this like, oh, you know, signature weddings, no. If they didn't watch creative live, they probably wouldn't know what it was. So what I view and mother, the other people might have different opinions, but why have you is like a signature winning and see you clarify, too, is I know t...

hat some photographers will only blawg their signature weddings, but we've already established that we think it's more important to block everything right to block everything, but I'm going to highlight certain weddings to prospective clients, and I talk about that how in a second I think of a signature wedding as a wedding that I can use to attract more of the same type of weddings I want to shoot. A signature wedding is a wedding I could use to attract more of the same wedding. I want to shoot. This first opportunity came for me in the summer of two thousand seven with a couple by the name of carly and gabriel. Two of this kindness and sweetest people. Michelle. A few photos from their day. Carling. He will have a very simple wedding. She prepared at liberals, auntie's house. They had a back yard reception. They got married at a park by her by his auntie's house. Carly had made pillows but can made like seating pillows for her guests to be sitting in an outdoor like amphitheatre type thing. It was very simple, but it was the first time that I had a client trust me and give me fully way with what I wanted. They look to me and said whatever you think is best and all of a sudden I felt like I have an opportunity. I have couples who trust me. I have couples who deferred to me and I've couples who were asking me my opinion before our wedding day. This was an opportunity, and I wanted to leverage it, knowing that given carly also said, hey, there's this field right next to the park. If we drive like five minutes away, we could find it. After the wedding, we drove to the field. This was it and it's just a path that's actually a biker's path and we drove to it, and they allowed me to shoot some of their wedding photographs there. One of the things I liked about carly in gabriel was that they had a quirky sense of style, and I felt like they were non traditional and I feel like nontraditional also works very much for in an editorial perspective and that's what I wanted to highlight to future brides do we need all my brides to walk around barefoot? No, of course not. But it did. I like the fact that one of my brides and a mix of a few of them had the propensity to absolutely I was going to showcase that also to have the opportunity for a bridegroom to simply say whatever you think at the best time and the best light I was able to choose what time we would be able to be shooting because they wanted the best photographs. Whenever somebody says that to you take that and ron and create the most perfect day because they're saying we trust you and we want the best photographs as a byproduct of it so how did I use this wedding as leverage? This happened for me in the summer of two thousand seven? Well, when clients email me still to this day, but yet even then I was sending them samples of engagement sessions and weddings that were branded now migrating words are fun, fresh and editorial. When I would look at these weddings up until this point, I hadn't had a wedding that I felt encompassed all of those things and finally gave ruling carly gave me the opportunity to showcase a wedding that was fun that was fresh and editori well, it was simple, but it encompassed all of those things. So when a prospective client emails me, I was emailing her back with information about my services, my collections as well as a link and I said, here is a recent link here is a link to a recent wedding I photographed to give you a better idea of my style. I wanted to make people feel something about me if they looked at that wedding and said who hated perfect, I was starting to create a clientele that wanted a particular thing if clients saw it and said I really like that great, we were already on the same page and while she might not want barefoot, she might have a greater appreciation for good lighting for fun posing for giving me a little bit more freedom if you don't show your clients what you want, how were clients know what it is so a lot of time to say what we don't have this ok, but what are you doing to show them? How are you? How are you? How big of a net are you casting to capture the type of fish that you want? Now this is the first sweating that I finally had come into my own because I finally felt like I'd come into my own I wanted to use it in a way that would leverage me in a different capacity. Now we're talking a little bit about how I used signature weddings to build my brand business in clientele so later in two thousand seven so like I mentioned before, I had shot thirty eight weddings in two thousand and two thousand seven later in two thousand seven, late in the summer of two thousand seven and early in the fall I had shot two separate weddings that I felt could be used for signature weddings in two different capacities so well I was doing was rounding out what my signature weddings were looking like so that I could tracked a certain type of client, and in late two thousand seven I shot two weddings, one wedding for mark and tiffanie and another wedding for martina and george now when I got these weddings, I immediately added them for client enquiries so I shot market tiffany's wedding first and then later on I shot jorge martinez so when I was getting a perspective client inquiry I was sending them not on ly gable and carly's engagement session I mean wedding I was sending them mark and tiffany's wedding and then after I shot martina and georgia's wedding in that email I was including three weddings still to this day when somebody emails me, I immediately send them back three sample engagement sessions and three simple