What's in Sam and Steve's Bag? Photographing wedding with Sam and Steve Photography

For this week's show Steve becomes the guest and Nick the interviewer, as Steve, with his wife Samantha (Sam) tell Nick how they photograph weddings, and what gear they use on the day. With over 450 weddings behind them, Sam and Steve have been photographing weddings from their home in North Oxfordshire for 15 years. They describe how they work together on the wedding day as joint photographers, how they are bring video into their work, and why Sam is the main reason for their reputation and customer service awards. 

Nick updates on his Creative Academy, which has now gone live, and Steve looks back at the first meet up of listeners to the show for some street photography in Oxford. 

Nick Church and Steve Vaughan are professional wedding photographers based in the UK. They both use Sony Alpha cameras and lenses.

Video version of the Podcast including slide shows of images https://www.youtube.com/@thephotographypod

Nick's website : https://www.nickchurchphotography.co.uk/
Nick's Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/nickchurchphotography/

Nick Church Creative Academy https://www.nickchurchphotography.co.uk/news/introducing-nick-church-creative-academy

Steve's website : https://www.samandstevephotography.com/
Steve's Wedding Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/samandstevephotography/
Steve's personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevevaughanphotography

Any technical information given by the presenters is based on their understanding and opinion at the time of recording

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello, dear listener and welcome to the Photography Pod. Thank you for downloading this episode. So you are, um, joined by me, Nick Church and also my great mate, an excellent photographer, is with us today and she's also with her husband Steve Vaughn. So we've got Sam and Steven write 'em off, Steve Photographer.

And as you remember from the last episode, Steve was in trouble in the US but he has been released on a prisoner exchange program back to the uk. So he's back safe and sound in Oxfordshire with Sam who we've got with us today. So today we're gonna go through Sam and Steve's bag of kit and how they run a wedding, what could they use, what kit they like to use and how they divide the tasks through the day.

So I'm really fascinated to get into that with them. So Steve, Sam, how's your week been so far? 

Do you wanna go first or shall I? You 

go first? 

Yeah. Good. Yeah. Getting back to some kind of normality or, so I wasn't with you on the last show 'cause I was in the States as you kind of exaggerated somewhat being waterboarded.

Yeah, no, no, I didn't make it to Raz. [00:01:00] I was near to Alcatraz, but I wasn't locked up with Alcaraz. So I've been all over the place with the, with the training business that I'm increasingly you know, running as my main income now. Back to some kind of normality, catching up your weddings and, uh, yeah, lots of editing and uh, and gen generally looking forward to going away 'cause we are going on holiday, you know, week's time.

Woo-hoo. 

But we've done quite a few, um, pre-reading shoots as well. Just load 

loads. It's like three on Sunday. Yeah. That was a big day. How did you find 

the pre-read? Did you, do you enjoy doing pre-reading shoots? 

Apart from when there's a, a match on at Wembley and I have to wait for an hour and a half to go on a train.

But yeah, I love 'em actually. Yeah, 

I read about that. Did you just go on, suck it off that, that pre-wedding shoot where you got stuck in? 

No, I mean I was wrong. It was wrong getting there. I did the shoot in London, but it was coming home so, 'cause it was, um, south end were playing Oldham so, you know, you think we wouldn't be quite too full, but obviously it was, so there was massive cues at Marley Bone, so I thought sold this, I'll go and get a beer instead.

So that's what I did. So I waited for about an hour and a half and it calmed down a little bit.

And Sam, do you find it easier when you've done a pre-wedding that on [00:02:00] the wedding day is just so much easier that that initial hour you're not spending just kind of feeding around each other a bit to find out what they're like?

You just, you hit the ground running much better. Yeah. 

Yeah. You've, you've, you've broken the ice before and you've had a good chat. You've got to know each other. And when they've got kids with them, it makes it a bit better as well. 'cause I get to cuddle babies. Have 

your CU baby fix. Yeah. 

And we also did, um, a, a shoot on Saturday.

So we didn't have a wedding Saturday, but um, a couple contacted us a few months ago. So he graduated or got a PhD. Um, he's from Singapore, got a PhD in chemistry and then 'cause of COVID, he didn't actually have all the formal, you know, the, the gowns and all stuff. So six years after he got his PhD, he was coming back to Oxford for his graduation and he wanted a photographer to follow him and his and his wife and his parents and their parents around for, for three hours around Oxford.

So, oh, when we do that, it was kind a lot of fun actually. Yeah, a lot of fun and uh, I charged him a reasonable amount and uh, it was really nice. Then we, being a chemist as well, we were doing a bit chemistry chat as well, somewhat remembering some [00:03:00] of the depth of my chemistry knowledge somewhere. Yeah.

Yeah. Very talk, talk. Fascinating. Even nerd than we're in, we. I had a wedding. Well, you've been up to anyway, you've been doing Well. I had wedding 

last, a wedding last weekend, which was absolutely lovely. It was, um, a wedding called Golden Hall, which is alright. A university halls of residence originally.

And there, there is still halls, halls of residence there, but there's a very nice sort of Georgian house and orangey built onto it. And the gardens are absolutely stunning with like lawns and avenues of trees and a, a gro, like a Victorian grotto. And it's so funny because there's, there was load of students just playing football in the far corner.

They weren't, they were keeping outta the way, they weren't being loud. But I just playing football in this venue and I thought, I wonder if they realized how lucky they are to just have such a incredible space. Just be knocking the ball around. But there was a, um, it was a, a couple, um, an older couple really.

I mean he, he was talk about nerdy, he was a, I think he's the head of physics at Bush University. 

Wow. 

So, but really eccentric and just a, just looked [00:04:00] fantastic. The pair of them just looked amazing. That's amazing. Really good fun. It was a really big wedding as well, and I saw somebody I recognized and it was Daddy g or Grant from massive Attack.

And it was, um, because I, and I, I recognized him because I'd shot with him o obviously, obviously being a massive fan as well. But I, I'd shot, um, a little shoot for him when he was auctioning, or he donated some Banksy artwork to a charity. So I went around their house and took some photos of him holding his Banksy and things.

And this was, I started to work out when it was, it was about sort of maybe three years ago or something. And I thought, shall I, is that enough that it would warrant me going hi, grant. You remember me? You know, and I didn't. So I, I kind of avoided, I didn't wanna look like a massive mad. Fan slash stalker.

But as I, as I went to go, because it wasn't the late, it was, I, I left by about four 30. Oh gosh. The gr I went to say goodbye to the green, you know, like you do when you, once you've packed up, you go and say goodbye to the couple. So I went and he happened to be sitting back, sitting next to Grant at the time.

So, I said goodbye to Green. I said, oh, grant, I, if you remember, [00:05:00] I, um, I shot around your house. I did some photos and there was nothing there at all, no recognition whatsoever. And so this and then his wife I think she's called Sylvie, really lovely. They, they're both really lovely people. But I suppose for me it was a really big thing for him having his photo taken wasn't particularly, uh, different.

Many other every month, probably about afterwards. 

Yeah. 

She said when you were taking those, because I did a big long panoramic root shot, she said, were you doing the, that sort of movement, uh, people on YouTube can see me kind of just doing this. She said, well, you doing that to make us laugh. I said no, and I just said couldn't work out what she was talking about.

And then I realized that I was, you know, when you're doing a panorama, you wanna do it quite quickly 'cause you wanna make sure no one moves in between, so it doesn't sort of, when it stitches up, you'd have two heads and stuff like that. So I said, no, I was just taking those, oh, I thought you were trying to make us laugh.

I said, no. And it just, and so it was a really awkward situation that in my head was gonna be a real call. You going, Hey Nick, how you going? And in fact, I said right then and I better crack on [00:06:00] go. So that was the end of it. So I thought, oh, great 

crush. Crushed. Yeah, actually, uh, thinking about celebrities, where we're photographing on Saturday is a, um, is a Mary's church in Tame, I can't remember.

It's a church in tame Fun fact or fact, uh, worth knowing is Robin Gibb, the B Gee's buried there. So really, I think they all live there. There's a, there's a museum to them, but there's you quite a little shrine to at the back, isn't there? Drummer? Yeah. Yeah. 

So he literally isn't staying staying alive at all then, isn't he?

Yeah. 

We all did that joke then as well. Never laughed then either. 

To be fair, there might be loads of listeners laughing. You don't know, just 'cause you didn't, 

if you were listening to that, dear listener, please let us know. 

Absolutely. Comedy. God, I've got comedy just in my bones. You can't help it, you know, clearly it comes out.

Yeah. 

If you thought this was a podcast, actually it's a comedy half hour. There we go. Right. Are we gonna get onto what's in a bags? That doesn't sound too misleading. 

Yes. Let's dive into that. So before we go into that, who, who, who would you say is the custodian of the kit? Who's, does it belong to it or is it completely shared?

No, I'm the, so [00:07:00] Sam 

pointing for me at Steve there. So you're Steve's kit I do with the gay stuff. Yeah. She's the one, I'm the nerd one. So when you are both planning a wedding or who plans it mean, is that something you do together? 

