My Wedding Shot List - a reference guide for wedding couples

Future brides and grooms! Here's my master shot list a free .pdf file download to help you create your unique wedding shot list! Enjoy - and if you have any photo

related questions - please don't hesitate to contact me!

http://www.bradthrower.com/ 
or call 810-358-0490

"How long will it take to shoot the formal bridal party and family photos right after my wedding ceremony? I just found out that I only have the church for an hour after the ceremony."

Generally the bridal couple, bridal party and family formal portraits are shot immediately after the wedding ceremony in the church or wedding ceremony venue. To answer your question... yes, it can be done in an hour. BUT understand it will depend upon two things: how big your "family" is; and most importantly, how well-organized you are as a group. I recommend to my couples that each family's side (bride's and groom's) have an appointed person to "ride herd" on family members during the formal photo process. That means keeping them all close by and ready for photo action when I call their name from the list that you and I have prepared ahead of time. When formal shoots go too long, 99.9% of the time it's due to wasting time trying to find family or bridal party members who have wandered off. Time after time I've stood by my camera and tripod looking at a family group who are all there except one. The clock keeps ticking while we all stand around waiting for that one individual who snuck off for a smoke or whatever... If you tightly control this stuff, your wedding formals will move along at a good pace. If you don't, it will be a time-wasting disaster. I'll need some time to set up my lights and meter the area light, but once I'm ready to go, I'm not going to be your problem when it comes to the time it takes. Having said that, if I do need to meter a second or third time - or take some time to re-pose people, understand that I'm doing it for one reason only - to get you the best photograph I possibly can. Remember, you are paying me to deliver you a high quality photographic product - everything I do on your wedding day is to make sure that happens!!

Guess who's a moldy oldie!

In another life I was a musician - in fact, guitar money played a big part in putting me through my undergrad degree years at Michigan State University. Well, here we are almost 40 years later and an album that I co-produced and played guitar, bass and B3 organ on has been selected as one of UREVIEW's "Best Re-Issues of 2009". I'm thrilled that our work got some national recognition - the trouble is we had to wait almost 40 years to get it! Forget the album, just let me be 21 years old again! All kidding aside - congrats to me (of course) and my talented pals who worked on the album "Papa Never Let Me Sing The Blues." John Drendall, the centerpoint of the album and a brilliant singer/guitarist; Dick Dunham - fantasic drummer and singer (Dick and I go back to the mid-1960's at Swartz Creek High School where we played in bands together); my good friend Jim Spillane - another Creeker who did background vocal work on this album and was my partner in  Bluejohn for many years; Nelson Wood - who did some great harmonica work and to this day plays any instrument you hand him wonderfully - and a host of other talented maniacs: "Elmo" aka Mike Skory on piano; Stiff-finger Eddie aka Tom Caruso on slide guitar; Vern "The Bopper" Albaugh on flute; and Ross Maxwell who kept our attitudes right when we needed some adjusting. I also must send out a great big cosmic "thank you" to our studio engineer and co-producer, the late Bryce "Jive" Roberson - a great guitarist and one of the most unique individuals I've ever met. May the Great Spirit bless you Uncle Dirty, and I know you're on the Other Side giving somebody a hard time about something as I type this... Photo credit on the album cover goes to Bill (Jesse) Arnet who taught me a lot about photography back in the day and was a fellow staff member at the MSU Instructional Television Center. Bill's now living in the Virgin Islands and running a very cool and affordable Virgin Island Wedding Service. John and Dick are still playing (along with bassist Sid Seymour) and recording under the name Damion and you can check out/purchase their latest CD release "Steamy Night in Texas" very soon on their website.

Weddings, Senior Photos, Events, Sports... Premium Photography at reasonable prices!

Photo sessions should be fun!!!

Here's some Senior Photo Tips for You!

Here's a link to my senior photo tips page - this will help you get the biggest bang for your senior photo session buck!

Book your 2011 Senior Photo now - while the prime times are still available!!

Late May, June and July are great times to book your senior photos... The floral colors are at their best and the "golden hour" sunlight is great well into the evening hours. Don't be a last-minute senior photo "work-me-in-pleeeeease" case. You won't get the attention you deserve! Every year I get way too many calls during mid-to late September from procrastinators who are up against their school's yearbook photo submission deadline... Remember, most high schools require that senior yearbook photos be submitted by early October!! Book your senior photo session today!

