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Yes, I was talking about "latitude" as in "forgiveness." That makes it easier to get an acceptable image from film than from digital.

And yes, you can still have a pro lab color correct your files. You can even pay people to process your RAW images. My point was about the glut of new "professional" photographers who don't understand these issues, don't understand color, and don't even have an eye for it, but like taking pictures, so they've put up a website and started calling themselves professional photographers. They're doing their own color, poorly, because it's cheaper.

Color is not easy. My wife is one of those people who just sees it naturally. It took me years of experience to get as good as she is. For the record, I am a full-time professional photographer.

By the way, you have some beautiful images on your website. I especially like your landscapes.

• Feature stories photography. These are either portraits of people being profiled in articles, or images that illustrate a story. The paper hires a photographer ahead of time and arranges the photo shoot. There is not a job an amateur with a camera phone is going to do well.
• Sports photography. High school sports, college sports, whatever. This is a field for which your greatest assets are connections to get you on the field, a strong knowledge of the sport, and, oh, yeah, a $4,000+ high fps camera body and a $3,000 - $7,000 400mm or 600mm f2.8 lens so you can crank your shutter speed up high enough to freeze action, and open your aperture wide enough to blow out the distractions in the background. Not a job for an amateur with a camera phone.
• News coverage of planned events. Political rallies, parades, community events, etc etc. An experience professional with a good eye and professional equipment is going to do a much better job than, again, a schlep with a camera phone.

I am a wedding photographer. That's ridiculous. In all the seminars and conventions I've been to, in all the magazines and websites I read, I've never heard of any wedding photographer advocating WiFi for this reason, or any other, really. Yes, you take a lot of images (my wife and I typically shoot 2000-2500 at a wedding, RAW), but a 2GB flash card can hold 225 RAW images or 450 JPEGs from an 8MP DSLR like a Canon 1D Mark II, and can store them a lot faster than a 55Mbps 802.11g transmitter can offload them. I'd also be very worried about some kind of failure or interference that prevented my images from being transmitted or recieved. When you're just using the flash card, you know immediately you have the image. You're not going to be running to the computer every few minutes to check up on it there.

These devices are meant for commercial shooters who need to show large images to art directors immediately, or event photographers who transmit action shots from little league or high school football games to a central locations for viewing and purchasing by parents. I would say a wedding photographer relying on one of these devices is asking for trouble.

The highest quality gear costs money, and I want to produce the best images I can...it's as simple as that. This is also a very competitive field. There are a lot of photographers, and every little edge helps. Instead of buying a 1DmkII for $4,500, I could have bought a 10D for $1,500, but having looked at thousands of 10D images, and thousands of mkII images, the mkII produces a cleaner image (less noise), with about an extra half a stop of shadow detail, with a greater dynamic range of colors. Then there's the increased shooting performance. The autofocus is so much faster and more accurate, so I'm less likely to miss shots. It's worth the extra money, so I can produce better images, so I can charge more for them.

Of course the computer equipment is a tax write-off, but it's also necessary. We're all digital, and a typical wedding produces about 2,500 8MP images. It takes a lot of redundant storage to store them and make sure we don't lose any, and then it takes a lot of horsepower to sort through and edit all those images. Designing the album pages is also a monster, as I'll frequently be working on several 500+ MB page spreads at the same time.

Retouching is entirely necessary. I'm not talking about painting eyes on people...no I've never done that. I just make sure people aren't blinking when I take the photo. Skin retouching means removing blemishes, bags under the eyes, shiny skin. The wedding I did last weekend was in a garden, in Florida, in July. It was about 95 degrees with about 80% humidity. Yes, it's a historical record, but how do you think the bride would rather see herself? With greasy, shiny, oily skin with tired bags under eyes, or fresh with clean skin? Tough call there...or not. Just because one photographer ruined an image, does not mean that all retouching done by all photographers ruins photos.

I'm not quite sure you understand what I mean by 'art effects.' I mean that we capture all of our images in color, and then can convert them to black and white, or sepia, or modify the contrast and tone curves to produce a more striking image. Or we can alter the saturation of the image, or darken some parts to bring emphasis to others. For instance, here is an image as it came out of the camera, and here is it after some work in photoshop. That's just one small example, and is entirely subjective. You may not like it at all, but there are others who like it very much, and those are my customers.