I think because we've been doing them for so long, we just kind of, you do it right?

We just do it, yeah. 

What do you mean by plan? Do you mean the actual sheet itself? 

Yeah. Like if, so for example, if I'm, if I'm planning a wedding, I'm thinking, right, what time I gotta be there, where shall I be? Is it if you just worked out, you've just evolved into a way of working together where you just know wh which role each other's gonna, is gonna gonna play?

Yeah. On the day it's 

the same every time. I mean, it's but we'll have had a call with them a week before to go through all the details so we know, we know all the timings together between us for that. And then on the day I'm always with the girls. He's all with the boys. That's 

his two girls, of course.

Or two boys. Yeah. And 

then, and then we come together at the church. I, he's normally been there for an hour before me, so he's getting to know everybody else. And then I arrive literally just as the bride's coming in. And then it's on with the day. Really. 

I think I've only [00:08:00] ever done bridal prep once when it wasn't two brides and it was 

boring.

God, it went off forever. 

Yeah. 

Well, I'll say, and they love themselves 

outta the house. 

Oh gosh. Do they? Yeah. Well, I'll say that like girls, it's, it's so difficult if, being that I am usually on my own. Occasionally I have a second shoot, but usually on my own. And so it'd be like to get shots of the groom if it's a guy, you know, get getting ready.

And the problem is they, the girls get ready between like seven and one o'clock they hours. Yeah. And the guys go from boxes to being fully ready in four and a half minutes. And it's just really difficult to make sure you're, that you're there at the time. So It is, yeah, it is, it is just, it is much longer, which does give you more time, but it is, it's quite a slow process for the girls.

That's nice. Especially if you're somewhere where it's not particularly nice lighting maybe, or it's a, a hotel that frequently cramped and you're thinking, what am I gonna do? 

But that's also why it's so good having the both of us, because then we've not gotta worry about having to flip between two different venues or two different rooms and missing certain parts of what's going on.

Because I'm always there with the, with the, the [00:09:00] girl. 

I think it is for obvious reasons, easier for a woman photography to be around women getting ready for obvious reasons. And without wishing to make her head even bigger than it really is already. Um, brides at the end of every wedding, nearly always will say, oh, you were fantastic.

You were so helpful. Sam's put brides in the dress, she's took 'em to the toilet, she's helped her with the makeup. She's helped them with, they've locked themselves outta, she said, you know, and sort of 450 weddings or whatever we've done, you know, it's not just the photography. I remember it's the help that Sam gave them.

She's like an extra maid of honor, aren't you? 

Yeah. That is, that, that is really handy. And it's, it is definitely you do find as a male photographer there, there's, when it's a girl getting ready there there's, it is, it is just easy and it feels a little bit, if there's, let's for example, say there's a, there's a content creator or a videographer that's a woman.

And often when they're, when she's getting into the dress that they can stay and I sort of realize I have to leave and it feels a little bit, you know, oh, glued a bit. You know, kept out. But then that's completely reasonable to do that. 

Yes. 'cause you could, I mean, I've seen them brides in all [00:10:00] different types of undress, some completely with nothing on before they get in the dress with some of the, with some clothes on.

And so, and they're perfectly comfortable for me to stay in the room. Obviously I'm not photographing it at that point. 

But, and I'm often helping as well. So because obviously they've probably done the dress or somebody who, whoever's doing the dress has probably done it once or twice at most. And if it's a complicated do up then I tend to get involved with helping them get it done as well.

So, and I 

think, you know, without making this sound like a sales pitch for a, a potential customer, but I think the fact that, you know, the guy's getting ready is part of the day and that often gets missed out or, you know, doesn't get covered properly by a solo photographer. 'Cause you know, with the guys I've been to Turkish barbers, I've been clay pigeon shooting, I've been to weather spoons for frail up, you name it, whatever they're doing really.

Uh, but it's part of the day and, you know, and I try and make it as, as interesting as I can where sometimes it can really boring, let's be honest, but it's, the bride like the idea that somebody's capturing their other half getting ready in the morning, even if it's not particularly exciting as you quite already [00:11:00] say.

Yeah, that's nice. And it is, it's just something I, yeah, I rarely get the opportunity to do that if, if I do capture, of course the groom getting ready, it's normally. Like bolting towards where they are and just grabbing some shots and then worrying that if I spend too long there, that I'm missing shots back in there.

Yeah, completely. Uh, the wedding, we're gonna show you in a while. Actually, when we look at some of our work, the actual, the benefit of that one is that they were both getting ready at the same place. So that made it a bit easier. But uh, of course that's not always the case. Yeah. 

Do you find the two of you, do you have a bicker?

Do you get on pretty well? 

No, never. 

Sam looks less sure about that because it must be, I, what I'm 

told 

Nick, because it's, it's difficult like when you're working with a second shooter that, that it doesn't matter if you work with them o often with them, you are like, when it's a partner or family, you are gonna get it.

It is easier to be like snapping or especially if things are like getting stressful and frustrated, frustrating. Which things do at weddings, they are quite stressful events at times. And I, I can imagine if I was shooting with Dawn, we have shot together a couple of times and she [00:12:00] did a great job, but she just doesn't wanna do it, not interested in doing it, which is a real shame because I think it'd be, it'd be great to have, um, it would, you know, some, just from a practical level, if there's a second shooter that's part of the, part of our family unit, it makes sense to, um, use her.

But, um, yeah. Yeah. So when I, but if, if we were in both those events, one was in Italy, so it was a really relaxed lovely day. Another one was, was in the uk, but it all went swimmingly. If there was. A bit of a pressured situation. I'm not sure if we would be able to do that without getting snapping each other like the same way we would if there's a crisis in the garden or whatever, you know, when you're trying to do DIY together and that kind of thing.

I mean, I think it's, it's, yes, of course we've got niggly with each other from time to time, but obviously we, the thing is not to let that come out into what we're doing, you know, or let the couple see that we're, perhaps 

it gets perhaps a, perhaps not talking 

for a while. 

I was, I was gonna ask Sam if you've got a look.

Let's have a look. What would a look look like? Sam, you do it. Oh, right. Yeah. That's a one. Yeah. 

Yeah, that's the one. 

It's [00:13:00] just enough. No one would probably notice, but Steve's, Steve's a quivering wreck, 

I think. Or 

it's, 

yeah, I get this from the back of the venue, which means shift in the photo. No, but I think, I think, you know, seriousness, we, no one had a major meltdown, I don't think, have we?

No, there's time yet, I suppose. 

Impressive. Impressive. Well if you've got your bag of stuff there, then, because you must have two separate bags, right? If you are, if you are in different equations. 

We do. Yeah. Do you wanna go first? 

No, you go first. 

Oh, okay. Alright. Okay. Right. Hang on. 

You, you're gonna bus in when I do mine anyway, so 

as if I would just give him a look Sam, if you like, he's got on mute.

Like a remote control. 

I wish, I wish I could have a mute. 

Okay. While you've been talking about me, I'm still here. So I, I've got this really old low pro bag, big shoulder messenger bag and I like it 'cause it's got one big thing at the front and that's it. Right there is a zip as well. But if I want to get into it quick, I don't have to zip it open.

It's just that one big book at the front and everything's open. And in that bag of surprises, what do I typically take along [00:14:00] with me? Well, here we go. Nice pint of my old. 

Two cigars, a pin and mild and a Cornish pasti. 

So the main camera, I'm ignoring that, um, uh, pin and mild possibly as I'm from the black country.

The main camera is a Sony a seven R four Uhhuh, which is well and truly battered up. We bought it 2020, so we switch from shooting Fuji film to shooting Sony right at the height of the pandemic, which was, you might think it was a strange time to spend a load of money, but what we actually did was sold a load of gear and leased some stuff back.

So as a way of putting cash into the business. Yeah. 

I didn't realize you, you shot, I knew you, you were a advocate of Sony and had Sony cameras, uh, sorry. Fuji Film cameras. I didn't realize you shot weddings with Fuji. 

Oh, about five years, six years I think. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. It was the first time we moved to mirrorless was from DSLRs.

From kind of DSLRs, wasn't it? Yeah. Uh, and we only, and we loved, and we still do love everything, Fuji. The only reason we moved to Sony really was just to get a slightly better focus in performance and obviously the full frame. 

Yeah. Files 

really. I 

was, I was just, just [00:15:00] getting increasingly more and more frustrated in low light when it just, you'd lost the, you'd lost the moment by the time it actually took the picture.

Sure. Yeah. 

Um, 

so, and this was XT two times. I mean, things have moved on a bit since 

I've had to use my Fuji films in my XT five anger like that. I've, I've, I've done an event with a model bride and cream. I was, I was speaking at event but it wasn't really the pressured situation. It didn't really matter if none of the photos locked focus.

So it felt okay, but when you're right up against it and, and milliseconds count, that's what I'd be interested to see what it was like. So I might, I might just try it on a, maybe have one camera, one Sony on me and one food film set on me so I can Yeah. Why not? 

