Todays posts is geared towards the importance of building good relationships! This is important when couples are looking to book their wedding vendors. But it is also important for us as wedding professionals to build relationships with our clients as well as other wedding professionals.

The most important thing when booking with BG Productions should not be the price, but the relationship you build with us. After all it is much easier to have someone who is taking your pictures and video all day to be someone you Actually like! lol!!! Now we do hope it is our artistic way of capturing such special moments that first attracted you to us-but we hope you booked us because of the warm fuzzy feelings we all have for each other! lol!!! We find it really important that we are a match. If we don’t think we are the best people to capture your Big day, we will be totally honest and let you know that. We don’t have any problems turning down a contract- we are not all about money. It is much more important that we are all comfortable with each other and can meet your needs. It also helps the day be even more fun to capture when we get a chance to know a client better!

Over the years we have built some AMAZING friendships with past clients. Sometimes I forget thats is how we actually met!! lol!!! All of our good friends now are either past clients or other industry folks (or both!!). Our wedding planner Stacey )from Create the Moment)has become an excellent friend and someone we recommend all the time. Bellas’s Awesome doggie nanny Suzen  and her husband Landy are tops on our list to hang out with! Marci, Mike and their adorable girls we have watched grow from the hospital when Lyla was born- they call us “Aunt Cat and Uncle Al”-how AWESOME is that!! We miss Janel terribly who moved to ATL and know we will see her next year when we travel there for Imaging USA.  Mike and Fran have started their own invitation/ stationary design company (Little Woman Design-Fran’s graphic design work Rocks!) and we love hanging out with them at dinner eating goat cheese and talking about Dr. Who!! and Johanna (also a Fabulous artists) is my “girl time” for many lunches in Center City!!! This list could go on and on. The point- building relationships (even if we don’t end up all hanging out after the wedding) is the Most important thing to running a successful business!

We continue with this philosophy when we recommend other vendors or use them ourselves for their services. We totally surround ourselves with other fabulous industry people who we have developed a bond and total mutual respect for. We host a Client Appreciation Party and a Christmas or Halloween Party every year and use many vendors ourselves. Papertini has supplied Awesome floral displays and we can’t wait to see what she has come up with for this years client party. Sweet Talk Cakes and Ciao Bella both supply unbelievable cakes (in both decoration and taste) and we use any excuse to get sweet treats!!! Our Thank you cards come from Little Woman Design and our address labels and soon to be BG Productions rubber stamp we get from Simply Designed (whom I have an awesome Facebook and email relationship with). Anyone and Everyone of these vendors we have recommended on many an occasion!

I thought about all this this week when I posted to Facebook that we are looking for second photographers and/or folks who want to apprentice. The response was overwhelming. (we just need someone more local) It made me sit back and think of the past 4.5 years that Al and I have been in business.  How blessed we are and what has made us able to grow and build such a successful business. Are we rich? Do we just have to shoot a couple of weddings and have enough to live on? Not at all! We work hard and unless we are actually out of the house – we are Always home editing!!! But money isn’t connected to what I am talking about. We have enough to pay our bills and do some really great things. But the greatest advice I can give someone looking to improve their business- look at the relationships you build along the way. Take the time to cultivate them. Truly appreciate and realize that your clients are the ones who have trusted you with their most important life moments! Take pride in the work you do and always stay true to who you are and don’t worry about how “others” do it!

Next we headed out to the Strawberry Bridge and The Plateau for some more posed and candid shots. Check out the picture gallery to see how fun they are and how much they are in Love!!!

Enjoy these images from their very fun session!

Al and I Love the March family! Kirsten, Ron, and Carsyn (Bug). We first met them all when we photographed their Beautiful wedding! We have since done a family session and now a maternity session to welcome the newest member. We can’t wait to meet her. One of the things we love so much about this family- besides how sweet and totally cool they are- is that they are PICTURE people!! They understand the importance of not only having professional pictures taken but also of having them printed and hanging all over their walls. It gives me such a warm feeling to walk into their home and see so many of the important moments of their lives that i c=have captured all displayed along their walls! that is the most AWESOMNESS thing!!! We can’t thank them enough for all their continued trust in our photography and all the referrals they have made! They truly are part of our family!!!

