Catamount Country Club, Williston Vermont Wedding Photography

Catamount Country Club in Williston, Vermont has created quite the venue for wedding day festivities. The garden is a great spot for weddings with the guests looking down and backwards from what the "normal wedding setting" usually is. The bride and groom are close to the covered porch so every word and every expression can be seen by the guests.




The dining room is wonderful, with a vaulted ceiling and balcony overlooking the dance floor (how convenient for me:). There is a lot of potential for light streaming in through the windows that look out on to the green with views of Camel's Hump in the background. Very Vermont.

We stole away to the gardens for photos. There is a lovely bridge and benches for great intimate photos of the bride and groom and it's far enough away from all the action that you really feel totally private.





Then, there's the driving range! What can I say. People in evening wear look fabulous while golfing!



You really owe it to yourself to check out Catamount if you are planning a wedding. The garden and grounds are ideal for fun, the staff is professional and really caters to weddings. Visit them at: http://www.catamountcountryclub.com/

and visit me at www.donadavis.com and see more picture from Vermont and New England.

Beat Back Blah Photos

I get pretty tired of the "kid against the tree" photo that you see year after year and page after page in every senior yearbook. Portraits should be a little bit exciting and different. They shouldn't trigger the yawn response. So I was thrilled to meet Bekki and learn that she wanted an urban look to her images. She met me at the skate park in St. Johnsbury to start our session. The skate park has large murals that look like very artistic and socially aware graffiti with an unkempt look that gives the shots an edge. When you put a beautiful young lady in this setting it is like finding a flower growing up through the crack in the sidewalk--stunning. That dandelion on your lawn with it's hundred cousins doesn't even register but in the crack of the sidewalk it suddenly becomes note-worthy and beautiful.

Our next stop was in the rail yard where the sun was streaming in emphasising Bekki's blonde hair and blue eyes. The tracks guide your eyes straight to Bekki and she is the last thing you expect to see there. For more of this photo shoot check out the whole gallery here:



So, don't be afraid to get creative with your portrait and step away from the ordinary. It pays with truly unique and surprisingly beautiful images. One more example before I go is my three sons, all dressed for my oldest's wedding shot at one of those horrid motels on the steps. Setting certainly isn't everything!

Safegaurd you memories

The other day my neighbor, a bride from three years ago, showed up at my door. Her father had died and she wanted images for the funeral which I was very happy to provide. She also had moved and her disc had been damaged and her wedding pictures lost. This is the third request for a new disc this month. Life has a way of causing loss and destruction over the years. It's a good thing she had her pictures professionally shot because they will be in my archive for as long as I'm around--hopefully a good long time!

Whenever there is a disaster, like a flood or a house fire, and the newsman shows up to interview the victims they always say the same thing...that the insurance will rebuild their home and replace their furniture but a lifetime of memories is gone for good. That won't happen if you use a reliable photographer. Having a backup somewhere else is the best insurance for your memories that you can have.

Make sure that your professional photographer has your back...ask about your backup. I have met people who shoot weddings who just get done at the end of the night and hand the couple a disc. First of all, any editing that would improve the photos falls to you now...most people don't have the costly professional editing software to do this properly (without damaging the photos). You pay a lot for professional photography and you shouldn't have to spend the hours editing (often 24-40 hours) your own shots. Second, you probably can't count on a backup.

Discs begin to degrade after about three to five years. Your photos should be on your hard-drive and your disc and the disc should be checked every year at least once. Hard drives fail without warning and take your images with them so make sure you have both. Finally have a backup somewhere else. A family member's house can be good but remember to check the disc every year. Your professional photographer will keep your images in two places as well to insure they aren't lost.

Another good idea is to have portraits done each year...especially of children. Portraits are not costly and you would have a photo-record of your child's growth that would be safegaurded against disaster. It may seem like a good deal to go to Walmart or to use the school photograph to commemorate those precious memories but they do not have your back--or your backup. I'd like to be watching the news sometime and hear someone say to the reporter "I did lose a lot but fortunately I have a backup for my most precious memories"...now that would be a happy ending.

Getting the most from your disc part III

So we have your images the way you want them and it's time to make prints...are all printers created equal? The short answer is a big fat "NO". A lot of printers produce very poor prints. Some aren't even really photos--they are from an inkjet printer. You might as well print them at home.

Others are well worth the cost. Most premium printers do a very fine job and can be trusted to help get the look you really want but the real surprise is that there are a lot of discount printing houses who do just as good a job. They have the same equipment as the premium printer and if your prints need no adjustment, they are probably your best bet.

To go ahead and name names, among those I use and recommend are: Walmart, Adoramapix, Snapfish, and York. They all do great work and have a fast turn around. If you have problems with a print not looking right, these companies won't be able to help you, however. The technician's just run the file through without adjusting anything and may not even know how to adjust your prints.