I mean, the technology moved on a lot since we were shooting Fuji because it was, as I say, XT two, XT threes I think actually.

So Sony A seven, R four, you might think, well, why do I need a 61 megapixel camera? And that's a fair, a fair point. But I like to shoot with the 24. So the 24 GM. 1.4, which is probably my favorite lens ever. I think it's just an incredibly sharp lens. Quick focusing. And I quite like shooting [00:16:00] 24 anyway.

'cause I quite like, you know, during sort of groom prep and also after in the, the drinks time, I quite like, again, close up to people, you know? Yeah. A bit of a nosey so and so really. But the beauty of the 61 mega course is if no comment Thank you, is if I need to crop, I can crop radically and I've still got a workable file.

And 

are you cropping in, in, in camera Steve? Or just, just sometimes. 

So if I need to, I've got one of the, um, it's in the function button. I've got the crop into super 35 mode available. So virtually at one button puss, I can crop into five mil lens on an A PSC camera, effectively with 26 megapixels, which effectively is a Fuji film camera.

Yeah, yeah. So I like to think of it as two cameras in one, almost. 

Now people say, you know, the files are a bit noisy and they probably are at high iso, but I've never really had a problem with it 

in general or in crop mode, just 

in general. Neither really. No. Really, I mean, probably files shooting above 12,800.

Yes, possibly. But I mean the downside is obviously the [00:17:00] files are big, but storage is cheap. 61 megapixel. 

I mean, if they, if the, 'cause you, you've had an issue, was that the camera you had the, the shutter issue with or was that the No, it's one, 

I'm gonna go into the second. Yeah, it's a newer one of the two.

So this one's probably done 200,000. If the A seven 

five doesn't come out this year, then I'm gonna have to decide whether this goes to the A seven R five because I'd have to replace these camera bodies at some point. 

Yeah, definitely pros and cons, but I like the flexibility of having that, that, you know, that sort of slightly higher resolution if I wanted for, for any, any, uh, particular aspect of the day really.

And then the other camera, he says, reach into the floor. So that is the A seven four and that's the one that's had the shutter go. So it went on 150 K, which. To me isn't very good. Really, I should expect to get twice that really 

I didn't realize until relatively recently, which is mental being that I've had a seven r threes forever, for most of the time I've been photographing that the RR versions are rated at much higher shutter actuations.

Yeah. Like five until recently. Yeah. [00:18:00] Which is a, would be another big nod for me towards the A seven five, R five rather, but 156, I suppose it's in the, that kind of ballpark It is certainly in the area that you would start thinking about, these are gonna have to 

be changed. Well, it was just in the middle of a wedding and, and we were just doing some quick couple portraits just after the ceremony before, after the service, before they got into the car.

And I, and I took a picture and I thought, oh, that looked a bit strange. And then I realized it had gone. So I just, switched the other camera and pretending nothing had happened, but then switched to the backup camera, which is the one we are using at the moment, which I'll come onto to in a bit.

So on this one, if I'm on the 24, that's on the 51 2. Okay. Which is a, again, an unbelievable end really. 

Yeah. That's, that's the one that I keep wanting, isn't it? 

Oh, the, the, the boke on it is incredible, but also if, if I shot more 

with the 24, it would make a much more sense for me, I think, because I use 35 a lot more.

It's a bit, it's a bit close, but yeah. But, but I do the same as you later on in the evening. I, I do like to go to 24 and that would be the perfect time to have a, a 51 2. And I had to shoot the whole wedding the other day on the [00:19:00] 24 because that was the time I dropped my camera and kn Of the 35. Yes. Um, but we both 

got repaired quite, I mean, we both spent less than 300 quid in our repairs.

We, which was quite, quite good I thought. Really? Yeah. 

I was impressed actually. So, big shout to, um, pencoed, Sony. Yeah. Sony Center 

in, in Pencoed. Yeah, absolutely. So that's my favorite combo. 24 and 50. If I get to the church and I'm somewhere right, like a million miles back or the venue, then I will go 35 on the eight on the R four and I would've gone Sigma 85, but I've just sold it.

Oh, right. Okay. 'Cause it was at the end of our financial year, at the end of May, and we wanted to spend a bit of money. So, uh, I sold the Sigma and we've got the Sony 85 GM tool on order. It's due to come Friday. Hopefully. 

I'd be very to see what that's like. The one Yeah, because the, the whole Sony, like the, the lenses, you've got the ones, I've got the 35, 24, the 7,200 version two.

And I know that someone that's got the 24 [00:20:00] 70 version two as well are just lightning fast, really quick. And the, the 85 1 0.4 is just so sluggish compared with the others. It's almost, it, the, the performance has always been the same, but it just seems to be getting more and more unusable. For every wedding.

It is just so slow. I can't keep up with anything. 

Never used it to be honest. I mean, the stigma, to be honest, I couldn't, I couldn't fault it focusing. It was just slightly warmer in, in color cast and in the evening. Okay. That's a good thing perhaps, but EE even when we've gone through after shoot and all that stuff, it, they never quite matched the, the, the Sony and you'll see perhaps on the shoot we're gonna show you in a bit.

So it was just extra work, just tweaking the white balance on that one. Every time I'm mad 

on the, the rendering with the 85 1 0.4 gm compared with my 7,200, which I'd love the rendering on that. So if it's a golden hour type shoot, that would always be my go-to thing. But if I've got the 85 on, because I've just been doing kind of nighttime or or evening time documentary shots and we go off a little photo shoot, I'm always wishing I'd had the eight, the 7,200.

It's just, it's got [00:21:00] unusual shadow. It goes quite green very quickly. It's quite an unusual thing. It is. And it's something I can't seem to distort correct distortion, distort. Light, is that 

what they're called? Loca longitudal. Chromatic aeration, yeah. 

Yeah. Doesn't really that direct, that direct light coming into it.

Anyway, that's my weapons of choice. Samantha, what about you? 

I've got a new bag. 

Prop's got a brand new bag, 

which he's used more than I do. I have so far. So this is my, my bag. 

Well that looks, yeah. They're both good size, aren't they? 

Yeah. 

What make it a timber? Timber. Timber. 

So you've got the, you've got one of these aren't no, mine's low.

If you pull it down, he doesn't make the CRO noise. Sum pull. Pull the thing down. Perhaps he does. I didn't pull it down half I to differ on that one. Take you back. 

We got the bigger one, didn't we? Did we go for the bigger one or did we Yeah. Yeah, because we were thinking of getting the smaller one and then decided on the bigger one.

Because of just having the room for my bits and pieces. Yeah. I mean 

the cameras are under mind [00:22:00] apart, which in a bag really. It's all the other juncture has int there i'd 

to, I, ill do in a future, maybe the next episode, I've, I've got a bag that a company sent me for my Fuji kit, which I've, it's still in its wrap.

I, I just haven't that time to get out, so, but it looks really nice. It's a really practical. Who makes that sling again? I can't remember, so I'll have to have to check. 

Well, I'll have to do what bags in that bag. It's a future episode. Yeah, yeah. And so, so what come 

is that then, Samantha? It's an A nine.

Sorry, I should 

have, uh, the, we work differently on the day, so he used fixed lenses, whereas I use a Zoom. Okay. Zoom lenses. So I just tend to find, particularly with bridal prep and that kind of thing, I've got more scope with getting in close to things and then zooming out with bits and pieces and that way.

This, so I just use the one body. We do have a spare. We can't in here. You can't? No. 

It's the one we're talking to. Samantha. Oh yeah, it's it. 

And what's that one? The, the one that we're, we're looking at, it's 

a, it's an A seven C two, which is also our video camera. We do video work on Saturday as well.

So, so that's our [00:23:00] backup and it's also our video camera. So, and what zoom lens is that Sam? 

This, I've forgotten. Four 70, 

right? 

I just, that's, that's the GM as well. Most. He's the, he's, as I keep saying, he's the technical guy. So I use this most of the day, particularly when we're mingling. And with the crowd, it's easy just to wander around.

And I've, I've got the scope to zoom into people, zoom out to people and it's not, I just like these because they're not huge. 

You can mingle in and people don't notice quite so much. Yeah. And I can use the, the back screen and not have to look through the viewfinder. And then people don't realize you're taking the picture a lot of the time.

And as it's an A nine, of course there's no shut or sound 'cause it's a sign shutter sound. 

Yeah. Mine's silent. And that's another thing that works for me during bridal prep. 'cause they, they just get on with what they're doing and they dunno when I'm taking the pictures, which is what I like about my camera.

I really hear with that here. 

Yes, please. And that's, but then, 

yeah, it's the original one. So it's an old camera now that's like, 2017 it came out I think, but it's still ing really. 

But I mean, in terms of silent shutter compared with the A seven four, A [00:24:00] seven R four, it's the, it's gonna give similar.

Well, the problem with those cameras, unless 

there's banding, you've got rolling shut problems with those cameras, which you don't have with the A nine. So yeah, that, that's, and I 

think that that tends to, when, when we all get stung by that, at some point, that tends to just make you not bother with sudden shut, doesn't it?

