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Vanessa Joy: The Same Day Edit Checklist

So I'm just gonna leave this up for just a second. I am going to go through all of these steps, and it seems like a lot when you first looked at it, but honestly, it's not. And the biggest reason it's not is because the number one thing on their is getting assistant, you cannot do this about an assistant. Actually, I take that back the very first time I did the same day album and printed the album at the wedding, I did not have an assistant, so yes, you actually can do with an assistant, but to do the rest of what I'm going to talk to you about and had to eliminate that monday work, you do need an assistant for it because you don't want to be behind the computer the whole night of the reception, your responsibility to be there and shoot and actually your face be seen by the bride, you know, just to make sure she's comfortable and knows that you're around exactly. So get an assistant not to mention assistants are fantastic, they carry your bags for you, they find your lens caps for you,...

they do the random emergency thing that maybe forgot something at home or I don't I don't know there any batteries is just whatever you know, something you may have forgot. And if it's like the perfect seamless day then they become an assistant to the bride too and that's just you know, adding more value to the service that you're providing so get an assistant for sure and it doesn't have to be expensive I mean, you know interns I mean some some college students are just so eager to be on a professional in a professional environment in working on a professional set I don't have a set a wedding even if they're not interested in doing wedding weddings as a primary profession just tow work with the equipment and work with somebody who works along with the equipment they'll jump at it for relatively peat huts I mean, you could just throw in a couple of bucks or whatever or just or even give him experience and knowledge and wisdom on dh just just helping to guide and mentor them and build a relationship with them they'll appreciate that so much more than money a lot of time so not to mention nearly helping industry by doing that anyway so kill two birds with one stone there so getting assistant is definitely number one so just to help you guys out really quick I've actually made an entire same day edit checklist what to bring what to do and then how to follow ups so this checklist you could just run to vanessa and rob dot com and grab this checklist for free the first thing that pops up right there it's just a nice same day of checklist that you can have especially if you're going to go attempt this or attempt a little bit of it or some of them do a dry run maybe you want to dry run in your house you know set aside of three or four hour block go out and since you shoot some photos come inside and then just do this in your house and seeing time yourself see how fast you can get it done and maybe do it a couple times before you go do it we wouldn't recommend doing this for the first time on the job full because you might you know right not all pen not all pan out so you sort of make sure you're comfortable with the workflow first don't don't put your job or you're no the quality of your final product in jeopardy right and we'll talk about actually how I slowly started implementing this because I didn't do that either I didn't just all a sudden hey let's do this massive work for all at once tried this way yeah we do we definitely took a much slower building approach to it step by step so grab this checklist really quick help you follow along put this whole thing and just give you a nice guide and you guys will definitely get that who are here and not holding computers so first step when it comes to the same day at it is you have to take the right pictures, and this sounds a little silly because as photographers, I would certainly hope that we know how to take the right pictures, but these are the ones that you want to make sure that you have four the same day at it purposes the ones that you would focus on. So first of all, you want to take the right pictures for the bride and groom capturing their love story, the ones that they'll want. When I take pictures for the bride and groom, I am focusing on the two of them, but I'm also thinking about my album, thinking about pictures that I want for my album, so making sure you know, I used backgrounds in my album, so I want to make sure that have some pictures where they're all the way to write or to the left, not smack in the middle, so that don't fold on their faces he album onda also making sure that I take pictures so that I can sell them canvases and medals and metal miralles and all sorts of fun things after the wedding, so make sure that you're taking the right photographs for the bride and groom for your album and for your sales later as well. You want to make sure that you're taking the right pictures for the guests like rob said before everyone just wants to see themselves and it's true when you take your picture with your friends you're not looking at them first you're finding you first and everyone's the same way it might be a self conscious bangor and I don't know and you go bigger is just you mr how do I look in this picture? Okay everything good for while the browning look really pretty so you want to make sure that you're taking pictures for your guests everyone wants to see pictures of themselves included in this I suggest