It was so hard to pick just a few to put on the blog! Enjoy this beautiful family!! (and I put Bug up as the cover photo for the album because she is going to be such an awesome BIG sister!!!!)

The camera body

All of you who know me or have read my blog in the past know- I am a film photographer at heart. My first camera was a Canon AE-1 and I LOVED that camera! I loved developing my own film too. But the days of me developing are long gone. While I do still use a film camera- I send the film off to be processed. It took me awhile to get into wanting to do digital photography (or even editing using photoshop for that matter!). But I had a series of basic digital camera and even took my all time favorite photo using a Kodak Easy Share!! (Really- it is still hanging up in my house!-lol) It was actually Al who bought me my first Nikon and who convinced me to get back into photography. He bought me a Nikon D40 as a wedding present and soon after our honeymoon was over we decided to combine our talents and energy and start BG Productions. I shot my first few weddings with that camera- but while this camera is not a professional grade one- I did use all professional grade lenses! This to me is the key! You gotta have great lenses- great “glass” as they say. This allows you to get low light shots, fast shots, and great artistic shots. I once tried to apprentice someone who always tells people I told her she HAd to have professional equipment to call herself a photographer. I actually never said that- but DID say you HAVE to have professional lenses. You can’t just shoot with kit lenses. It was also important at the beginning to let our clients know I had just made the switch to shooting professionally with digital (I used to shoot with film remember) and to give them a discounted prices as I got my feet wet! But I didn’t use that camera but a few times and upgraded to the Nikon D90. I didn’t really like this camera all that much and it soon became my back up equipment when we invested in the Nikon D300 and a grip. Now this camera I loved. It is currently my back up system but will soon be replaced when I buy my new camera. More on that later in the post! The D300 is decent in low light and had way more features that gave me control in how I was shooting. I often take this camera with me when we go on vacation so I don’t risk damaging my main camera. (But no, It is not the camera I used on the recent RV trip!) for that trip I used my next camera- and my current one! The Nikon D700 and a grip. I LOVE LOVE this camera. It has all the features of the more expensive D3 but it is a lot lighter (and well yes, cheaper!!) This camera does great in low light and gives me total control. I don’t find the grain to be too bad and can usually compensate easily for it.  The biggest issue when I upgraded to this camera body is that not all my lenses could work with it. With this upgrade I moved into FX (instead of DX) lenses. So this meant I had to get a whole new set. Luckily I could still use my most expensive lens on both (the 70mm-200mm). But sadly I could no longer use my fish eye lens which gets great creative shots. But since I always have backup equipment with me I just use the D300 when I want to use that lens.

Some other cameras I use

Not everything I shoot comes from a DSLR camera. I still use a 35mm film camera- It’s a Minolta Al picked up for me a few years ago since my other one was broken. I like to take many of our personal pictures with this camera. You can see them strung up all over our house. I don’t use it too much because developing film is just not environmentally friendly. It is way better than it used to be though!  I also have a fun little plastic camera called a Holga. These cameras originally came out of Japan in the 1980′s. I got one a couple of years ago at Urban Outfitters. There is electoral tape all on the sides to limit how much light sneaks through. This is part of the holga charm!! This past Christmas Al got me a Mamiyaflex. This is a camera from the 1950′s. He got it to add to my collection of vintage cameras- but the fun thing about this one- it Still Works!!!   It is really cool to use. I took it on our big RV trip and can’t wait to get the 120 speed film developed!

So what is you next camera body you are wondering? I am torn. Nikon has come out with two really Awesome cameras. The D4 and the D800. I droll over the D4 but with a price tag of $6000 it is A LOT to invest.(remember these cameras don’t come with a lens- just the actual camera body!) The D800 camera is a little easier to swallow at $3000. The D800 is a really really awesome camera. But I worry- if I get it, am I just gonna wanna upgrade to the D4 eventually anyways? Hmmmmmmmm!!! Have to give this one a lot of thought and really save my pennies either way!

