The economic depression we are all facing at the moment, is certainly one of the worst, and some believe, even more damaging the great depression back in 1929. Many people are being laid off and losing their jobs and their income. It is very difficult for most people to continue to pay the bills and the mortgage when this happens. Having a skill with which you can make a part time or even full time income if necessary, can be the difference between making ends meet or filing for bankruptcy.
If you own a digital camera system, then you may have the skills and the equipment you need to make a good second income. Wedding photography can be a very lucrative part time of full time option. In the United State alone, wedding photography is approximately a $5 Billion per year industry. That's a sizable market. And with some know how and a decent digital camera, you can be a part of this industry. I have designed a course that includes everything you need, including business forms, technical discussions, sample ads and business cards, and even tips on using Apple iPhoto, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Apple's Aperture. You can see more information at my blog or website.
If you use an Apple Macintosh computer system, you have all the items you need to be able to process, edit, order prints and create photo albums, right from within the iPhoto software. You can create custom wedding books using iPhoto, and fully customize the printed product to please any bride.
iPhoto makes it quite easy to order prints and photo books. The orders are place right within the software, see my blog for sample images of the process. You can add words as well to really get a personalized product for your clients. The bride and groom will love the results, as they are very professionally printed, and relatively inexpensive.
Apples iPhoto makes it easy to edit and adjust your images. You can also remove red eye and blemishes. iPhoto 09 is quite a powerful product if you do not own or wish to purchase other, more expensive software, such as Adobe Photoshop.
One of the first questions I am asked when shooting with a digital camera (after the "which camera do you use, question), is, what format should I shoot? Tiff, High Res. JPEG, RAW etc. And the answer is very simple. RAW! There is NO other option. And you need to make sure that you are using the highest resolution (mega pixels) available on your camera.
You should only be using a digital SLR (DSLR) camera, with the most powerful (expensive) flash you can afford, available for your system. When you shoot a wedding, you will need to use flash for almost every shot you take. Indoors and out, even in bright sunlight. The flash will light dark subjects inside and when you are outside, it will fill in the shadows of your subject, and make the resulting photos look their best.
A very important point to remember when you photograph the bride, is to make sure that there is lots of detail in the wedding gown. With digital cameras, the sensor cannot record as wide a range of light to dark as with traditional film cameras, and whites in particular, can be very challenging to record with detail. This is where you need to be able to balance the flash with the available light to get acceptable results. Otherwise, you may have some angry people calling you after the event. And you cannot arrange a do-over for a wedding, it is a one shot deal. So, make sure you do lots of practice before your first real paying event. A good way to practice is to have you wife/girlfriend/kids dress up in white clothes and take lots of shots and note the settings you need to get detail in the dress, and good even skin tones on the brides face.
Photos of kids at the wedding can help make you a lot of extra money. Whenever possible, set up the kids in the bridal party by themselves. These kinds of photos will sell to the parents, the bride and groom and many other family members, especially the grandparents. Part of your job is to not just take good photos, but to take photos that will sell and keep you in a job and allow you to buy more equipment as you need it. You should always take individual shots of each kid and have the parents help to get them comfortable so you can get some good shots. Always try to choose an interesting background where possible. In order to focus attention on the kids (refer to the photo on my blog, listed at the end of this article) and not the background, I have made a selection around the kids in Adobe Photoshop, and darkened the background a little, so the kids will stand out and be the center of attention in the photo.
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