putting pictures for the families as well because the family's heir definitely an important part and it's actually something this year that I'm going to focus a little bit more on is adding more family pictures to my same day edits family pictures just in general content to be a little bit more traditional but the's air the ones that are going to promote a lot of what we're talking about the same day at it so take the right pictures for the guests and then likely alluded to before you want to take the right pictures for the publishers all that means is details, details, details, details so any little thing that makes that wedding unique the centerpiece is the shoes even if you happen to be maybe in the couple's house for bride prep find little things that that are indicative of their personalities that will show off their uniqueness for submitting to publications, so make sure that you take the right pictures for the bride and groom the guests and for your publishers were going to go through the same day at it just step by step for you guys it's going to seem very overwhelming when I do it here but we're going to do it live in the next three segments you have no problem following along so step one I have my assistant download both my photos and the second photographer photos I bring a hard drive usb hard drive that I use and she downloads into the usb hard drive what's really nice about this other than instant backup because it's just nice to have backup for evenly leave the wedding fishing a blank in your car right now I'm not blinking my cards um she's just downloading them but when I get home later that night I don't have to have like a multi card reader I don't have to wait one by one for my cards to go through I can just plug in my hard drive and coffee the whole file over so it's really nice and my second photographer photos and then the second title gets their cards back right? Okay so they're not waiting for you to deliver their cards back to them exactly then I choose sixty the eighty pictures that are the favorites of mine using a program called photo mechanic and I'll show you guys how to use this later anybody familiar with oh wait do you see with I used photo mechanic because it is fast it's one of the fastest ways to call rename your images thie newest update of light room for I haven't had a chance to try it but I have heard that they've really boosted the power of you know being able to call your photos and categorize them and things like that personally yeah, whatever so personally this is faster for me because I don't have to import anything in delight room it's just there so I love photo mechanic so I like to choose the photos again I know what photos I need for my same day at it I know what photos are there the you know on the storyteller of the day so I don't trust don't trust my assistant do it but I think that's something that's my job teo call those pictures into picked springy consistency and that's why I make sure that the picture is being chosen or representative of your brand representative of the art that the bride has come to expect by hiring you and not getting somebody else's artistic representation exactly so next um I edit those sixty to eighty photographs right in photo shop, I don't use light room generally that's also because I photographed with the cannon wendy mark for so has a dual card slot I'm shooting brought on one card on my compact flash card and then on the sd card, I'm shooting medium sized j pigs, so I'm working with the j picks for this issue mentioned, I'm not working with raw files. Medium sized j pegs added at camera are perfectly fine and blown up campuses amuses pictures and albums. They're just medium sized j picks that I can work with them faster on the night of the wedding. Have a fast lawyer talk to, you know don't know, try toe. I wouldn't try to attempt working with large balls, because even medium j pegs are pretty low heart high resolution there. My mac, I have a mac book pro that I used, so maybe it is your is it really your body cell it's two thousand ten plenty fast, plenty fast, but just make sure that whatever equipment you going to use gonna handle it, no problem. Right and then it's, you know, using smaller j pace will just help things be faster, so I use them with an action set called far goring country actions, and they use them in program called action runner that helps me batch action my photographs again, I'm going to show you exactly how I do this later, but it's really important again to do things that are automated because you still have a job to do. You still have to go to the reception and photograph the reception cant be sitting behind your computer all night long, then I collage and logo them in a program called block stop you can find us on it blog's stop online dot com and I use is because again it's fast that's what I'm looking for it's a fast way for me to make a really cute little collages as well as stick my logo on the pictures you can see random little collages there on the right hand side of the blog's stump screen have options of how I'd like them to be organized and then they can mix them up and switch which picture goes where and it's just fast superfast I do this, I don't really like my assistant doing this just because I feel like how I organize the pictures and what pictures I've put together is all part of the storytelling style so again, it's just something that I like to do myself because these are the pictures organized in that manner that are going to