The flush-mount album is just one of the services we provide, and has a LOT to do with the actual shoot. We pretty much plan the album as we photograph. I look around for details I can drop in as inset photos, or take an wide shot and make sure I leave a clean area so I can place images in that area later. The album design is just part of the fee...if you don't want it, you don't have to get it. We have prints-only packages for a lot less money.

$10k is excessive, I agree, but there are people who want to spend that, and who am I to stop them? No one has ever actually purchased our $10k package and our average sale is a $3,500 30 page 10x10 leather flush-mount album with 8 hours coverage and two photographers. That's hardly excessive.

There's a difference between "shy" and "discrete." Our formal training in photography was in photojournalism, in which you are expected to stay out of the way and not interfere. That's absolutely the way I cover candid events. However, formal portraiture is required at a wedding. It may not be your cup of tea, but most people do want posed portraits of their friends and family on their wedding day. During this time, a shy or befuddled person is going to have a very difficult time, as family members tend to mill about and waste time during the limited window of time available to the couple between the wedding and the reception. If the photographer's shyness results in a) the bride not getting the photos she

The highest quality gear costs money, and I want to produce the best images I can...it's as simple as that. This is also a very competitive field. There are a lot of photographers, and every little edge helps. Instead of buying a 1DmkII for $4,500, I could have bought a 10D for $1,500, but having looked at thousands of 10D images, and thousands of mkII images, the mkII produces a cleaner image (less noise), with about an extra half a stop of shadow detail, with a greater dynamic range of colors. Then there's the increased shooting performance. The autofocus is so much faster and more accurate, so I'm less likely to miss shots. It's worth the extra money, so I can produce better images, so I can charge more for them.

Of course the computer equipment is a tax write-off, but it's also necessary. We're all digital, and a typical wedding produces about 2,500 8MP images. It takes a lot of redundant storage to store them and make sure we don't lose any, and then it takes a lot of horsepower to sort through and edit all those images. Designing the album pages is also a monster, as I'll frequently be working on several 500+ MB page spreads at the same time.

Retouching is entirely necessary. I'm not talking about painting eyes on people...no I've never done that. I just make sure people aren't blinking when I take the photo. Skin retouching means removing blemishes, bags under the eyes, shiny skin. The wedding I did last weekend was in a garden, in Florida, in July. It was about 95 degrees with about 80% humidity. Yes, it's a historical record, but how do you think the bride would rather see herself? With greasy, shiny, oily skin with tired bags under eyes, or fresh with clean skin? Tough call there...or not. Just because one photographer ruined an image, does not mean that all retouching done by all photographers ruins photos.

I'm not quite sure you understand what I mean by 'art effects.' I mean that we capture all of our images in color, and then can convert them to black and white, or sepia, or modify the contrast and tone curves to produce a more striking image. Or we can alter the saturation of the image, or darken some parts to bring emphasis to others. For instance, here is an image as it came out of the camera, and here is it after some work in photoshop. That's just one small example, and is entirely subjective. You may not like it at all, but there are others who like it very much, and those are my customers.

The flush-mount album is just one of the services we provide, and has a LOT to do with the actual shoot. We pretty much plan the album as we photograph. I look around for details I can drop in as inset photos, or take an wide shot and make sure I leave a clean area so I can place images in that area later. The album design is just part of the fee...if you don't want it, you don't have to get it. We have prints-only packages for a lot less money.

$10k is excessive, I agree, but there are people who want to spend that, and who am I to stop them? No one has ever actually purchased our $10k package and our average sale is a $3,500 30 page 10x10 leather flush-mount album with 8 hours coverage and two photographers. That's hardly excessive.

