Wedding Photography

Wedding photography is a rare lucrative career in photography. Unfortunately, with digital photography, there are more and more amateurs posing as professionals out there, but if you really are interested in breaking into this business of wedding photography, learn all you can, apprentice with an established wedding photographer, and most importantly train your eye to see those special moments. If you have questions about gear, read the photo.net Wedding Photography Equipment Guide. How about Pricing Structure or Wedding Digital Workflow? We put together an entire series on the Business of Wedding Photography, which is an invaluable resource. The Wedding Photography Insights with Jeff Ascough shares a lot of tips on wedding photography from one of the top ten wedding photographers in the world. Our best advice to you: keep pushing your boundaries on your photographic creativity and talent, interpersonal skills, and marketing potential and you'll go far in this business of wedding photography. 

Business of Wedding Photography

Topic #3: Web sites for the professional wedding photographer

Marc Williams

The Business of Wedding Photography is an extensive subject, best answered by a team of professional wedding photographers, who also happen to be star photo.net members. In this article, these professional photographers have contributed advice and personal experience gained from running wedding businesses. Not only have they provided wedding photography tips, but they also included example wedding photos of dresses, rings, ceremonies, and more. Whether you are just entering the field of wedding photography, or are a seasoned professional, the tips and insights shared here should be helpful with your own wedding photography business.
We asked our panel of experts the following questions:

An effective wedding photography web site

What are the most important elements for an effective wedding photography web site?
Jeff Ascough: Simple interface, good clear images, and a sense of style and individuality. Template sites are not such a good idea as they promote mediocrity and make photographers look the same.
Josh Root: Images, images, images, and information. People don't seem to care if they are fancy flash pages or simple HTML ones, just as long as the images and information are there. Other features that clients seem to like: a page that introduces you, your photographic history, and a calendar that shows your booked and open dates.

David Wegwart - Denver/CO.

Conrad Erb: It should show your work. That sounds elementary, but far too many beginning photographers have a home page with a huge paragraph of text that reads like this, "John Smith is very passionate about photography. Since he was a little boy, he has been using cameras to capture every precious moment..." Talk is cheap, and when I see a photographer who has too much text on the front page of their site, I get suspicious that they aren't very good. Too many photographers have cheesy bios with the words "precious," "capture," or "passionate". It gets old, very quickly. Writers write. Photographers show. If you are passionate, show me your passion. If you capture moments, show me those moments, don't just tell me about it.
Michael Mowery: Simplicity, lots of great photography, no pricing on the site.
Marc Williams: The photography itself. Often the more words, the lesser the work. Contact info and something about price to target the right clients is also important.
Nadine Ohara: Since I don't have a web site yet, that would be the most important to have now. I also believe the most important elements are the photographs themselves, then contact and pricing info.
David Wegwart: An eye-catching initial photograph and menu layout. Pictures, and more pictures. When I look at stats from my own site, the area that is hit over and over is the gallery.

Josh Root

Designing a photography web site

Did you design your own web site or hire a designer?
Jeff Ascough: I used a designer: Brian Crouch at Skooks.
Josh Root: I did it myself. If I were doing it again, I would pay someone. Mine is functional, but not the greatest.
Conrad Erb: I have always designed my own site. It took me a while to get there, and probably would have been a better investment from the start to hire a designer or use a basic flash template, but I enjoy learning new things like HTML and CSS and prefer having total control over my site.
Michael Mowery: Livebooks.com are awesome. They allow you to design and redesign at will.
Marc Williams: I do the initial design because I'm an art director, but differ to the experts on structure and flow. My site is badly in need of updating, like the Cobbler's children going without shoes.

Nadine Ohara - SF Bay Area/CA

Nadine Ohara: I will be buying a template. I don't have the time to learn how to make my own, plus the current templates seem to be able to do the job.
David Wegwart: I used a template that I liked. It's a few years old now and I need to update it.

Photo proofing and print sales

Do you offer proofing and/or print sales from your web site?
Jeff Ascough: Yes, we have a Skooks Kart.
Josh Root: No, I do not.
Conrad Erb: Yes. I used to use Pictage, but after a variety of negative experiences with them, I switched to Smugmug. Smugmug is much easier to use for my clients and myself and is much more affordable without all of the heavy handed marketing that Pictage did. Yes, there are many good choices out there, but I never researched them because I was so pleased with Smugmug.
Michael Mowery: I currently offer web proofing and will offer print sales from my web site in the near future.
Marc Williams: No, I do not at this time.

Jeff Ascough

Nadine Ohara: I will probably offer online hosting and sales from the site, but will use my current pro lab's service and provide a link.
David Wegwart: No. However, I have a link that takes clients to the gallery area for their wedding images. From that site they can order up to 8x10 prints, but have to contact me for larger ones if they