be used in a lot of different places that are going to be seen publicly so I like to do this part um as well, by the way is editing my pictures again thanks for brand consistency so after that step four five my assistant will go and set up a digital picture frame on the digital picture frame I'm using those collaged and logoed photographs so I'd like to use the collage and logoed photographs because I want the people there to see my logo I want that repetitive lee there I also feel like people have short attention spans so if you have a digital picture frame that changes every three seconds I mean even I'm bored looking at a photograph for three seconds that's why I like having the collage of them because it's more toe look at in those three seconds and then it continues on so collage and logoed photos go on that digital picture frame my assistant will go on just she's a cute assistant a picture of her later so she can just go smile any meter day and he'll go get her a cocktail table and tablecloth and she'll grab whatever she needs so what's the maitre d's a nasty woman? Well yeah then I have to go over there so we stick those out, and then I make cards, assuming I did an engagement session with them, I actually have these cards, and I'll show you them later. I used the loft cards from black river imaging. They're these beautiful. They're thick cards that have a very nice linen water color texture to them and their cards that on one side has the picture. An engagement picture of the couple on the other side, it says to see lauren and jeff wedding pictures go too. Vanessa jory dots moment dot com so it gives all the guests that link and what I do is before the wedding. I'll e mail the bride hey, and making up these really cute cards for you. Let me know how many guests you have, so I make sure have enough for your tables because I will stick those on the tables as long as she doesn't mind picture side up. So it's just he's. Really cute little pictures of the bride and groom. I could do more than one picture if I want to. You order them in sets of twenty five or so. And if there's one hundred or two hundred guests at the wedding, I'll get hundred cards. And that's like four different pictures so they look really cute on the tables and get the dye cut so just depending on the wedding, if it's a really detail oriented wedding, I'll probably do the di cut and make it look really cute, but in reality it is advertising for me because I'm telling them my website, my logo's on there and where to go look at the pictures so after she sets up, my assistant also makes a slide show using an emoto I use an emotive because it's really quick and easy and my assistant could do that she it's a no brainer for her. She just upload the pictures. I pick a song either from the animal to a library or I'll upload my own from song freedom realty music make sure that you are covering yourself in protecting yourself, not getting sued. If the reception hall does not have or does not allow us into their wireless network, I have a for g internet stick that I got from t mobile. I got from t mobile because it was the cheapest one thirty nine, ninety nine a month and I think it's well worth the thirty nine bucks a month to be able to do something like this on weddings it's a little bit slower again, which is why the medium j pegs right? Because you're uploading them to the animal sideshow. I am uploading just the picture to the an emoto slide show. I'm not using the collage pictures here. So this is the digital picture frame that I use by nix it's, an eighteen and a half inch high res digital frame. So it is ten eighty, which is important to remember later about sizing your pictures for your digital frame. And so you had to do that. But that's the one that used it's about two hundred bucks it's, beautifully crisp. The colors are really true. Fantastic on dh. What I like about it, which is different from the old digital frame that he used to use, is that when you're looking at it from the side, it doesn't change the color, the loot, the luminous luminosity of it it's on the directional viewing so that's really important, because when you have fifteen people around this tiny little picture for him, not everyone is obviously having that direct view. So I wanna make sure that my pictures look good no matter what angle they're looking at, you can control just thinking out like a sore thumb. You couldn't just guess itjust to break this down if you want to, yes. These air just an example of the loft cards you guys here in the audience they're gonna get to feel them they're amazing but that's so you can see just the thickness of autumn so it really makes an impact you know when they see the bride and groom's engage in picture on there I think it's adorable really, really cute all right on to the next step so step seven is my assistant will upload those logoed and collage photos to facebook and she tags the bride, the groom and the vendors in them on facebook I do put them on my business page and every bride and groom gets their own album I feel a little impersonal oh wedding pictures and put everyone's wedding pictures in there I will do that for engagement pictures because I don't know a facebook limits the number of albums you have, but if I'm making sixty albums a year of a feeling they might get a little angry I don't know so do put all my engagement pictures in the same one but my wedding um same day at it did you get their own album there and again the logoed uh pictures so that all of their