White Cat Media

White Cat Media

Well, to put it another way, why wouldn't you want one? (Apart from budget.)

Advantages are:

-- They'll have lighting, and (usually) a clean backdrop. Whereas if guests are just taking photos anywhere, lighting will be terrible. I prefer the ones with flower walls rather than the ones that are more like a little booth you go into. (You can fit more people if it's not a little booth, and background looks better.)

-- It's fun for guests. Gives them something to do. They can take photos with different combinations of people, without bride and groom having to be present.

-- If you get a copy, you get more photos/memories. What photobooth people normally do is print out little square photos, which the guests then glue into a message book. I imagine they print out two copies, one for the guest and one for the guestbook. Some photobooths might deliver online instead. 

-- You'll get different sorts of photos than what most photographers take. Usually goofy photos with lots of props.

Alternatives to photobooths:

-- Put disposable cameras on each table.

-- Video booth. These are pretty uncommon. But it's possible to find, for instance, slow motion video booths.

-- 360 degree videos seem to be very popular now for some reason. You know -- you stand on a platform, do a little dance, and the camera swirls around you. I've got the feeling these will look dated ten years from now, but they're popular right now!

White Cat Media

It's a how long is a piece of string question! I'm charging $2,500 for all-day shooting, no time limits. I believe the average in NSW is $1,500-$4,500 (so say some wedding surveys). But you can find photographers around Sydney who will charge $25,000.

Main variables are:

-- number of shooters;

-- what the deliverables are (eg: digital download only, or album, or even other printed material, like thank you cards for guests, canvases, etc).

But the biggest variable is simply what the photographer thinks they're worth (or can get away with charging)! Which kind of depends on their experience and skill level, how well known they are, how many awards they've won, etc. I mean, everyone has a unique way of looking at the world, and since part of what you're paying for is that intangible, unique creativity, then it's not straightforward to put a valuation on it, and say what it should be worth. It's like, "How much should a painting be worth?" 

White Cat Media

In my opinion (others will disagree) -- yes, they will have their own style, and yes, they can emulate. 

The style comes out of a few things. The cameras and lenses they're using, how they're using flash, and more than anything their technique and eye, and what sorts of photos they like to shoot. Everyone, every photographer, has a unique way of looking at the world that ultimately can't be copied. But it can be imitated!

When I personally check out another photographer's work, what I notice are the shots that I wouldn't have thought to get, or have never got. So, a few dumb examples I can think of:

-- bridal party walking back up the aisle after the ceremony, people throwing confetti at them. I saw a photo recently where the bride and groom occupied the bottom third of the photo, and the confetti occupied the top two-thirds. I've never shot a photo quite like that before (and normally people don't throw confetti that high either!).

-- a photo of bride and groom taken in the back streets of The Rocks in Sydney, together with rubbish bins. There was a row of red rubbish bins on one side, a row of yellow rubbish bins on the other, and the couple in the middle. That symmetry, and the vibrance of the colours, made it a striking image, but it wouldn't even have occurred to me to position the couple there. I would have just thought, "Rubbish bins? Yuck. Let's point the camera in another direction."

-- a shot where the photographer hid a flash under the bride's dress, so that it lit up.

-- a drone photo from above, as the bride walks down the aisle (I don't use drones for photography, and generally don't use them during the ceremony itself, because of the noise factor).

The other key part of style is the editing. Colours, brightness, saturation level, grain, etc. I actually offer couples a general choice between a more natural look, or a more pastel "light and airy" look, or a more contrasty, dramatic and desaturated look. There is some secret sauce here, and photographers will have their trade secrets, but editing is relatively imitatable, especially these days. You can feed a reference photo into an editing program, and ask it to analyse the photo, and process all your own photos to look the same way.

More thoughts on emulation... For posed photos (like during the couple photoshoot after the ceremony), most photographers (I reckon) can get pretty close if you show them an example. They've got a photo reference, so mimicking the pose is easy. And then they need to think about which direction the light comes from, and other stuff like how blurry the background is. For unposed photos, they can keep an eye out for the shots you want if you show them in advance.

A word of caution here: every environment is different, and you can't always copy something. If your inspiration is a photo taken in a castle at night time, well, can a photographer copy that if they're shooting in a small living room at midday? You can only really work with the particular environment and lighting conditions and people in front of you, and make the best image you can out of that.