Washington DC photographer
Selecting your wedding photographer is not an arduous task. By learning my 10 secrets you'll eliminate most of the pitfalls it's so easy to fall into. It's very important that you make your collection of photographer in early stages in your wedding plans. The very best and most widely used photographers get booked early, often a year or two in advance. So when you have set your date and Washington DC photographer arranged the wedding venue, the next thing on your own list should really be your photographer.
If you're getting married a generation ago in the 1930's or 40's, your choice would have been rather limited. In those days photography was still something of a'dark art '. Literally the photographer or his assistant would spend hours at nighttime room developing films and making photographic prints by hand. Your choices for the wedding day would have been limited. The photographer would usually arrive by the end of one's wedding service and meet you at the church door. He'd then take a handful of pictures on his large camera. Usually a full length picture of the couple at the church door, a close-up if you're lucky and then perhaps a family group group or two. Colour pictures were a certain luxury in the 30's as colour film was still in its infancy. A talented photographer might offer you hand tinted or coloured pictures which he will make from black and white originals, but these could be a pricey option.
It was not uncommon to journey to the photographers studio either on your own wedding day or shortly afterwards. The complete business became quite an occasion. Posing before hot studio lights was something you simply did on special occasions. It had been the only path to get photographs of a fair quality. Simple cameras were becoming more open to the general public, but they were very basic with few control. In those days the professional photographer still had a strange quality; part artist, part chemist and part magician. He could produce photographs you simply could not achieve yourself along with your'Box Brownie'camera.
Today things are very different. Photography has been turned on its head. Gone will be the famous companies like Agfa and Kodak. Film based photography has been replaced almost entirely by digital technology, the grade of which improves dramatically year by year. A lot of people will have a camera of some type and are pleased with the pictures they take. Rapid advances in digital imaging have ensured that the'auto'function on your own camera will give you an acceptable image. Today you do not have to worry about shutter speed and'f'stops to get a reasonable picture. Point and shoot may be the easy option. However, technical progress doesn't imply that everyone knows what they are doing.
Try any Yellow Pages or some other directory, Google'wedding photographer'for almost any town or city and you will find an rising number of entries underneath the listing. Why is this? It's simply because technology has improved to this kind of extent that even the absolute most modest and affordable camera is effective at producing great images.
Sadly you'll learn that don't assume all so called photographer is really a professional photographer. Some work on it on a in your free time basis and might be a cleaner, taxi driver or office worker from Monday to Friday and a marriage photographer at the weekend. It has become a in your free time occupation for a lot of keen amateurs looking to make some more money at the weekend.