Here is how a wedding usually works. Plan. Plan. Plan. Plan. Plan. RehersalGetDressedTakePhotographsRunToTheChurchGoDownTheAisleIDOIDOKissReceptionWhat the HeckJustHappened?

Rule 1 – If you are a Wedding Photographer, you are IN THE WEDDING! You are as important to that bride as the groom is. You are the keeper of the memories. If your photographer isn’t excited about your upcoming wedding – get a new photographer.

I don’t shoot a ton of weddings. Even though my prices are very reasonable, wedding photography is expensive. A typical wedding takes me 6 hours to shoot and another 30 hours to retouch and edit.
Most people are looking to cut costs where they can, and they figure that Uncle Ted will take some decent pictures with his digital camera.

Before you decide to use a friend or relative, ask yourself how important these memories are. Then look at my samples, and ask yourself if Uncle Ted could do what I do.

Then call me.

You might notice that a lot of these are the same young lady. Her name is Charlea, and she is my granddaughter. She has a standing order for free pictures anytime she wants them.

When I picked up my first camera in 1972, digital didn’t exist. I started with an Argus twin-lens reflex that my parents owned. You looked through the top, and the image you saw was reversed. After shooting a few pictures, you dropped the film off at Irwin Drug Store in Grangeville, Idaho, and you waited 10 days to see what you had created.

When I went to photo school at the University of Idaho, and later when I studied commercial photography in Spokane, Washington, digital still didn’t exist. Hand developing, printing, and processing was the norm. I spent hours in the darkroom with my hands in smelly chemicals, and spent two years with developer-stained fingernails.

Digital photography has, of course, opened a whole new world. For the first time, I can do things in minutes from my computer that used to take me hours in the darkroom. However, every day that I pick up my digital camera, or open Photoshop, I am grateful for the hours that I spent with those cumbersome old cameras and stinky old darkrooms. That educational base is something that every single photographer ought to have access to.

If there is a downside to the new age of photography, it’s that it has become TOO convenient. Everyone with a camera and a passing interest in photography is suddenly a photographer. If you were to ask any of these folks “What’s the relationship between f-stop and depth of field?”, their eyes would glaze over. One thing that is true with digital that was always true in the old days – if you don’t know your trade, then your “good” photographs are just happy accidents.

Feel free to look around at my body of work. At this point, I work for the pleasure of it, and charge accordingly. If you like what you see, call or email me, and lets talk.

Randy

It didn’t help that I looked like a dork with a wig. Seriously, I had so much hair, it looked like I was wearing a hairy motorcycle helmet.

Senior Portraits have come a long way. Today, a good photographer tries to capture a slice of the subjects personality – to capture the young person the way they really were during a very transitional time in their life.

I still take the kinds of portraits that Grandma would hang on the wall, but I also try and go a little crazy – and have some fun in the process. Call me, lets talk about it!