Because the one time you turn it on, you then come back in, there's loads of horrible banding across it. 

Well, it's the other way around with the A nine, the only time you put the mechanical shutter on is if you've gotta do flash. You can't do flash work with, 

yeah. So you need the A seven three for that. 

I, no, the A one, well, we put to put mechanical, there's a mechanical shutter on it as well.

You just switch to mechanical shutter mode. But 

if you had the A nine three, then you wouldn't even need to do that because you could use, but I wont. Two, two kidneys in. That's true. 

That's because it's, it's six and half grand. 

So what's that one that's a bit of a unit on, that's the 7,200? 

Yeah. This I use from the back of the venue during the ceremony so that I can get in right close from the back.

I'm normally standing on the same side as Steve. 'cause Steve normally side stands on the side that the, um, the [00:25:00] groom's standing on. So I stand at the back on the same side. Mm-hmm. So that I'm not in any of his pictures. 

Yeah. 

And sometimes I'm at the back in the middle of the aisle, but it just depends on, but what people are doing and have what visibly I can see from where I am.

So most of the time it's often, 

it's a bit of a pain in it. It's often loads of back lit from, went back of the ceremony. There's normally a fat window right in front of them. So you've got basically loads of silhouettes. But sometimes it's the other round and in, in which case I find it, if it's a sort of venue where I think, well this is like churches are often this way.

That is actually a much better from the aisle than it is from in front because Yeah, there's more light coming in. So I'll try and work out a way to scoot around and try and get that. And to be fair, even 

though people say with the A nine, the dynamic range isn't very good, it's actually fine. You know, so Sam tends to under expose on the back anyway and then, you know, we just leave the shadows in post and.

We've never had a problem, have we? Really? No. Yeah. So 

I also use this as well when we are doing portraits. 

Yeah. [00:26:00] 

So we've got two different then, um, aspects of photos that we're taking. And he, as he will no doubt say, but I'm gonna get it in before he does. 

That's the microphone. You just know. Uh, 

I know.

Sorry. Um, 

is that the version 2 7200? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I use it the same because the, so I I have exact that same lens. Sam and the portraits are just amazing. Yeah. I love it for portraits. It's so good. And the, the great thing about that in terms being versatile is that things like a table setup or even jewelry and stuff, you can, it focuses pretty closely, doesn't it?

For, for Yeah. Zoom as much more closely, the version one, and it's about half the weight as well, but yeah, you get away with not having a micro lens easily with one of those. 

Yeah. Should we show you a, a real winning? Yes, please. Okay, lemme just work out what I'm doing if I got this right. Sit screen. So you don't use pick time, do you?

No, I use pixie sets. 

Okay. Can you see that? Yeah. Megan and [00:27:00] Curtis. Yeah. Full screen. 

What's the benefits of pick time for our listeners? Would you say over what would the pros be compared with something like, have you ever used Pixie set? 

No, to be honest, no. We use shoot proof before that. Well, lots of things really.

I think the way the images look on here look amazing. You tell us in, in a little while. I think it renders the images beautifully. Um, they get their own secure link and a separate one to share with their friends and family. 'cause they've got admin rights to the gallery. So if they hated a photo, hopefully they, they could hide one.

Yeah. 

Pix uh, I dunno if that's any different to Yeah. 

Has, has that as well. But yeah. I know people do love, love. Shoot. Shoe proof? Is it shoe proof? Pick time. Pick time. And you used being shoe proof? Yeah. 

Used to be shoe proof. So it's obviously a link to a number of gall. So our is linked to Lockley color and sim imaging in terms of ordering prints, albums and stuff as well.

A couple of things in it that I haven't used, but I know people played with, is that you can, there's some AI [00:28:00] functions in it. So if the bride just wanted to find the pictures of just her to look for her face and just filter all the pictures of just her. Mm. So there's things like that. I just think it, I think it just, the way the images look, I think is the main benefit.

Yeah. Um, but you, you, you tell me that's, so this was a wedding we did just every year ago at a venue called Caswell House, which is in the gots world. 

Dish. Yeah. I've not, 

I've not shot there, but it looks lovely. I, it is one a venue we would like to work at. It is a, 

it, it's a, I wouldn't say enco, a wedding factory, but they have, we weddings, 

lots 

of weddings.

So one odd thing about cheaper proof, uh, sorry. Pick time. I dunno if it's the same with what you use, but it breaks down into different scenes as well. So you can go straight to the, the couple portraits, the speech use the evenings. Yeah. 

I don't tend to bother with that with that, but I know people that do and yeah.

Pick, accept does support that as well. Yeah, I typically do that. Yeah. 

So, so you know, venue shots, location shots. So Sam's in with a bride here doing her, closeup stuff and the groom's getting ready at the other side of the venue. So I'm just hanging around here at this stage [00:29:00] probably, I mean a coffee or something.

I like the, um, the way it test lakes them together. I don't know if it looks nice, pixy set would do that. 'cause I've never taken a wedding portrait image. I just never taken any in portrait format. So mine always looked like a brick wall. 

Yeah, you do. I never do. You do quite a few, don't you? Yeah.

So this bride was determined to have a good day, wasn't she? She looked 

the whole 

day. A bridesmaid. We'd done her wedding early in the year as well, so, or the year before. Nice. So Sam does all this kind of stuff that I couldn't be bothered to do. But you like doing this stuff, don't you? 

Well, it's all, it's all part of the story, isn't it?

It's so, it's all, it's all, I think it's all important because it's part of their day. They have taken the time and the energy to think about exactly what they want and how they want it all to look. 

Oh, certainly kidding. Yeah. So, 

you know, you, you've gotta, you've got, it's part of the story. 

So in real time then, you know, I'm with the guys, now the guys are arriving, getting in the car, you know, doing what guys do, loading around, playing darts, all that kind of stuff.

Really? McDonald's. McDonald's, yeah. You are carrying on [00:30:00] doing the bread or prep stuff. So I wanna skip through this a little bit. 

So these, these are mostly with your 24 to 70, then Sam. Is that right? They're all with 10 40 always. Yeah, 

that's, I just use that camera with that lens most of the day. Other than when I swap it for my, um, my other one, it's, that's literally all, sometimes in the evening, I'll move on to the, um, to that one won't I to do for that shot?

7,200? Yeah. Yeah. 

That one is that. Got that? Oh no, that one, that's the, um, 

that's the 16 to 35 on there. Oh, is it? Yeah. F four. That's a video lens. Yeah. 

See, I, I just, I just grabbed the camera and don't really pay much attention to what I'm, 

so there's maybe Kurt anyway and doing all the, all the groom stuff.

Yeah. While I still with the bride. So, you know, fairly routine stuff. I think. Right way. 

The way I would explain and the way that we kind of work together is that he's the technical one. So he's the chemist by trade, so he's got the technical background. He knows everything about cameras because he is worked with cameras ever since he was at [00:31:00] uni.

I'm so good. Um, 

I wasn't gonna say that. Um, it 

was, it was implied. 

But then I've, I'm very arty. I draw, I paint. So I see moments and details that you, that I never see, would never see. So between the two of us, 

that's a really good combination, isn't it? We 

work very well. 

Lemme skip on to this ceremony, 'cause I think you've seen plenty of, so the ceremony, so this is in indoors, in, in a barn.

So I'm with Curtis now waiting for things to happen. Sam's coming across the road with the kids. Whoops. What was that? Dunno, that was the dog knocking something over. Come out the way dog. Was it bin way? That's alright. It's just a shred. I got knocked over by the dog. So it's ton of paper on the thought thought.

Going back to pen and Sony pen. No, the camera, the cameras are safely here. Come out the way Billy. And I think if I just fast forward on a little bit, you, I mean, okay, so I'm in that picture, which now with the advances on AI editing either took myself out now, but at the time I thought, well, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna take, would 

you bother now?

I So is that something I do now? Yes. 

[00:32:00] Yeah, I would now. Yeah. But the main thing is you can see his reaction there. He is in tears, but I'm also That's a lovely also, yeah. So we've got the two different perspectives at the same time. Sam's at the back, um, at the front and that's the benefit of the two graphers.

Yeah. 'cause 

sometimes when I, when I'm chatting to a, a couple and the bride will say, yeah, we want pitch me coming in, we'd also like to see his reaction. I'm thinking, I'm not sure how I'm to do with that. Especially if it's a church where the, the VI is obviously gonna go really crazy if you start running around the place.

Yeah, we would never do that. So once we're in situ, we never move. We never move. So, so there's no black and white photos at the moment. I'll explain why in a second, 'cause Sam's able to get from the back of the venue, you know, the rings exchanged so I can get it from the front, you know, it's just the two different angles really.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Nice. Which is, yeah, which people like. Yeah, 

that looks like a nice venue. It's quite, for a's a little bit venue type venue, it's really nicely there, isn't it? Yeah, it is nice like coming in. 

So let's move on. So, confetti [00:33:00] run usual stuff and then we'd like to go into what I calling hato mode for about 20 minutes.