friends see the logo as well um I do have my assistant also start their online gallery so I use smugmug she just uploads the regular not the collage or low good ones upload them to facebook feed the online gallery the way that I set up my gallery's it's you know jeff and lauren's wedding and then I'll have sub galleries and this one will be called vanessa's favorite or jeff and lauren favorites on dh then later when I do the proofs that will be jeffrey lord reception jeffren lauren getting ready different learn ceremony and that kind of thing so just examples of um pictures and what it looks like online moving on to our next steps so my assistant will print ten of my favorite pictures on a cannon picks emma I p one hundred printers that the printer that don't have their about one hundred eighty bucks um it's a great printer it prince four by six pictures which is the size that I use and I just print ten of them I use an album from renaissance that is just a self mount album so it's just peeling stick and I will assemble that sometimes during the reception I just need some mindless activity just tow for a second from all the craziness esso I like to put that all together myself it's just a mindless little thing that I get to do it's like my break you know right before dinner I do put a sticker on the back of the album inside back cover that has my logo on it and I'll show you guys what that looks like I could have renaissance, maybe, you know, make it die of my logo. Put that on there. But this is a less expensive alternative. So, that's, why I do that? I don't think anybody's really criticizing how the logo is on the hour? No, it actually, it looks really cute. I do. I do with the pictures that I print out the ten favorites that I print out. I will sometimes print the four best six picture as just one picture and sometimes all collage them. I'll use blawg, stump and make a little collage. So sometimes yet ten pages, but it might be fifteen, sixteen, seventeen pictures. So great little album I love using the little album because later, she's just thrown that little thing in her purse bringing it to work, bringing around, showing her friends really just, um, fantastic for word of mouth. So after that my assistant uploads the slide show pictures, um, to my blogged she actually will upload. You can see that one over there that when his blog's stomp social upload through bloxham, so block sample automatically. When you tell to upload the pictures to your blogged, which is really great on dh then she lists and hyperlinks all the vendors so my assistant will do that that is step eleven. And I usually organize it just like how you see it here so we've got the title up there I'll put like one of my favorite pictures I tended either do the bride and groom were some details again my audiences brides to so they see details they're like they're probably going to read the rest of the log I say my little thing and then all way at the end is where I put all the vendors and we'll go through all that there were twelve my assistant uploads the slide show pictures to two great lights to be submitted for publication I do not put the logoed and blog's stomped ones here these are just a regular pictures because these the ones that publication's leaves and print and pray that one is destination I do you will see that the summer coming out in that national destination magazine so I love to write lights you can see up in the top rate it's actually up to sixty one now weddings in mind that have been published so it's really great what's nice of ho to bright lights is you know all those publication minds it's not like sixty one publications and style me pretty yeah that'd be great but that's not the reality not all of my weddings you know style pretty me style me pretty is not going to want everyone in my photograph because not everyone is going to fit that style so one thing I really like about to write lights if you have a wedding that was just not one that most major magazines or publications are gonna like, you can go ahead and submit to what they categorized as non exclusive publications, and it just means that these smaller blog's don't care if that wedding was published on another block and it's nice because it's still going to help your ceo to have your work published in your website published everywhere and it still can make your bride happy that they their wedding was featured somewhere so it's one thing that I really really like about two bright lights and the way that you can smith for publications so this is the end of my list, so there are twelve steps altogether. S so do we have any questions from you guys hear about just the steps of the same one from beauty of the lake in st pete ass? I thought that publication's did not want your photos shared online before publication, and I believe this was in reference to the facebook, you know, hearing on facebook earlier how do you make sure they aren't over shared or do you only share the ones you don't submit to to bright lights? That is a really good question that varies per publication normally in most publications they do not mind that it was published on your own blogger website because everyone puts good weddings on their own blogger website style me pretty does request that you hold off exactly, then some of them will request that you hold off there's, a local magazine by us, and I believe, soundly prettiest, starting to request that you just hold off on publishing it until after they publish it. So you just have