weddings if they take the opportunity to watch all six slide shows and they still like me were already on a great page good perfect I'm putting things out on the internet to tell people this is who I am and this is what I like if you don't like it were probably not a good match great we've saved each other enough time now I wanted to use these winnings along I want to use market tiffany's wedding and georgia martinez waiting along with gabriel in carly's to help shape one how I wanted to shoot to the details I wanted to shoot and three this stylistic freedom that I wanted I'm going to showcase a few of the photos from those weddings and talked about why I felt that they wanted to use them in a way and how I leverage them so this is a photo from mark and tiffany's wedding this is marking tiffany cute, sweet good people, part of the reason why this is a great opportunity with mark and judy worked together at the same start up company I was on ly chosen as a wedding photographer because they don't know anybody else they had heard. Oh, jasmine's, a photographer and we were privy to information when mark was going to propose to tiffany james is like, hey marks having all of the friends go and be there as a surprise after he proposes. I took my camera long and I photographed the proposal. I put together a slide show from it, and then her family loved it and they said, well, can you shoot? The wedding was like, great, awesome. This wasn't my traditional clientele, and they were definitely outside of the market. I was a bargain as far as they were concerned, but they said they saw the photos. They liked what I did it. They proposed, like, great you should wedding awesome this's the first wedding that he had that actually had a ballroom setting. And when I walked in, I was just like I had never shot this before. I was a little overwhelmed with it, but one thing that I wanted to point out was the fact that there were seat covers. That automatically indicates that it was a wedding outside of the caliber in which I was working and that there were also things like printing paper goods this is like a very big editorial thing the more printed paper goods more viable for some reason printed goods are just like they're fun to photograph their fun to feature and they really showcase the identity of a bright and this is the first time that a bright it actually put so much time and effort into what she was into creating her day and it was the first time that actually had seen a theme to the day in the theme where is like a seascape they had they were married right along the coast and huntington beach now this was mark and tiffanie um it was also to I had to make sure and get a detailed photo that it was a plated up until this time it had been buffets or you know, like a buffet line or picnic style wedding this is the person that was a seated dinner so I wanted to make sure and document this because as a signature wedding I want to show what I want to shoot court next photo this is martina in george martine and george book me online I don't particularly remember how she found me, but she said she found me from just being on the web I don't know what that means I had somebody give me that response now I would do a little bit more research but it was my first year I was like ok, I don't care I just want to shoot it when I should have to the engagement session I realized they were african american and I was like awesome this is great I want a portfolio that is so diverse of ages of size of culture haitian creation asian I'm care I want to shoot it so when I had this opportunity to shoot this amazing couple and have add diversity to my portfolio and then coupled with the fact that she had spent so much time in creating the details today I was excited and I'll come out and be honest I was the bottom wrong member of that creative team she booked me I think maybe five weeks before her wedding she had everything else plan is just like I just need a bargain photographer and I was the first photographer I was fine with it um because I was particularly fine because she had, you know, created a day full of details that I had never had the opportunity to shoot a little bit more extensive had a team ahead stories she worked with this really cool florist in san diego who was really excited to work with so I made sure and ask for time in the timeline to be able to shoot the details in one second claimed that I wanted that marty was like, oh, I definitely want that because she had invested that's where her her heart was in her details on her photography, but I was like, well, in order to get photos of the details you need give me time. Also in that respect is the first time that I started using an off camera and off camera flash. So I think that helping when you have really low lighting, bringing in an off camera flash to shoot ceremony diesels really does help. Given an editorial field, the more light you have from different perspectives really does help from from that scope. One thing I want to point out in this particular photo, the things that I learned now is I was in this hotel rush for this wedding, but why did they leave the bread and butter out on the table? This is a beautiful tamil, a lift, but bread and butter, unless you have butter that is like carved in a certain shape, or has a piece spring of lavender or mint or time in it, maybe you could leave it anything else, take it off the table if it can be removed, and because it doesn't add anything, please do so it's personal pet peeve, and I'm sure, like editors feel the same way. And also, here is a photo of the cake to show case from beginning to middle, to end the types of details that I wanted issue. And these were all details. That was including in the slide show to show not what I have. I mean, to show what I wanted, in addition to what I had at that very moment.