2010 Brides & Grooms… Beware!

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2010 promises to be a big year for weddings in Ottawa. We’ve just came from the Wedding Palace Bridal Show this past weekend and judging from the number of people who have attended the show and the number of interested couples who stopped by our booth, I am confident we should be booked solid this year.

If you’re planning to hire a professional photographer to cover your wedding, congratulations, you are very wise! When you’ll be browsing the numerous photographer’s web sites, pay close attention to what you’re seeing. When you narrow down your choices, beware! Ottawa has an over abundance of people who claim to be pros in the wedding industry, many even have elaborate web sites that may give the illusion they’re professionals, but it isn’t the fancy flash presentation of a web site you should be concentrating your focus on but the quality of images you’re looking at.

Wedding photography is probably the most important service you should be investing in for your wedding day. I realize this is a cliché and pretty biased for a photographer, but I hope by reading this you will learn a few crucial tips regarding the importance of your wedding day memories. I cannot stress enough how important the services of an experienced professional photographer will play in the recording of your wedding day memories. Your wedding album is an archive for your children and future generations. Are you willing to gamble on such an important day of your life?

First, let me speak from my 24 years of experience in the wedding industry. Countless brides and mothers have contacted me over the years to ask me if there’s anything that could be done with their wedding photos which they had contracted the job to a cousin, uncle or to a part time photographer who had a fancy SLR camera. Needless to say, those who chose that avenue regretted it deeply after the wedding! A person can invest in the most sophisticated and expensive DSLR camera but if they don’t have the professional training & experience of shooting weddings, they are bound to fail! Even students who have graduated with high honors from photography programs will attest when they took on their first wedding assignments, it tore their guts out because of the high level of stress they underwent in order to deliver professional looking images in a very fast paced & stressful environment. Stressful? Yes stressful because they also lacked the experience to coordinate the photo shoots and the people involved while trying to concentrate on composing artistic images throughout the entire day.

Wedding photography is without any doubt the most difficult photographic task a photographer will take on! Mostly because of the quick thinking and evaluating of technical data that is changing every minute throughout the day. Composing artistic images with the correct exposure for the subjects and the environment they’re in. But above all, the responsibility of wedding photography MUST be taken extremely seriously! It is the most important day in the life of a couple. it is a one day event, there is no room for irreparable
mistakes! Furthermore, the composition of professional looking images one has to compose frame after frame. Composing professional looking images shot after shot requires experience plain and simple! A few good shots out of 300 just won’t cut it! Taking 500 to 1000 images in order to capture a dozen good ones is a sure sign of a photographer that lacks technical & composition knowledge. You shouldn’t have to go through so many images in order to select 30 or 60 images for your wedding album. It is just too much of an overwhelming & frustrating task! On average I capture around 300 images per wedding. This being said, 95% of my clients will upgrade their wedding album to accommodate more photos because many of the photos “were too nice to part with” they say.

IMAGES THAT WILL STAND THE TEST OF TIME
Photojournalism and freestyle approach has become very popular in the wedding industry. I must admit, these type of images are a beautiful way to record emotions in a candid way that traditional posing cannot. However, composing an entire wedding album of such images will prove to be a messy album! A wedding gown to a bride is like a religion! She will invest a considerable amount of time choosing the “perfect” gown! To a bride, her wedding dress is what she’s been dreaming of since she was a kid and fantasizing about her fairy-tale wedding. Freestyle/photojournalism photography isn’t an elaborate way of showing a gown at its best. It will show certain detailed aspects of the gown but will fail to show the bride in her gown in a whole artistic perspective. Classic & scenic posing will best document a bride in her gown that freestyle/photojournalism will miss. (Because freestyle/photojournalism approach is shooting the event as it unfolds, the photographer doesn’t take the time to arrange the wedding gown and subjects and pay attention to specific lighting techniques.) Think of it as those beautiful wedding dress catalogue photos you’ve looked at so many times! Those are the type of images that will best represent your wedding dress and will be the most flattering poses for you. Combining multiple shooting styles will result in a more artistic and storytelling wedding album. An experienced wedding photographer will best document these styles and will be the most consistent shooter shot after shot. Your wedding album will be more artistic & storytelling if it is composed of artistic scenic portraits, classic and documentary/photojournalism approach.

