Making All Shots Count

As a former Forensic Photographer, I learned early on in my photography career to make all my shots count.

In legal photography, every photo taken has the potential to show up in court. And, you can't throw anything away either. If you shoot it, it's evidence and must be accounted for. Even the film negatives themselves must remain whole... often the film isn't even cut into strips just to prove nothing had been tampered with!

Now in wedding photography, this isn't really necessary, but why shoot something if there isn't a good reason to shoot it?

For me, my training taught me to be accurate in my photography. Often, if I shoot 1000 unique images, perhaps only 10-20 photos may be not of the quality I like and those I may throw away. Percentage-wise, that's only 1-2 percent. Not bad really...

In addition, I often Photoshop correct and print all of the images I shoot at a wedding and give all these to my clients. Sure, it takes a lot more time to work on 1000 images than perhaps 200 images, but that's what many of my clients have come to expect from me.

Are all the images artistic shots? Of course not. Some are simply documentary shots. But they help tell the story and they are quite handy when it's time to put an album together.

Many photographers shoot a lot of images at weddings, but don't give you everything they shoot. Sometimes only the best photos are presented to their clients. That's fine for them, but not for me. If I shoot something... there's a reason I shot it and I want my clients to have it. So, most of my clients choose to receive prints of a LOT of images... most often over 750 images and sometimes over 1000 images!

It's a different way to approach a wedding and definitely different than most packages that other photographers offer. But for me and my clients, it's important to make all the shots count to tell a more complete story of the wedding day.