There's a difference between "shy" and "discrete." Our formal training in photography was in photojournalism, in which you are expected to stay out of the way and not interfere. That's absolutely the way I cover candid events. However, formal portraiture is required at a wedding. It may not be your cup of tea, but most people do want posed portraits of their friends and family on their wedding day. During this time, a shy or befuddled person is going to have a very difficult time, as family members tend to mill about and waste time during the limited window of time available to the couple between the wedding and the reception. If the photographer's shyness results in a) the bride not getting the photos she

I don't think you understand how much professional camera equipment costs. A Canon 1D Mark II costs $4,500, just for the body. I have four of them (two for me, two for my wife). A lens costs $1,200 to $2,000 for fast Canon L glass. We have wides, mediums, longs, and specialties (like fisheye and macro). Then there's lights...professional quality portable studio strobes (I use Lumedynes) plus lightshapers will run you about $4,000 for a decent set to bring to a wedding, plus all the extras. Flash units, light meters, radio slaves, flash cards (about 20 $250 1GB Sandisk Ultra IIs. I know they only cost $200 now, but I've been buying them steadily over the past year), digital wallets, bags, stands, tripods, etc etc etc. It adds up. Do I need it? In order to produce the quality of work that people will pay $2,000 to $10,000 for, yes I need. If I were going to use 2nd-rate equipment, like a student might have (digital rebel, sigma EX glass, no lights), sure I could do an okay job, but the quality of the work would not be anywhere near as good.

The computer equipment is easy...try two G5s with artisan monitors, a linux server with a TB RAID 5 array, tape backup, external harddrives, and a 17" Powerbook. Plus scanners, printers, networking, etc etc etc.

Again, it's just a different level of service. Not even counting artistic ability, experience, and interpersonal skills (photographing a wedding is a lot like herding cats, and can easily overwhelm a shy person or a novice), the raw quality of the student's images are not going to be up to the standards of a professional.

For $500: Novice student, inexperienced, undeveloped style, no assistant, limited second-rate equipment, no retouching, no art effects (no black and white, no sepia, no hand-tinting, no vignettes, no diffusion filters, no watercolors, etc etc etc), no album
For $5,000: Experienced full-time professional, two photographers plus assistant, first-rate equipment, backup gear, lighting gear, digital retouching, art effects, and a custom designed flush-mount leather album. A flush mount album is one in which the entire page is a photo, flush to the edge, on a hard board, and bound like a coffee-table book. See here for one of our sample designs.

You can spend as much or as little as you want, but you get what you pay for. Some people are "picture people," and they want an extremely high level of service with regards to their wedding images, they're willing to pay for it, and that's the market I serve. That makes me happy because I like to try to produce the highest level of quality I can, but in order to do so I have to spend 40 hours or more on a wedding, and I can't do that part-time. Some people couldn't care less, and only hire a photographer because, "you're supposed to hire a photographer." Two different kinds of clientele, two different kinds of photographers. Pick the one that suits you...it's a free market.

Damn, I'm a wedding photographer, and I wish I could get $2,000 for three hours of work! Instead, my $2,000 wedding package takes about thirty hours (three hours pre-event consultation, six hours at the wedding, and another twenty-odd of editing, retouching, and printing afterwards), requires $40,000 ~ $60,000 worth of photo and computer equipment, and then I have to pay all those pesky taxes and the business overhead and what not, plus fund my own benefits. No company health and retirement plans when you're self employed! So, where can I get one of these $2k for 3 hours of work gigs you talk about?

I'm a wedding photographer. A model release is part of our contract, and part of the contract of every photographer I know.

Actually, I make my living as a wedding photographer. Well, I do other types of photography, too, but weddings are my favorite.

You can certainly find photographers who will either include reproduction rights with their packages, or who will sell them to you for an additional fee. Notice, I didn't say "copyright." No photographer will ever sell the copyright. See, there's two parts to copyright. First, you have the right to make any copies of the images you want. Second, you can prevent anyone else from making copies. Many photographers will let you make whatever copies you want, but no photographer is going to give up his right to make copies.

Essentially, it works like this. Let's say that for a particular package the photographer realizes that he needs to make $2,500 on the wedding in order to make it worth his time. That's a reasonable fee for a small package. Consider that we bring about $45,000 worth of photo equipment to a wedding, which all has to be paid for, maintained, insured, repaired, replaced, etc, and then use another $20,000 worth of computer equipment to edit, retouch, and archive...that adds up. Then there's business overhead from taxes, office supplies, advertising, etc, and on top of it we have to put food on the table and pay for health insurance and what not.

