What the heck are proofs?

So much has changed in just a few short years.

If you had decided to get married 15 or so years ago (you know, back when you told a boy you liked him by not hitting him so hard with the dodgeball), you chose a photographer who was all about the posed photos. This is when everyone dressed in their best and flew in from all over the world, and it was his or her job to get wonderful portraits of not only the two of you but also all of your families.

Then, months later, your photographer would bring you into the studio and hand you a proof album from which to choose which photos you wanted to keep. The proof books had to be given back to the photographer, never to be seen again unless you ordered all of them. And most of the photos were posed photos of every imaginable grouping of family you never even knew you had.

Thank god it's not like that anymore!!!

Sure, these days, you can still find a great photographer who believes the posed portrait is key. But there are other choices for you! There are photojournalistic style photographers, art photographers, artsy photojournalistic photographers, "vogue" style photographers, and the "photo artists" who do most of their work in photoshop after the wedding. Wow!

No matter what style of photographer you choose, there are a few things that most have in common.
1. They will present your wedding to you in some way/shape/form (proofs)
2. They will give you something to keep from your wedding in some way/shape/form
3. They will have options of other things to buy in some way/shape/form

I'm going to try to break these down a bit for you so you can understand what's available and what kinds of questions to ask. Remember, the better the fit with you and your studio, the happier everyone will be! If you want a true photojournalist, you might cringe when you see heavily retouched proofs! And those who really don't want to be posed a lot will just hate the vogue style photographer, even if they appreciate the art.

Number one - "They will show you your wedding in some way/shape/form"

Think of proofs as the first way you experience your wedding. It could be a slideshow, or through an online proof site, or a proof book. It could be an album or box of proof prints, it could be a disk of the images in either high or low resolution, to see and enjoy when you wish. Maybe you'll see every single shot from the wedding, untouched and as is from the camera. Or, maybe it's just the best of the best, color corrected and artistically interpreted. Or, like we do here at rhee bevere photography, something between the two.

That's way too much choice for most people. Which is why the two of you should consider how you want to keep your wedding proofs, if at all, before you even start looking for a photographer.

Questions to ask each other:

• How do you want to see your wedding photographs for the first time?
• Would you love to have your friends drink champagne while viewing each proof on a large screen?
  
• Would you want to snuggle up with your honey and see each 4x6 print?
• Would you want the entire day at your fingertips, or just a few hundred artistically rendered and posted online?
  
• And then, how would you want to keep these images?
• Do you want all the digital negatives from everything that was shot? And if so, would you really do anything with them or would they just sit in your closet for a few years?
  
• Would you want the best of the best to keep in an album or display box? Or maybe a few hundred printed and bound as a proof book?
  
• Maybe proofs are irrelevant to you - just a way to pick the very best and put into a gorgeous album.

Questions to ask your photographer:

• May I see what you give to your clients as proofs?
  
• If it's a slideshow, is it one we can purchase or keep?
  
• Do you color correct your proofs?
  
• Do you do any retouching or artistic interpretation before we see the proofs?
  
• If we keep the digital negatives, do we also get the artistic interpretations and retouched images?
  
• What are the ways we can keep our digital negs?
  
• Do you include digital negs in any of your packages? If not, are they available to purchase in the future?
  
• What size are the digital negative files? Can I print them larger than 4x6?
  
• If they do include digital negs, when do you get them? Do you need to purchase anything first? Do you need to wait for a year or six months?
  
  

Things to keep in mind:

Just because a photographer doesn't include digital negs doesn't mean you should immediately write them off. Exactly the opposite - they've put a lot of time and effort into the wedding and may offset the cost of including those negatives with other things, such as artistic interpretation or retouching all images. If they shoot film, they've got other steps that must be followed, such as scanning in all those negatives and retouching as needed. See if they are available in the future. Just because you can have them doesn't mean you necessarily need them. You might want to use that budget toward a gorgeous album and forget the proofs altogether.

It will probably take you months to organize your thoughts for your album, so if you do need to wait before obtaining your negatives, don't worry. Life has a way of keeping you busy in the meantime! ::grin::

Does this help? I'm hoping so!

What do we do for our clients? We're pretty flexible, so we provide:
1. Online proofing (this was a must when I was a bride, since ALL of my family is from out of state)
2. Your choice of a set of 500 proof prints or 500 in a handbound book
3. All (with our boo-boos deleted of course) of your images on disk as digital negs, which can be printed up to poster size.
(and sometimes, we'll suprise people with a slideshow!)

G'night! More soon!