So when they're doing the drinks receptions, we just mingle, you know, looking for candies, looking for moments. 

Yeah. So we always try and see if we can, if they've got confetti, we do that as soon as they come outta the ceremony. So I'll whisk them off for a couple of minutes while Steve sets that up. And then we can get that done.

So that's the tick box for that done straight away, much rather than trying to get it sorted out with everybody a little bit later on. If that's done and outta the way, we can then leave them for a little while to spend time with their guests. Say hi to people they've not seen. And we can just click away.

Really? 

Yeah, because you do, you do hear, I was at, at the event the other day I talks about where I was with my Fuji, the, a couple of photographers saying that they like to do group shots straight away after confetti. 

No, I can't. And I think, well, they, 

people haven't, for, for a start people haven't spoken to the bride yet.

They haven't seen it at all. And also it's really impractical is people still come up to congratulate them [00:34:00] when you're trying to do the group shots. Exactly's just let all that happen to, those are really 

important moments, aren't they? Yeah, I agree. I agree. Yeah. You know, the, the people, particularly the bride, they won't have seen the bride.

They wanna give her a massive hug, give her a kiss, all that stuff. And those are really important kandy moments. So, so we normally wait 20, 25 minutes before we do any, any groups. And if we're gonna do a big group, so there's some steps here where I can go up and get a, you know, slightly wide and I try to crop in, you know, try to correct the verticals on that.

But unfortunately it was just too tight to crop. But you know, if they want a big group A, we start with that. 'cause it's easy to lose people rather than find people.

You could have done, and that's good thing. Could've done a panorama at that point, Steve, and then, and then been mock by a, by a trip pop legend.

Well, I've learned something today about doing groups with panoramas. I never thought about doing that before. That's a good idea. And then, you know, we don't put any groove photos on the website because we're not, we don't wanna portray the fact that we're, you know, we, we emphasize the fact that we're candid or whatever.

Yeah. But of course, if we do group pictures, we just don't make a trauma out of them. So what we try and do is think about people's hands and arms so the arms aren't dangling in [00:35:00] midair. Sam will set up the group. I'll take 10 of every picture because somebody who blinks. Yep. And then Sam will get the next group one so we can get 'em done in 15, 20 minutes.

Normally come there. 

You got all the children looking in the right direction. Vaguely. 

Yeah. 

That's impressive. 

I'm just waving at them and shouting at them. Well, not shouting, but calling their names and waving at them, trying to get them to look this way. Always. 

Do you find you end up whenever the kids eventually look in the right direction, there's normally.

Normally the groom then pointing down to point at the camera to tell 'em to look. So you, the, the kids are fine. But then the gr so you have to, you have to Photoshop them anyway because you have to put one of him in to replace 'em. Just 

why, just keep, take loads of pictures, you know? Yeah. Why not just take, yeah, so I always do a bridesmaids getting together, you know, giggly kind of thing.

'cause it's the ones he always put on Instagram. The couple always Embroid puts that on Instagram. So I always say, you know, imagine you're gonna do a selfie, you get your faces close together or something. 

Yeah. 

And then back into drinks and nibbles time. And then we'll take some pictures inside the venue.

If the, if the couples look [00:36:00] round the venue before you know the room. We'll photograph that as well. You 

got of the wedding breakfast setup here in details and a few like play settings and things like that. Absolutely. Yeah. 

Yeah. 

It's all part of the story, isn't it? 

Yeah. Agree. Yeah. And, and it's something they, they've, some couples have put a ridiculous amount of time in choosing things.

Exactly. The I'm proud of it. Yeah, she did set and yeah, so it makes sense to photograph it and 

it, and as and as well, I, I suppose they've spent so much time prepping and planning and with a, this view of what they want everything to look like, but they never actually see it until the day. 

So it's, 

it should say, this is Meghan and Curtis by the way.

'cause I did check with Megan that she was okay for us to do this and I know she wants to listen to the podcast afterwards. So. Hi Megan. Hi Curtis. Thank you for letting us do this. 

Yeah. Very kind to. 

I did, very gracious. I did a pre wedding shoot with them, um, the autumn before, so it was autumn of, of 23 and we went down to Lime Regis 'cause it was a special place to them.

And it was one of the windiest days of the year. 

It was so. It was a lot of fun out on [00:37:00] the cob or whatever it's called. Is that language? Oh, it 

was, it was completely, uh, it was bitter. No, no, it wasn't Lime, it was Milford. Sorry. It was Milford. Yeah. Not far Bitter, wasn't 

it? 

Not far away. So I've stood by Jengas and you probably have as well, I probably stood for Jengas by hours in total waiting for the bloody things to fall.

Yeah.

And then you think, right, so it's not gonna work and then it goes as you walk away, just as, just as you walk away. 

Absolutely. So then move on. So a couple portraits, we, we'll do a few before dinner if appropriate. And this was April, so we didn't have a, you know, tremendous amount of light behind and we are not, you know, we're not big on portraits, we're not big on post photos, Nick.

So we just give them a few ideas, but then we just basically say, go with the flow, really.

So Steve normally kind of stands in front and takes the picture, whereas I disappear to the side and start photo kind photo. 

Yeah, that's a good idea. Ancient stuff, because you're using you're getting double the Exactly.

Double the number of photos for, for their time, aren't you? And you, you're not having to keep them out there for ages. 

Exactly. So, you know, walking along photos, you know, the traditional thing with the veil, all that stuff really. There's a nice bridge there, which [00:38:00] is fun just to set up. Um, we were 

just a bit early there 'cause we didn't have the, that's all wisteria.

Yeah. Just so it was just in bud another couple of weeks. That would've been stunning. 

So these are all with either the 24 70, sorry, the 70 to 200 or the Sigma probably at the time. Mm-hmm. So, uh, yeah, nothing. 

And what was the Sigma? The Sigma 81, 

4. The one I saved. Just sold. It's been, it's been a great lens.

It's just, we had the opportunity to get into your one, so. Got a new one. 

See all the colors look very consistent there and much more consistent than I would be able to get. If I had an 85 mixed up with 7,200, I'd never be able get it the same. 

It's, it's 'cause I've took a lot of effort and that and time to get them mixed.

To get them to match it. Yeah. But, uh, straight outta the camera, they're not, they're narrow, not even close. Okay. It took a lot of work to get 'em close. Yeah. But I'm, you see, I'm quite picky about that as you obviously are as a professional photographer. Couples don't notice that kind of stuff really, to be honest.

I know, but it's, to me, it's doing the job properly. The 

trouble is, you know, you know, they're not gonna notice and you're, but you still don't want, you still wanna fix it and you still want to get it. Right. Right, exactly. It's like, you [00:39:00] know, removing elements from a shot. You know, that's, if it, I don't mind if it's stuff in, like, if it's a waist bin, say that's in shot in the background.

If it's out the way, it's fine. It's when there's just something that's coming from the edge of the frame and it's kind of a bit jarring, then I'll absolutely remove that and they wouldn't notice that probably. 

So for speech, I tend to photograph whoever's giving the speech, looking for, you know, emotional moments or whatever.

People laughing and Sam's looking for people. With a 70 to 200, she's looking for people's reactions or people smiling or laughing or fighting or whatever. Just have a bit of variety to them really. 

Yeah. You can kind of be a bit like a sniper, can't you? Sort of just looking round and looking for Yeah.

Listening to someone laughing and what, at what point would you normally get, these are all natural lights, aren't they? They're all Would you ever get, yeah. Would you ever get your flashes out for 

this? Rarely. I'll be honest I've played around with it, but we always go on the basis that we want to be as inin speakers as possible.

Really. And if I'm firing off three God rocks, 82 hundreds at the, the top table. The groom's normally nervous enough as it is without me firing loads of flash guns at them and [00:40:00] stuff. But if it was really, you know, blackout in a coal mine, if you're not gonna be able to 

dig out a Yeah. If you're not gonna, yeah.

But I think these are fine,

yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. They look really good. So this is, and it's got, it's got nice side lighting there. Yes. It has. Where you've got venues where. It's either quite flat lighting. I tend to find if I can get away with it and I won't use flash, but other, it, it, even if it's flat, not just too dark, if it's just not enough contrast, I'll get the flashes out.

Yeah, no, completely. I just take the hit that it is gonna be a little bit more obtrusive, even though it's just a flash stand with a MagMod type reflector, you know, modify on, it's not like a big soft box or anything, but it is a little bit obtrusive and it does mean if you change angle, it's so door that you go, oh, this is a nice angle.

And then you realize that your flash is right and you know, then you have to go move it and, and that kind of thing. So it's, yeah, exactly. A faf. Definitely. 

So this is one only time we've ever had smoke bombs. I think this wedding, you know, they said even they didn't know 

how to use them to start off with, 

so we said, [00:41:00] they said, can we take some smoke one photos?

Absolutely. But he's at your own risk, you know, if you and, and I think one of the guys actually did get his all over his suit. I think it was this guy actually. Get it all, every suit. 