The 2011 Senior Photo Season is approaching!!

Brad Thrower's BLUEWATER PHOTOGRAPHY

We do Senior Photos right!!

2011 Seniors  -  Book your session now!

Michigan... (click to enlarge)

"I'm thinking about having my wedding shot on video along with still photography. Do you work along with a video crew?"

Yes, I've shot several weddings that were also being captured on video. In fact, in another life I was a corporate video producer for many years... so I know the business from both sides. If I'm shooting stills and you have a video crew coming in, I strongly suggest a pre-ceremony meeting between all of us (you too) to establish who sets up where, etc. Still photography and video can co-exist, especially if both parties work together to stay out of the other's way. But experience has taught me that as the bride/boss, you will need to decide which format is of primary importance to you - and let both shooters know who takes precedence over the other if camera setups and shooting positions conflict with one another. If the video is more important to you, the still photographer will need to defer to their lighting, their crew positioning, etc. (And you need to understand that his still photos will most likely suffer as a result of video being your #1 choice.) If you're spending $15,000 on a full blown video production shoot with 5 or 6 crew members, full video lighting and a producer director, you probably don't care if the still photos suffer. On the other hand if high quality still photography is your primary desire but you are also going to have your buddy set up his video camera in the corner on a static wide shot, your still photographer needs to be given the control to make his thing happen - if your buddy comes up with some ideas that cause conflict. The most important thing is lots of pre ceremony communication activity between you and the various types of shooters you elect to have working at your wedding ceremony.

"Do you use a wedding photography contract?"

Absolutely. A contract protects me and it protects you. If a photographer or any other wedding services professional doesn't want to sign a contract regarding their services rendered unto you - you had best RUN for the door!! One thing I tell my potential customers over and over is this: do not sign my contract (or any other photographer's contract) until you are absolutely, positively,101% sure about your wedding date. Why? Because 99.9% of us will not refund the retainer fee once the wedding is booked. Why? Because when we take your wedding date retainer fee, from that point forward that date comes off our availability calendar. We no longer attempt to sell our services on that date and we will bypass other potential clients by reserving the date for you. Your retainer fee is our compensation for giving you sole possession of a date - whether you use it or not. (We'd much rather earn all our fee by working than have half our fee as compensation for a lost workday, but half beats nothing!) So regarding just about any wedding day services - be absolutely, positively, irrevocably sure about your wedding, the date, the time, your future mate, etc. - before you sign on anybody's dotted line!

"Do you offer wedding albums?"

I certainly do. Any type/size/price wedding album you want is available. Here's the link to my album page. Check it out and let's talk!

"Do you personally shoot the photos at your wedding jobs?"

Yes, you can rest assured that I won't be double and triple booking wedding dates and then farming your wedding out to another photographer who you know nothing about. (About Brad Thrower)

"I have just hired a wedding planner. Do you work with wedding planners?"

Yes, I do. I have worked with some excellent, talented, concerned and caring wedding planners who were an absolute joy to team up with. Note that some wedding planners will strongly urge you to use their choice of photographer however - usually because there's a percentage of that photographer's fee kicked back to the planner. Planners that operate this way won't recommend me to you because I do not pay commissions to wedding planners (or anyone else) for wedding photo jobs. I will gladly work with your planner - as long as his or her plans for your wedding day are such that I can provide you with the best possible wedding photography. If it were to come to an impasse point where the planning activities are cutting the quality of the photography short, I'll be coming to you to rectify the situation, not your planner. My position is that the bride is the absolute authority regarding her wedding photography decisions - until such time that she officially and totally delegates that absolute authority to someone else!

"Do you provide proof books? How do I preview my wedding photos to pick the ones I want to use for my prints, enlargements, albums, etc.?"