Professional printers don't work with the general public (normally), so go back to your photographer with a request that he or she run your file through their pro lab. The pro lab will correct color problems and the photographer can usually handle any other adjustments needed. It's well worth the expense to have prints that look fabulous.

Getting the most from your disc part II

I was going to talk more about filters. There are so many great ones that it makes it hard to choose. The top one here is called "old" and it allows photos to be aged digitally. The color is sepia and their are subtle water spots along the edge. I love this dress with this filter...very classic. Below is one called "water". It looks like the bride and groom are standing beside a lake with their reflections in the water. You can click on these to get a better look.



This one is the ever-popular black and white with color accents. I've added a second effect on the second picture "crayon edges" in a vignette...look carefully at the flowers and leaves above the couple. The next image I've added a "crayon edge" vignette...look carefully at the flowers and leaves around the couple:

And the ever-popular black and white with color accent filter:


So you can see, the possibilities are pretty wide. You can take a fairly simple portrait and make it into something very special for display. When you receive your disc you will find these filters applied to some of the images.

Getting the most from your image disc

The wedding is over and your pictures are up. This is when the fun begins! Going over all the images will remind you of this special day...all the laughs and tears, all the details. The wedding tends to be a wonderful blur to the bride and groom and these images will anchor the event forever and allow you to share it with friends and family for years to come. There is only one little detail...you need to pick your edits or pick your album pictures (if I'm creating an album for you). I have already sent a high resolution disc to you with my edits so you can go ahead and make prints but you want to make sure you have what you want and that you get the best possible prints. First of all, take a moment with your disc and the image I sent with it. Find the image (it should be first) on the disc and put it up on your monitor. Take the printed image and hold it up next to the image on your monitor and see if there is any difference in color or brightness. Adjust your monitor until they match. This will ensure that the image you see is the image you will get back from the printer.

Then think about what you want from me. Will you be making 8x10 inch prints? This size cuts a full two inches off of the unedited picture on the long side so you don't want to cut off someone's head. I can usually edit a picture so it works as an 8x10 by recreating more background. You may want cropping done for a closer in picture and you will lose quality if you crop the images I gave you. Then there are special effects like vignettes (such as this one at the top). Vignettes look especially good framed. This one also has the black and white with color detail effect.

Don't do black and white conversions on the machine at the store. Even though you can do this, it won't be as good. I adjust brightness and contrast whenever I convert a file to black and white and the machine will only take the color out, leaving a dull image as your print.

You may also want to zoom in a little. To make sure you get the best crop the resolution needs to be tweaked--you don't just want to cut the image down--especially if it is a larger print. Let me know if you want to crop in closer and I can make sure you get the best quality image possible.

Check back next week when I talk about all the other options you have for editing and give examples of what those look like-- stay tuned!

Why is Photography Sooooo Expensive???

Wow, I get this question a lot. Even when I don't get the question it hangs there unspoken for most of my professional life. It seems so high. I remember when I started working and thought "Wow, I can shoot a wedding for $1000 and it'll be great! I will get to do what I love and get paid a decent wage!" When I got involved in actually doing it things changed.

For one thing, the eight hour day plus two meetings that wedding photography takes is just the tip of a much larger ice berg. I completely failed to understand how much time I would be spending on each wedding. The average time the photographer's polled on FredMiranda.com spent on each wedding turned out to be forty hours. That's the average from 400 or so photographers polled. I spent some time doing the math and found that I was averaging a little more than that amount of time myself.

At that point, that $1000 isn't looking so great especially when considering the intensity of the work and the expense of the equipment. Add into that all the expenses associated with owning a business and all the hours spent with advertising, web site, maintenance, insurance and you are suddenly looking at a unprofitable venture.

Every year my work gets better, my equipment gets more expensive to stay abreast of advances in the technology and increase the kind and quality of the pictures I'm able to take. I show up at every wedding wth about $6,000.00 worth of equipment to make sure that, no matter what, I can get the job done.

A DJ makes at least $100 per hour at a wedding and gives nothing lasting. A band cost's about $3,000.00. Catering averages about $6,000.00. $3,000.00 for a dress that will be worn once. Heck, those cameras, the disposable ones that you leave on the table cost about $1,000.00 for 100 and I would be willing to bet, produce only a few worthwhile images. The one thing that you will have to treasure out of this whole deal is your memories. And the only tangible thing is your photos.

So when you start to figure out your budget and start looking at photographers, or thinking of asking a friend to do it as a wedding gift, just remember what you are paying for. At the very least you are paying for a week of work from someone, expertise, expensive and delicate equipment, experience and skill. It helps to understand why Photography is so expensive. When the other vendors have gone home, their work is done while your photographer is just getting started on his or her work. Photography is well worth the price when you consider all that you get for your dollar and the lasting nature of it. The most common comment I get from bride's is that the wedding was a blur and how glad they are to be able to re-live it through the photos and albums.