That's the danger, isn't it? Or, or holding it upside down and burning your hand. That's the Yeah. Two things spark.

They look really good though. 

Yeah. They were fun. And then we did have a lovely golder hour, so we had a bit of fun with those. Nice. Yeah. 

Look at 

that. Can't beat it, can you? No. And they then they were just up for it, weren't they? 

Yeah. 

Yeah. Now, why I wanted to show this wedding as well is that we didn't use flash.

We used the rotor lights for the first time. We thought we'd try and try the rotor lights. So we didn't use any flash on this wedding. We used LED lighting instead. Okay. And there were times we struggled because of it. Mm. But also it was an experience. 'cause when we do videos, we were doing on Saturday.

Now I, I'll take that photo out now. There's one where the, the color's not right. We're gonna use, we'll use LEDs for first dance. 'cause what I don't want to do on first dance, if I'm, if we're doing video is having white outs with flash all the time, 

[00:42:00] how fussy are you about that kind of thing when you are like, if, if it happened.

Are you like knocking out a frame, a video to get rid of it? 

No, 'cause I'm not, I'm, you know, we're, we're photographers that do a bit of video, but if there was a full-time videographer there, then I didn't want, I'd want to make allowances for him and saying, well, expected to make allowances for me if it was something I needed to do.

Yeah. I've, I've tried using my, my, uh, continuous when, when I was doing video as well, use continuous, and it, I found it very restrictive for taking photos. But I think it was probably just not realizing how much lower the power is, how much less light you're getting out of it. Completely didn't flash.

Yeah, it completely, and I probably did have it dulled up high enough, but it was, it was fine for video, but it was, I was just really struggling and it was, they were pretty noisy really. I wasn't happy with them at all 

and I just liked the intellectual challenge to do was a little bit different, to be honest.

Yeah, 

agreed. Yeah. Yeah. 

So then these, so there's a nice sort of lit up archway thing there isn't there and stuff, so, and then, yeah, [00:43:00] evenings and usual stuff and then we. Nice. So that's the wedding. And then we do the wall again in black and white. So we give them the whole gallery in black and white as well.

Okay. And 

is that a do just, but is that like a bulk preset once you've edited them all? 

Yeah, I don't, so I basically make a load of virtual copies. Yeah. Do a black and white conversion export. The black and white. I don't do any additional editing, you know, it's as they are. So export them as black and whites, upload them and then delete the virtual copies.

Yeah. Yeah. But actually, yeah, the black and whites look quite nice from here as well. 

Why do you delete the virtual copies of interest? Because it's 

just more, more data. It's much more stuff, 

yeah. Stuff. It's not another image is it? It's just another entry in the database. Anybody? No, it's just neat, 

neat tidier.

Once I've made the black and whites, I'm never gonna use 'em again. Really? So, um, yeah, I do some. So that's how we do a winning. 

I do, when I'm going through my edit, it's, I do do black and whites, but it's when there's the, the two reasons I do black [00:44:00] white is, I think it's a. It's a headline shot IE something that I've delivered as a preview maybe.

You know, so it's in that sort of, you know, that that sort of top 10% of your photos that you're most happy with. I tend to do black and whites for those, or it's ones where just the colors are, it's noisy church type thing where I think it's a nice moment, but it looks absolutely bloody awful in color.

Yeah. So I, I'll do it for that as well. But I still, I think we talked before about it. I still always do a color version 'cause I know they'll just come back and ask me otherwise. That's why I've started doing that. Really? So you just do the whole lot. Black and white. Yeah, 

Yeah. I would do the whole wedding in black and white.

I, 'cause it's my favorite genre 'cause it was, you know, starting developing in black and white when I first got into photography all those years ago. But to me it just takes away that sort of extra work of, oh, I love that photo. But because I have color or all that kind of discussion. What we haven't talked about actually is our jobs when it comes to editing.

So we've gotta assigned jobs there, aren't we? 

Yeah. 

So she does the culling 'cause I'm shitted it. We 

end up with a hundred way too many. If he calls, 

that's maybe because maybe episode. But yes, I'm [00:45:00] useless. Culling. 

Yeah. Dawn does my culling as well. That works pretty well. Did you just use the same machine or are you exporting a catalog with smart previews?

So here's the 2025 way of working and it changes every year. Ah, yeah. You gotta keep 

up. 

Version 15. You make, I make a catalog for every wedding Uhhuh. But the first thing is we get home and we copy all the photos using photo mechanic into three different drives, one of which is offsite, taken offsite.

Then, then I put everything through, um, after shoot. And let it do a first call and a basic edit. And then Sam will come and do a, a refined call and highlight anything she thinks is missed. Okay. If you, so for instance, if you've picked a couple of group photos and she thinks there's a be, there's a better one, she'll just hit a, I think we use yellow, don't we?

To say, we need to go back and have a little look for photo. 

And can you do that, Sam, because you were there at the wedding typically? Yeah. 'cause you know that there, there was a better shot later on or whatever.

Yeah. 

[00:46:00] So the first, the first, 

and also if there's one where that it's, it's actually chosen where somebody's got their eyes closed and we know there's probably another one, which he doesn't do very often.

It doesn't do very often, but it can do it sometimes. 

Yeah. 

I mean, if we've took five, let's say 6,000 photos at a wedding between the two of us, which isn't uncommon after she might give us 1100, which is too many. Okay. And that's, and by reducing that, you're 

only improving the set, aren't you? Every time you knock another hundred, you, you're making set better.

So she might get the dad to say, 700, and then when I'd go through and do a final polish and do any local adjustments, I might get that down by another a hundred. So we're normally delivering about 600. And then I export that as a catalog into a master catalog. And the master catalog is all the final work of each wedding.

So you edit it in the individual catalog and then. Pull it in. Does that not, well, I know it doesn't, it that then doesn't apply the AI things when you do that. So things like, say if you'd say if you've done a, let's say a sky selection or a subject isolation or something in the original catalog.

When you [00:47:00] import it, you have to manually go in and we, I've noticed that, to be honest, we, that 

you might be right. 

So just, just one thing to be aware of the, the, yeah. If you went to the mask catalog to export an image it, it puts a, a sort of grayed out, exclamation mark near the histogram and you have to click that.

Okay. Or go into, okay, I've learned 

something there. 

Or go into the mask and select it. But by default it doesn't. You can select all of them and just go right click, develop settings, and then apply reapply AI so you can do them all in one hit. But unless you need it, you don't wanna do that because every one of those takes up your.

Total and we're all limited on the number of AI operations we can do in. So I used 

to, um, I used to make one master catalog for everything. 'cause the whole idea of Lightro Lightroom is, it's a, it's a database tool, isn't it? Absolutely. Yeah. We define things. So yeah. But we edit on a, a external two terabyte Thunderbolt SSD, which is pretty quick.

Mm-hmm. But that would soon fill up, you know, with every weddings, like 200 gigs or whatever. So once I've edited, I then export, take those rules and put 'em on a [00:48:00] slow drive, which is backed up as well, of course. And that's then, and then the, I re-index the, it's probably a, a longwinded idea. I re-index the photos in the master catalog to that drive.

I purely do it that way. So it's basically quicker to edit pictures. So Lightroom is snappier than, yeah. Editing on a big, slow drive with a big catalog, which slows everything down. That's the only reason I do it. Yeah. 

Yeah. I think the, uh, the, the, whether people do one shoot, I. One catalog per shoot or not is like a end endless debate, isn't it?

That will almost cause murderous fracker. But I, coming from a database engineering background, database is designed to be big. They work better when there's a good chunk of data. I think there is a point where there might be a sweet spot where if you've got like 10 years and you've got 2 million photos, I think probably it's probably a bit big.

So one a year would make sense. But stuff like if Caswell, not Caswell, is it Caswell house? Did I just make that up? Yeah. Yeah. If they ask could you send us your favorite room shots for the last five years? Fucking, it just makes it so easy [00:49:00] to be able to go and do that without having to, it's just that things like that you just can't do if you have one shoot per catalog.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And, and, and if it's a mass, you know, massive catalog or referencing a, a slow spitting dis drive, it's just gonna slow the whole thing down. Really? 

Yeah. 

For editing purposes, for, for cataloging purposes, that's fine. Yeah. But if in real time editing, I want it to be as quick as possible.

Agree. No, I 

agrees. Got a terrible, I think that workflow you've got makes sense because you've got, when you are moving it around between the two of you, you've got it in a smallish catalog and then you pull it into the main one. So you can still get all the benefits of that later on about searching across multiple weddings and so on.

And also, you know, if Sam wants to go into some culling, there's another sort of, um, we've got a, a slower MacBook and a just a basically lab, a screen upstairs so we, she can just take the drive, at call there. Yeah. And then we'll take it back down again. You know, we can, we can swap around quite quickly if we need to.

Basically we can do two things at the same time if we need to in editing, which speeds things up as well. 

Sam, have you ever tried [00:50:00] doing culling on like a lap, either a laptop or a MacBook using Lightroom rather than Lightroom Classic. So using a synced collection because. It's not something I've tried. I know some people do this.