COLOURS & DETAILS

One of the most common compliment I receive from my wedding clients is regarding the colours of my photos and the details. I am proud of this! I pay very close attention to colours and details and this all begins how the shot is taken in the first place. The crucial element in wedding photography is light; how you measure it and how you work with it! Too many inexperienced photographers who shoot a freestyle approach rely too much on their camera’s automatic metering features. The freestyle approach leaves them little choice because it is the fastest way to record multiple images in so little time. This in most cases will result in their images being overexposed, flat lighting, flat colours and very dull photographs. In many cases, the bride’s wedding dress will have washed out areas where details are no longer present in the photograph. I am very critical of this approach of shooting because I personally think it is careless. Photography has come a very long way in the past decade. Modern tools allow us to be even more creative and allow us to have better control over the quality of our finished products. However, if there is one thing that hasn’t changed, it is the basics of photography where light is everything! Too many inexperienced photographers leave their hand held meters in their camera bags and rely on their camera’s meters. Working with natural light and being able to modify it is an integral part of photography; especially wedding photography!

Getting optimized exposure in the first place is crucial; post production work becomes easier and the results will be more pleasing. This is why my work consist of nice saturated colours. Of course the medium I choose to print my work on is just as important! I have been approached by numerous wedding album companies in recent years and their product wouldn’t bring the best out of my work. These albums are often called photo books or digital albums. The paper they print photos on isn’t premium photographic paper. Not only am I not convinced of its durability compared to conventional photographic paper, but the results are very flat (even with a glossy finish). All wedding albums I sell (even digital albums) are printed on professional photographic paper are are coated for protection. I am very selective when it comes to photographic paper or any photographic supplies for that matter!

GETTING THE BEST OUT OF YOUR WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY

Before you hire a photographer for your wedding, be selective and pay close attention to what I have mentioned in this post. There are many excellent photographers in Ottawa; professional photographers that is! There are also some very inexperienced and careless ones as well. Many purchase fancy DSLR’s and think shooting weddings is easy money to supplement their income. Don’t be fooled by the fancy flash websites and attractive prices. Hire someone who has plenty of experience and mostly someone who has high standards, someone who takes wedding photography very seriously! A professional photographer who has made photography his/her FULL TIME career will take your wedding very seriously.

Good luck

Mario P. Menard
Professional Photographer


HAPPY NEW YEAR

The new year is here, we wish to give you our sincere greetings for the new year.

2010 promises to be a great year for our studio! We have new exciting products to offer our clients. If you haven’t booked your wedding yet, I highly recommend you act fast! We’re already more than 50% booked for 2010. Next weekend we’ll take part of the Wedding Palace Bridal Show and we expect to be fully booked within the couple weeks following it.

I would also like to encourage women who have been thinking about giving their partner a sensual boudoir portrait for valentine’s day to call me to schedule a no-obligation consultation.

The "WOW" Factor

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I have mentioned this before but this has to be the most rewarding aspect of photography! The “WOW” factor! making clients look beautiful and making them happy is the biggest reward I get from photography.
The reason for this post is a recent testimonial I received from a client who very recently came here for a photo shoot. This client was not only ecstatic about the results but also very emotional when she saw the finished product.

Here’s what she had to say:

Dear Mario,

I want to tell you how much I enjoyed my photo shoot with you. You made me feel very comfortable, and that was a huge thing for me.

It seemed like I hardly had to wait to get my photos and when I saw the finished pics in the studio, I could hardly believe my eyes! You had done something I didn’t think possible; you had made me look beautiful! I cried from amazement almost all the way back to my office.

I don’t know how I am ever going to wait the 5 weeks till Christmas to give my husband the enlargement, but I know this will be the most special gift he has ever gotten from me, and will be as ecstatic with it as I am.

I thank you with all my heart for this gift of myself, and will most happily and highly recommend you to anyone who wants photos done by you!

Sarah

Touching the lives of ordinary people

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A very touching story comes once in a while to make us reflect on the values of life and how we make a difference in this world. These differences may be little to some, but to others they make a world of difference. Photography in my opinion is the most powerful medium that man has ever invented! Not only does it stop time but it makes us reflect on past events that have faded with time.