tio I want to know what publication you plan on submitting it to. So if I've got a really awesome wedding and I want to submit it to stanley pretty, I won't schedule that block post until a little bit later, just because I don't want to ruin my chances, so get to know the publications that you will be submitting teo and, you know, make judgment calls based on that and that's really a very important thing to note, so I'm glad they they brought that up because you don't also want to submit to more than one publication that's an exclusive publication. Yeah, karen, when it comes to an emoto, once your assistant has actually built the built bc to you, then download it and upload it yourself, or do you share just directly from service? I will share it directly with the service in a way I make sure that their branding comes off of it. My clients don't know it's an animal too slideshow especially now with all the different styles they're coming out with but I do have a specific way that isn't my monday follow up that will go over that is, um that is intended for my clients to actually be the ones that shared around I think one of those styles is yours now yes, yes they actually created a style that, uh we work together to create think it's called the page turner it's a fun style on an emoto I like it it's just a little bit more vintage chic we have yeah, the next question is actually far in studio audience members I would put you on a little bit of a hot seat anyone of you that is willing to jump about have any of you do regularly submit teo online publications and if you have or have not like what's preventing you from doing that or have you been successful in in submitting anyone of you want to jump in? Thank you. A couple years ago I did start teo submit to publications, but it I quickly really is like how muddy of a process that used to be with like having to send in physical dvds of galleries and things like that so I kind of just let that go and stop doing that, so I'm excited to see an easier way to make that having I'm right there kind of with you I started getting into the research phase of it and just realizing how mixed the message was and feeling like it was too big a mountain toe trying climate that stage of my career hopefully we'll give you some clothes on yeah and I did this a very similar thing I was submitting to like each individual blogger publication individually and they all had different requirements and I was literally spending I think three full days looking up the requirements I had this amazing beautiful spreadsheet for myself as a chief here's someone so here's their direct link use their evil here is there like file sizes that they want and and it was just too much hassle so to bright lights is sounds like the answer is yes yeah it's fantastic and just take so much of the guesswork out of it and then like I'll show you working with bog lynx on the way that I make the blog's just I'll just email that link to the editors in which it would have to be polish if that's the way of doing it but great okay question from laura madea this is well what is your moderately storm system for guests? Can you post in tag without a release? That is a good question I would probably go over with your lawyer how do you phrase that in the question you can't you can't force guests to be a part of a contract that didn't some of themselves sign I don't believe that is legal however I've never had that kind of problem and if they ask you to take it down I can take it down but more often than not they make it their profile picture instead so yeah we have a question here yeah related to tagging people on facebook I would love to be able to tag all of the bridal party because I feel like that would be really effective for them to see your work afterwards do you go and like hunt down their profiles and friend them before the wedding because don't you have to be friends with them to tag yes so I'm always friends with my bride and groom before the wedding I have a little temple email that accomplishes that first so I'm friends with them and then I'll ask the bride and groom to tell you shouldn't even have to ask usually theyjust do or they take themselves so every once in a while I'll be friends with the maid of honor or the mother of the bride or father brighter whatever it is and I'm usually friends or have liked the different reception halls in those types of vendors to so yeah if you're not friends with them you can't tag them but just ask someone who is and who knows who they are unless you've memorized the entire wedding great, all right, next question is from christine p photo and she asked, what about retouching, for example? What if your couple has a bad skin to try to retouch these pics before printings last sharing on the same day? That's a really good question, all my bride's air beautiful, so I don't have that problem most of the time, I take care of those situations, by the way, that I photograph because I do photograph it lower aperture so that does help smooth out the skin. If I end up with a photo that I really love but for some reason it's just not portraying them in a good light for their skin or any other reason. One I'll probably won't use it in the same day at it, and I'll retouch it later or two I'll turn and walk away, and that helps so feed every ways that you can, you can adjust it. Sometimes I will retouch for the same they edit, but that's extreme rarely because I usually don't have too much of a problem. I worked with good makeup artists.