If you put all of that's like the 

one you got on your Mac, on the, on the, uh, iPad, you know the one you can stick across? No, we've done it for, not for wedding work. We've done it for personal photos. 

Yeah. I just wonder how, whether it would be quick and, you know, look, whenever I've tried doing this in my Lightroom workshops, it just seems to take limit ages.

And so I can imagine that by the time, the reason I would do that is to like, so you take, the way you would do it is you take all of your photos that you wanna cu let's say from a wedding, stick it into a collection syn, that collection that become, that collection then turns into the album syntax in Lightroom rather than like in classic.

And you should then be able to go in and just flag them yellow colors or stars or whatever. But it just takes so long to do that. And the reason I would do it is to save time, but by the time it synced everything, I probably could have stuck up on a drive and or just exported the smart previews. 

I'll tell you who does do that.

Marty McMillan [00:51:00] I think, who used to do that for weddings, but and I think Andrew Billington does as well. But we'll do that for personal photos. So we're often holiday in, in the week's time. So for like pictures of Croatia, we'll do that then, because you can sit on the iPad and edit them and stuff for Alder sitting in front of the computer.

'cause let's be honest, you know, we're not sure of things to edit all we professionally, so it's just making it less with a so and so ache for your own photos. Yeah, yeah. 

Agreed. 

So that's what we do really. I think, uh, you know, we do have obviously ED two hundreds in a flash bag and. And mad mug stuff and all that stuff as well, which is in another bag.

Yeah. And there's another bag, which is the sound bag for when we do video stuff as well. But I guess that's a bit off topic for today. 

What's your when you're exporting it, you've got all the black and white versions as well. Do you reduce the size so that they're all approximately the same down to the eight, I guess the a, the a nine is the lowest common denominator.

Did you get more down to 24 megapixel? 

No. Uh, I export four resolution to an export drive. But if I'm, if [00:52:00] we're delivering, so one of the things we, we sell to couples is a, a photo folio, which is like a picture frame, threefold picture frame with the USB key in that. I will put 'em all down, I'll put 'em through JPEG mini.

Okay. Uh, and, and specify the dimensions of the, otherwise they won't all go on the SP key. Yeah. And, and they're still, you know, plenty big enough for 'em to print, but actually I want 'em to buy prints off, shoot off, uh, pick time, not off, uh, themselves Anyway, so. 

Does that still, is that still going JPEG media?

I used to use that quite a lot. Yeah. 

Yeah, it's great. I used today actually doing some stuff for the website just to quickly get images down to sort of less than 500 meg, you know, for, for the website. It works. It works fine. Yeah. I've got a license for it. 

And did you, do you use the standalone app or the plugin to Light Rim Standalone?

Because I used to, that used to just, part of my normal workflow was to have the, when you create your export plugin export presets in Lightroom, you can just add the jpeg mini plugin. But it's, it stopped working a while ago and I've, I just took it out. No, 

I want to, I want to, I want to have the originals at full resolution just [00:53:00] in case.

And so I don't export a hundred percent, all that stuff. I don't shrink 'em down at all. 'cause again, hard drives are cheap, aren't they? 

But Export jpeg mini, the, the idea is that it's virtually the same. Yeah, whatever, whatever you export the LAC quality-wise in jpeg, it will look pretty much exactly the same, apart from it being about half the size.

And one of the beauties, by the way, pick time as well. I dunno if it's to same with what you use, is that the couple, if we allow it or specify, can download either social media or print resolution files. They can choose. Yeah. So it's done automatically. So, um, unless you put water 

watermarks on and stuff, if you wanted to do that.

No. I could do, I 

don't, no, we don't. Do we, 

The way we think about it is, you know, they've paid for us to photograph their wedding they've got us for their wedding. So why would we, every I, we get speaking to everybody anyway, so they know who we are. So why would we 

Yeah, no, I agree. Mark everything.

I totally agree. I think the time, the only times I use watermarks is when I'm doing an engagement shoot where, or a pre-wedding shoot where I have done it as part of, done the shoot bit as [00:54:00] part of their wedding package and then they can then purchase packages of prints afterwards. So that's quite a model I can see that.

Yeah, you're kind of doing the, you're do, you're doing a. In terms of, from their point of view, they're getting a shoot that's worth two or 300 quid or whatever because it's a, it is a shoot from my point of view, it makes the consultation meeting a half an hour longer than it would be otherwise. And I'm, we're getting some photos as well.

Yeah. So it means that they're paying for the editing side of it as well. So I do put B marks on for that, like quite intrusive once across. That's a good idea actually. Just to stop people screenshoting them, which people still do sometimes anyway, but not that often. But yeah, it is a weird thing that you do see some people still, I suppose it's more popular in things like landscape photography, isn't it, to put a board mark in.

But I think the reasons people do that, I know we've got off topic here, is, um, so I'm trying to make myself shut up by, I just finished this. 

He does this, you know, some, the reason people, 

the reason people put watermarks on, I think is the watermark doesn't solve it. They think that by putting it on that somehow people won't steal the photo.[00:55:00] 

But what what seems to happen is that if you've got a watermark on. In some people's minds, that means they can steal it because it's got some, it says copyright. Yeah. You photographers, they think, well that's fine to me to use it then and it isn't. Yeah. Or they'll crop it and completely screw all the, quite careful Exactly.

Composition that we've put into our photos. So Yeah. Never a benefit. As you say, I think, as you say, Sam, I think people know, who know who you are. If they wanted to find out who shot the wedding and they, they didn't take your details, they'll ask. And having a water up on the photo isn't gonna sort of log any, is not gonna push any information outta their head to keep it in there.

And I think, and I think we've been doing this for so long now, so many people know us anyway. Most weddings we go to, we know three or four other couples at least that are there. Yeah. So yeah, it just, yeah. 

And you know, we've been doing well. We've picked time. I think every year we've got at least a couple of grand worth of print sales or album sales.

Yeah. I think our best every year was four and a half grand, where a couple spent a grand on albums, which we just, you know, um, weren't expecting at tour. So what we try and do is make it as easy as [00:56:00] possible for people to use big time. And yes. If some take downloads pictures and take 'em to boots again printed, so what?

You know. 

Yeah. 

I 

don't 

care. It's quid that we missed out on. So what, you know, it's not, it's not the, 

I do say to my couples in my thing that kind of, the license restrict is restricted as, as such that they, they should have, that they can use the original files. They're not supposed to share them.

They should share the link to the gallery. 'cause there's professional prints. It pretty reasonable cost ly. So you, and you almost go, you go for that sort of methodology of if you do something like that for free, you get 80% of what you want. 

Yeah. You know, that's exactly the way it works. By 

just saying that you could enforce it with some really complicated system to get a hundred percent, but what's the point?

It's gonna take so much effort and expense. 

Exactly. Exactly. I think my final thought on, on, on what we do, Nick, is, and, and I'm going to embarrass Sam now really now, but. One of the reasons we get, you know, the reviews that we get and, and I'm looking at the six Guide for Brides awards we've got on that bookcase up there is is Sam really?

And it's the care and attention she puts into the day. Not just the photos. [00:57:00] The photos of course, are what we are there for, but being, you know, helping in any way she can. Brides, and I'm generally saying this, brides always saying, you know, you were fantastic. Couldn't do it without you. Uh, you know, it's that quote by Maya Angelou that says, people forget what you did.

People forget what you say, but people will never forget how you made them feel. Mm-hmm. And, and I think it's really important that, you know, we always try and say goodbye to the parents. Say goodbye to the couple, give the couple a hug, you know, and all that stuff. And, and, and it just means that they remember a warm experience.

They didn't think those so and so photographers were a pain in the backside on the day. We never want that, you know, touch where I think we've never had that really. So that's why we've had a successful business. We're not the greatest photographers by any means. We're not the most expensive, but the reason we've been able to keep going for 15 years really is down to Sam.

Really? 

Absolutely. I think that's, is that right? Praise well deserved, because that is what people remember. That's the, is those last memories. And that's when, on any type of shoot that our listeners might be involved in, if they're working with a client, sometimes things don't go the way that you want and you're not getting the shot that you kind of want [00:58:00] and you could sort of force it, or something's happened that wasn't agreed.

And yeah, you could kick off and say, well, we didn't agree that, but that's the thing they'll remember. They won't remember a anything else. And so you want 'em to remember you as a, as a positive experience, whether that's a referral or just, or just to give someone a nice thing, you know? And 

I suppose the way I, the way I would describe it is I.

Just do whatever I can on the day to make sure the day runs as smoothly and as perfectly as it possibly can for the couple and for their guests as well. And if that means me stepping in and helping do bits and pieces, if that help means me having to take the bride to the toilet 'cause the bridesmaids are all on the dance floor, then so be it.

You know, it's 'cause I be, I'm with the bride anyway I've, I will, I mean, he calls me out sometimes even to put the, uh, buttonhole on the grooms 'cause he is groomsman. 

I still can't do 'em. I know where to go. 