Lenses

Remember to me it is all about the lenses! I wish I could buy every lens out there- but I don’t really need ALL of them!! SO what do I use with my D700?

1. 24mm-70mm 2.8. This is my “go-to” lens. This is the one that is most often found on my camera. While I think this lens rocks, I miss my older version of it- but you may remember I dropped it this past winter at a wedding! UGH- i KNOW!! So I got the newer more “fancy” version. With the 2.8 aperture it gives me great depth-of-field and is good in low light. But Ii miss the girth of my old one!! though with the weight of it it is no wonder I ended up in occupational therapy last Fall because of the damage to my wrist!

2. 70mm-200mm..2.8. This lens is my baby!! It has a heavy price tag but is worth every penny. I call it my baby because it is like carrying around a small child! It can get heavy. I also refer to it as my “stalker” lens!! I can stay way back and just watch the client/s with my lens, allowing them to just interact natually!

3. 14mm-24mm..2.8- This lens is my wide angle. I love using this lens on a bright blue day when the sky has those cool fluffy white clouds! This lens has great depth and can get some really artistic shots. It is also good to use when you have a huge group shot. But you have to be careful who you place on the end because this lens can warp you a bit!

4. 50mm 1.2 This is a Prime lens.This means it is fixed and doesn’t have zoom. You Are the zoom! lol!!! Many photographers rave about his lens and use it all the time. I like it well enough and use it in very low light situations. I also use it for great depth-of-field during portraits. But it isn’t my favorite. I try to use it more often- but really I just end up going back to the other lenses on this list!

5. Lens baby. We picked up this fun little lens just to play and get some crazy shots. I have to say- not such a fan. It takes me way to long to get the shot set up to what I want. And honestly- I just have to be able to move faster! I do need to play with it more during non weddings (I wouldn’t really use it at a wedding except for some fun reception shots anyways).

Whats my next lens? that’s easy. I want the 85mm. But what I have to decide is do I want the 1.4 or the 1.8?I have to do some more research to see if it really matters that much for what I want to use it for anyways.

So I hope this has given you some insight into what is in those two big bags (I love my Kelly Moore bag Al got me!) , and that shoulder lens bag (Shoot Sac) I carry around with me everywhere I go. But even though I have all this great equipment-that is just a part of what makes me good at what I do. Photography truly is an art form!

1. Yes- we ALWAYS use contracts. Since the very beginning we have always used a contract. I will admit that as we have grown more business savvy and have more experience- they have defiantly changed. The contract is designed to protect both us and the client. As a client- you want contracts for ALL your vendors. This is very important.If something ever goes wrong, this helps protect you. Our contract is a full two pages now and covers everything from vendor cooperation to back up shooters. We state clearly the services being provided and any payments.

2. The 2nd question had to do with insurance. We carry a million dollar liability policy as well as insurance for our equipment. Many venues require the liability insurance- but not all of them. And if is important to have our equipment covered (well its not all covered- but a good amount). I broke a very expensive lens this year and having insurance was my saving grace.Instead of paying over $2000 for a new lens- I only had to cover the $200 deductible! Whew!!!! Also- imagine if a guest somehow gets hurt over my equipment- it is great peace of mind that someone who may have drank too much at a wedding won’t ruin our business!

Both contracts and having insurance our part of being a professional photography and videography business. It is important that you hire someone who you trust and you know has experience.

3. lastly- I wanted to add something on my own- Please remember to sit up, stand up straight during your wedding! I try and remind couples as much as I can “stand up straight, shoulders back, don’t hunch!”- but I can’t say it all day and night. I get really bummed when I am culling photos and I come across a beautiful candid moment of the bride and she is all hunched. I know that dress can weigh ya down-lol- but do try and remember to stand up straight!

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make sure to go back and enjoy them all!!!
cat and al

This is my Favorite photo of the road trip Al and I just took!

Enjoy all these awesome cats -Alicia, her fiancé and her Christmas Family shoot! and Dani and her kitties!!