So, $2,500 in gross sales in the goal. We know from past experience that we can expect $500 in additional sales to friends and family after the wedding. So, the couple (or mom & dad) pay $2,000, and the other $500 comes from friends and family later. If you want to have the high-res digital files, that's fine! But it's going to cost $500, because then we know we're not going to get any reprints from friends and family.

Shop around...this is a completely free-market enterprise. There are NO requirements to be a wedding photographer. Any asshole with a camera can call himself a professional photographer, as no licensing or oversight is required...that's why there are so many bad photographers out there, and why a photography business it the most failure-prone business venture next to a restuarant. You can pay as much or as little as you want, but you get what you pay for. You can hire a student from the community college for $200 plus the cost of film and he'll hand you the rolls at the end of the night, but he's probably going to be using sub-standard equipment, and have very little knowledge of posing and lighting, and there will be no retouching, editing, or album design. Or, if you're interested, I know several fantastic photographers who will produce stunning works of art, but you're going to have to pay them $15,000. Shop around until you find the photographer who'll give you price you want and the quality of work you're willing to settle for. Good luck with your wedding!

IAAPPAIKTIAAFJ (I Am A Professional Photographer And I Know This Is An April Fools Joke)

Yes, you have to have a model release in order to use someone's likeness for commercial purposes. However, they have to be identifiable. Since the guy's head is removed, he's not identifiable, so there's no legal violation.

Examples: I can take a photo of you and publish it on my personal website. I cannot take a photo of you and publish it on my business website (korphoto.com if you're interested :) ) as an advertisement (implicitly or explicitly). I can take a photo of you such that you are unidentifiable (from behind, cropped to remove your head, silhouetted, etc) and use that for commercial purposes or in advertising.

Hey, nice work there. I love this photo. Ha!

I don't mind paying good money for good results, and it looks like you guys do nice work. But I have one question. Do you give your customers the negatives? I know that technically the person who took the picture owns the copyright, but I think it is really crappy when photographers keep the negatives. It's nothing more than a way to squeeze even more money out of the customer, and in many cases it just means the couple won't get all of the photos they wanted -- even though they exist and could be easily reproduced!

That was my main objective when looking for our wedding photographer. We had to get the negatives, no strings attached. It just happened that we found someone who did a great job at a lower price AND gave us the negatives. She didn't do all the extra stuff that it looks like you do with artistic color, etc, but that was fine because I got the negatives scanned and played to my heart's content with Photoshop. I actually ended up preferring it that way.

Thanks for the support, Speare. I happen to be a wedding photographer. It's a lot harder job than most people think. Here's a link to my post further on down about it.

I'm a wedding photographer (#10 on the list).

They're right and they're wrong. First, you can spend as little or as much on a wedding photographer as you want. I know people who will show up for $300, shoot a few dozen rolls of film and hand them to the bride and groom on the way out the door. Will there be some good photos? Maybe, but you can expect an awful lot of crap.

On the other hand, when my wife and I shoot a wedding, we make every photo a work of art: color correct, crop, edit, retouch, black and white, sepia, hand tinting, etc etc etc. Then we design a one of a kind album. This is not a "weekend" job. We spend probably about 3 hours before the wedding going over details and meeting with the couple, an entire day at the wedding (getting ready through the reception), and then about 40 to 50 hours the next week processing all the photos. Oh, and we also have to pay for our $40,000 of photo equipment, lights, computers, etc etc, not to mention all the rest of the stuff that goes along with running a business. Advertising, office space and supplies, promotional materials, phone line, fax line, internet, website, etc. Then, since we're working for ourselves, we have to provide our own benefits, so we're paying our own health insurance, and providing for our own retirement. Oh, and there ain't no two week's paid vacation, either.

With the advent of digital imaging, the technical aspects of photography have increased many times over. I've actually got a Master's degree in electrical and computer engineering. These days, you have to be an artist, an engineer, and oh, yeah a businessman, too. Good luck finding somebody to do all that for $300.

By the way, if you'd like to see our work (or need a photographer!) you can check out our website.