I always end up, I always end up doing that. I just, I I, I just carry the middle of my now and just say like, I'll put your things on because they're gonna be too high and they're gonna be wonky.

Oh yeah. If somebody else does them, I [00:59:00] more or less end up going and putting them. Right. 'cause you can see the pins or whatever Yeah. Afterwards. So, yeah. 

Or they put through any other question, the actual buttonhole. So there is that. Oh, I know 

the few. Yeah. 

No, they do that, don't they? Yeah. Yeah. 

Anything you haven't asked us yet, or you, you think we've missed or.

When, well, we talked about you, you met, you dropped into video. So if, if you, when you do video, do you, right, do you split photography and video? Is that, are you then doing video, Steve, or does 

somebody That's, that's a really good question. Yeah. I'm mainly doing the video. So when we sell video, we're very clear as to what it is and what it isn't.

So it's not a cinematic video. We're not gonna do lots of slow mo Andre sequencing and stuff. We could do that, but not when we're photographing. So it's a matter of fact video. So we'll do some video clips of getting ready. We'll video the ceremony, but it's a static tripod man camera, you know, I mic people up.

So we've got wireless mics and, and Sony clip on mics and things so people can hear it. We'll video a little bit of the drinks, reception with video, the speeches. K cut first dance. So they'll get about an hour of HD video, well [01:00:00] edited, but it's not, anyway, it's not a, you know, cinematic experience.

But then we charge what, 700 quit for it or something, as opposed to two grand. So yeah, it's a nice to have, it's a nice little gray for us 'cause it's not a lot of work actually.

We've also done a few times is you've given the groomsman. Oh, it's a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah. So current. So 

go on you.

So they give them, uh, something to record messages. So they'll go round the guests and say, are you gonna, can you give them a send, give a message to the couple for afterwards? And it's hilarious. 

So basically we give them, we've got DJI, Osmo actions, you know, like GoPros. We've got two of them. I put 'em on a little stick.

I give one to the groomsmen and one to the girls. And I say, just video, anything. Have fun with it, and the drunker they get during the day, the funnier it gets, and I don't edit it at all. I'll just chuck it all onto timeline and give it the couple for nothing. It's like a little, little, little freebie.

Uh, and, and of course the video in the floor, the video with the C link and it's, it's a riot. The comments were 

[01:01:00] hilarious one day initially 

was doing interviews, so how do you, how long have you known the bride and groom? But again, it's just a bit of fun, isn't it? You know? If you position it as being a bit of fun, it's something that, you know, and if they're up for it, there's usually like a, yeah, some groomsman is really into it.

And, uh, it'll run around video, everything. I wouldn't do it as a videographer, of course. Um, but, uh, 

yeah, well, we're gonna talk about it in a future episode. So bit extra bits of kit that we take along that give us opportunity to do things like this, that may not be an our normal thing. So we gonna talk about a few things like.

Great idea. Yeah. So, so we'll, we'll go through things like that. Well that's been fascinating and I think, as you said last time, Steve, that with the bags basically containing the same kit as I've got, we have very different ways of, of shooting and working. And not least of course, 'cause there's two of you.

Um, and I'm more, a bit more constrained in what I can do with regards to that. But that's been really interesting. 

Yeah, it's been a lot of fun talking about and and Sam is definitely the boss by the way. That's why it's called Sam and Steve Photography, not Steve and Sam. No, it flows 

better. Sam and Steve.

Yeah. And also you are the boss. 

That's what he tells [01:02:00] everybody. 

What we should do. Actually let me switch to being the host again for a second, which is no one in my role on this podcast. What we should do is give you a chance to tell the listener all the work you've been doing. 'cause you've been working your so and sos off for the last few weeks.

I really have. So you finally got the Creative Academy up and running mate, haven't you? 

I had, yeah. So at, we had the launch date of 31st of May, which I did meet, let's call it a soft launch date. So there's a few subscribers have signed up, but I've Yeah, you're right. I've been putting in Red Dixie long hours to get everything in there and looking around.

I'm. Probably a couple of days away now from it, it being live, which it is already, but then bringing all the subscribers that I've got that have been kindly registering their details to come into it, um, and looking around it today. Fantastic. It is a bit of a sort of, you know, when you, you sort of head deep in something you're almost like, so you, you know, what's the expression?

You know, you can't see the wood from the trees. 

Yeah. 

I saw to, we have a step back to go back and just look through what the visitor flow to make sure that was right. And I thought, do you know what, this is really bloody good and I was really proud of it and I think it is something I'm really proud of and it has grown much.

It should be [01:03:00] much bigger than I thought it was gonna be initially, but the, so that there's, the membership levels are all set now, so you could, there's a free membership, which I think is really important because I want people to subscribe and get involved in the community aspects of it, which is like a Facebook but without the trolls and racism.

So there's gonna be places to chat and collaborate with other photographers. Then there's membership levels where. The middle one called Explorer will add in a one-to-one coaching call with me and a stream of kind of master classes that I, that I'm creating. Then there's the hero level, which will be more of a sort of accelerated program with one-to-one video coaching with me regularly through the month just to, you know, keep projects on track and things like that.

But then there's the online courses and the coaching and digital products, which people can subscribe to and buy as well. And the online courses they're all set up. The course outlines are there. There's a pre-launch offer until the courses go live, which are, which is to, in another couple of weeks until then people can go onto the landing pages and they can get half [01:04:00] price on those.

So there'll be, there's halfway something. We should link to that 

in the show notes, 

Nick. Yeah, so, yeah, if you, if you just go to www nick church creative academy.com. Have a look around, leave your details in any of the online forms, which just say name and email. Leave your details there. And in the next couple of days when these landing pages are ready to people to sign up and buy this half price courses, you'll get an email.

So you, you, you'll, you'll know exactly when it's available to do that. So yeah. Fantastic. Nick church create academy.com. But yeah, thanks Steve for the opportunity. And we should 

just say as well, it's, it's, it's not for aspiring wedding photographers, it's just for anybody that wants to up their photography game.

Yeah, 

yeah. From, yeah. I mean the photography course online course is sort of a beginner's through to sort of intermediate enthusiast level. The, the light room classic course and the Photoshop course, of course are, you know, applicable to everybody. Course. So there's, there's loads of professional photographers that really struggle with having their Lightroom catalog set up right, and folders all over their desktop and things like that.

So there's, um, yeah, hopefully something for everybody [01:05:00] there. And then all the coaching stuff is more, there's flash and wedding photography, master classes and things. So yeah, hopefully trying to spread it across so it's, so there's something there for everybody to get stuck into and find really valuable.

Fantastic job. It's their hope. 

And we should also just shout out to the fact we've had our first meetup. Now, unfortunately, you, you, you couldn't make an IT where we had a, a meetup in Oxford for some street photography, uh, a couple of Sundays ago. So it was a joint event with a nice people at the Thumbs up photography group, which Martin Hay Kvi, who was on the podcast a few weeks ago runs with some other guys and, uh, I think about nine of us turned up in the end.

Uh, plus no seven link. It was actually turned up in Oxford. Uh, it was a hot Sunday day, but we had a bit of fun walking around Oxford Street photography, nerding out on gear and stuff as well. So, uh, shout out to everybody that came along. On that day, we're gonna try and do something again later in the year.

So Russell winning season dies down a little bit. Uh, Nick and I have talked about trying to arrange a meetup in London for the day, you know? Yeah. Bit of street. And I, I'll definitely to 

because that looked like a lot of fun. It looked good. [01:06:00] It was a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah. 

Yeah. And, uh, and you know, just, just obviously doing cameras, camera talker stuff.

But yeah, just chatting as we walked around, he found, I found out that at least three of the people there come from my neck of the woods. One was even, you know, go, went to school in the same place I went to, all that kind of stuff. It was bizarre really. So, uh, yeah, he was still all right. Was he really?

Yeah. Well it was when I left him on that note. 

Hopefully I'll be able to make the next one. Yes. I ended up having to look after my daughter's dog, which was why I couldn't go. 

Story. 

Story. Yeah. Well, like what? We'll both make sure we're there next time then, Sam. 

Yes, 

absolutely. So. Okay. Do you wanna do the outro or shall I?

No, you go. You go Steve. 

Okay. Alright. Okay. Well in that case, thank you Nick for interviewing Sam and I. Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. But in all seriousness, dear listen, if you've enjoyed today's episode, thank you for joining us. Don't forget, subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcast app. That way you won't miss an episode.

And also, if you could give us a review, preferably a five star review on Apple or Spotify, that will help us in lots of weird and wonderful ways as we've just been hearing. Nick's been super busy, but he is [01:07:00] also trying to catch up with putting the episodes of the podcast onto YouTube as well. Now. So if you want to see all the photos, not just our photos, but every photographers that we've spoken to see their work in all their glorious detail, then you'll be able to see them on our YouTube channel, which of course is just caught the photography part.

Uh, we'll be backing in a couple of weeks time with another episode. In the meantime, happy shooting out there. We talk to soon.