Wedding Photography Stratford – a year in the life
Wedding Photography Stratford – a year in the life
People often ask us what a typical year looks like and what stories do we have to tell.
This year we have decided to do a retrospective look back on 2017 with a blog a week taking you on a journey in the life of a wedding photographer.
The year starts as it normally does with the usual post Christmas and New Year hangover. After a busy period of weddings between Christmas and New Year, we use the week to get everything backed up and first draft edited. The rest of the week is then spent getting stuck into the main editing. Although we don’t formally open the studio until the 9th, we are very much head down behind the scenes catching up with the editing side.
People often ask how long it takes to edit a wedding set, as I’m sure some people think its as simple as dumping the images off the cameras and away you go. Nothing could be further from the truth. Once we get the camera cards back to the studio, we will meticulously go through them and make two full back up sets on different hard drives stored to 2 different locations for safety. Each card is then checked against the drives to ensure all the images have transferred correctly. This process alone can take up to 2/3 hours just because of the file sizes.
All images then go into a processing queue, as all wedding images are edited in strict order of when they are shot. Depending on the time of year, the queue time will be anything from 10/20 days typically. Once out of the queue, the first edit gets done. All images will be gone through and selected images will be converted from the camera capture format into standard files and will have a basic crop and colour / light balancing done on them to ensure consistency across the whole wedding set. This process alone can take anything up to 8/10 hours.
The next part of the process is the second stage edit, images will be gone through and have an element of correction on them. To avoid doubt this is not “filters”. We are natural wedding photographers and use the cameras to create the effects at the capture stage. This correction process is more about correcting anything that we couldn’t influence on the day. This process typically takes about 4 hours.
The images will then go through the final process which involves a different photographer checking the set and signing it off for final release.
At this point, images are then released back to the clients in a viewing format.
This is unfortunately what most of our week looks like this early in the year but is a big part of what we have to do to ensure the standards and quality is maintained for our clients.
Having said that our first wedding of 2017 was Claire and Stephen on the 7th January at the Grosvenor Hotel in Stratford. This is quite a regular venue for us to shoot at, having built up a really good relationship with the venue over the years.
Claire we had got to know previously having been in for a photoshoot in the studio with her daughter the previous year, Stephen we’d only met for the first time at the consultation.
The day started well, weather wasn’t the best but then it is January…… at least it stayed dry though so on the day we were at least able to get outside and get some photos with the family. Really would have liked to get down onto the canal, which is the usual place for the couples photos at the Grosvenor, but on this occasion it really wasn’t going to happen.
The day itself went really well and the client were delighted with the end result.
As they come up to their first anniversary we wish the happy couple well.