A couple months ago I received a call from a woman to book a photo shoot. She wanted to have a portrait of herself; not any portrait, but a portrait that would be her last! The woman is from out of town, about 90 minutes from Ottawa. I gave her our address and began giving her driving instructions. She politely declined the instructions saying she would take the train to Ottawa and take a cab to my studio. This trip may seem a little excessive to some but to me, I was touched by her faithful determination to get to my studio. You see, Mary was a former client, in an indirect fashion that is. 16 years ago I photographed her daughter’s wedding in a small Ottawa valley town. The entire family were a pleasure and a privilege for me to have worked with. Down to earth and very grateful and appreciative for everything life had to offer. A family of christian faith who never took anything for granted and were very appreciative for all the family portraits I was shooting on that day.

Upon her arrival, I greeted Mary and we sat down to talk for a little while. I wanted her to be as relax as she could be for the photo shoot. I was curious and asked her considering her health condition, why did she choose to come to Ottawa, to my studio to have her portrait done? She gave me the raised eyebrow look and snapped “Because you made us all look so good Mario, why would I go anywhere else”? She continued: “This obviously is going to be my last portrait because of my cancer and I wouldn’t even have considered having someone else do my portrait”. She then stood up rubbing her hands together and said “Let’s do this” in a cheerful manner. I was speechless for a moment because I was so touched by what I had just heard! At 81 years of age, a disease that would take her life within a month or two but her spirit was amazingly witty and cheerful!

The photo shoot went very well, we laughed and had fun. We would stop after a few exposures and talk about family and events. After 25 or 30 exposures I was confident I had at least 10 very good shots that reflected her true spirit and personality. We then came into my office to download the shoot on the computer. While the photos were downloading, she commented how impressed she was with modern technology. When she finally saw the results she deadpanned “You see, this is why I insisted on coming here, I knew you’d make me look like the jewel that I am”!

Mary was overwhelmed with the results and ordered a 11X14 and a dozen 8X10’s for her children and grand children. I was able to print everything while she waited. I figured if she was faithful and determined to the point of getting on a train to Ottawa and getting into a cab to come to my studio, it was the least I could do. She was very thankful for it and even more so with her portraits. We talked for a bit and I served her a cup of tea with a couple biscuits. She even stayed around for my next appointment because her train’s departure was in a couple hours. Mary would at times give the young lady compliments on her looks and how the young lady had wisely chosen me as her photographer. The young lady looked at me and smiled, obviously charmed with Mary’s remarks and cheerful spirit.

When it came time for Mary to leave, I insisted on driving her to the train station. I had safely packed her portraits in cardboard to prevent any damage and slipped in into a bag. Upon arrival at the train station, I helped her out of my SUV and walked her inside, told her how thankful I was for her faithful business and said goodbye.

I must admit, I was emotional to see her walk away; this lady’s determination and spirit had to be deeply admired. I’ve thought about her every day ever since. Those portraits were her final memento of herself she would leave her family…

A few days ago I received a long distance phone call. It was from Mary’s daughter; the daughter I had photographed her wedding 16 years ago. She was calling to give me the news that her beloved mother had past away. I immediately felt a sensation of immense grief, the news felt like I had a canon ball in my chest! Mary’s daughter thanked me on behalf of her entire family for the wonderful portrait I had done for her mother. She also told me something that brought tears to my eyes. Mary had left a note with her framed 11X14, telling her family that this was her portrait to be used at her funeral and asking her family to thank me for “The amazing portrait that was created by our amazing family photographer Mario Menard”.

Mary’s daughter or her family weren’t aware of their mother’s trip to Ottawa. Mary had left the portraits with her friend living next door and had asked her to give the portraits to her daughter upon her death. It was her final way to say I love you with a memento that will be cherished forever.

In my 24 years as a professional photographer, I have done countless portraits of people, many of elderly people who some would share with me that those portraits were “just in case” type of portraits. I was always somehow touched by this but most of all, as a photographer who is passionate about recording and composing memories, I’ve always been aware of the importance of such portraits and how it touches many lives. However, this story has touched me the most in my 24 years. It touched me deeply because Mary was an endless enthusiast with a wonderful cheerful spirit. Her heartfelt smile prompted people to smile back with kindness and appreciation. Mary has touched me and made me realize more profoundly the importance and the meaning of a portrait… It is a memento that is cherished by the people we love, this, we all are aware of already. But most of all, a portrait is a direct communication that connects us with the people we love the most after they’re gone. It is an archive of our presence; an heart felt archive for the ones we love and leave behind.

Mario P. Menard

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