I provide free online photo proofing as part of my Basic, Deluxe and Ultimate wedding packages (as well as with my senior photo packages). After your wedding I'll set you up with a link to your own private, password-protected web-proofing gallery. You'll be able to view your wedding photo proof galleries on-line, from the comfort of your own home - if you have high-speed Internet service. If you have dial-up internet service, my advice is that you should not go with online proofing and I will provide you with a photo file CD-R or DVD containing your all wedding proofs as .jpg files. For the totally computer phobic people out there, or for those who just prefer to proof via prints, I will provide proofing prints either in loose delivery or in the traditional old style proofing books. But, as there are no longer proof book charges figured into my wedding package rates, you'll have to pay an additional fee for the proofbook option. This fee is directly tied to how many total proofs you have. I also have had some couples come to my studio to preview their wedding images in my PC room. I allow one free hour for this purpose and charge an hourly rate after that.

"It's nice that you offer so much planning opportunity to your wedding clients... But to be honest, I don't want to have to worry about or mess with all this wedding photography planning and stuff. What do you have for me?"

There are folks that don't care - or really don't have the time/opportunity to be involved in extensive wedding photography pre-planning activity. For you, I'll follow my standard professional wedding photography game plan - which combines shooting a combination of formals and photo-journalistic style pictures to document the wedding event and participants. Basically "formal" means the traditional posed wedding shots we've all seen. The term "photo-journalistic" means candid or not posed shots. With any of my BLUEWATER PHOTOGRAPHY wedding packages, you can be as involved or as uninvolved as you want to be regarding your wedding's photography. Either way you'll get a great looking and professional job!

"My Dad says wedding photographers will usually lower their prices if pressured. My uncle just bought a new digital camera that takes great photos and he says he'll do my wedding photography for free. In light of this trend will you negotiate your prices?"

No. And I don't know too many truly professional shooters that do. I've put a lot of thought into developing my rate structure. I am a professional, I'm not your uncle who just bought his first digital SLR camera and says he'll shoot your wedding pictures as a wedding present. I am sure that he means well, but experience and statistics indicate that your uncle (or aunt or friend) will most likely shoot a couple of family weddings; do an amateur (or worse) job of it - and then decide "to heck with this wedding photography - it's too much work!" Then that new digital SLR camera will be stashed away for birthday parties and family vacations. And you - well, you'll have a big ole handful of real free and real bad wedding photos to show your kids and grandkids some day! I deliver over 30 years experience, professional equipment and an excellent product - and I charge accordingly for the market I'm servicing. Your choice!

"What do you mean by "continuous" hours, as stated in your Wedding Photography Packages information?"

Continuous hours means that the clock starts at the time you and I agree upon for me to begin - and I am finished either 3, or 7, or 9, or 12, etc. hours later - depending upon which wedding package you purchased or the otherwise agreed-upon time that we work out. The clock runs continuously whether I am shooting photos, or I am waiting for you to find the best man who has wandered off; or I am driving to your reception hall that's 45 minutes away. My Economy Wedding package is where I find that my customers understanding this "continuous" factor is the most important. I've had more than one bride attempt to book my three-hour Economy Package with the stipulation that I shoot her getting ready from 1pm to 2pm; then get lost for two hours and come back to shoot the wedding ceremony from 4pm to 5pm; then take a few more hours off (sitting at the local coffee shop I guess?) and come back to shoot the third hour at the reception from 8-9pm. Sorry - it just doesn't work that way. If you do the math, her plan ties up over 8 hours to shoot a 3 hour wedding package. I certainly wouldn't expect any of my brides to tie up 8 hours for 3 hours pay at their job - and I won't be doing it either. I developed the Wedding Economy Package to assist couples on a tight budget - or couples who simply wanted a non-enhanced, but quality photo documentation of their wedding event. There is an option to purchase up to two additional hours with the Economy Package and you can always get your copyright-free photo files professionally cropped, enhanced, etc. at a future date.

"Our minister just told us he doesn't allow flash photography during the wedding service. Are you OK with that?"

Speaking strictly as a wedding photographer, NO! But, it's your officiant's ballpark, right? And I always respect the wishes of the wedding officiants. In fact I strongly agree that some wedding photographers are just way too busy running around shooting photos and popping flashes during the wedding ceremony - which is a tender and solemn event for most folks. And every year the congregation is getting worse at pulling out their pocket cameras and popping flashes throughout the ceremony. But I also believe that the intelligent use of flash photography will get my clients a much better indoor image 90% of the time. If you want to use a "no flash" officiant or venue, fine - but I'll ask you and your officiant to re-stage a few critical poses immediately after the ceremony (the ring exchange, the kiss, couples walking down the aisle, lighting of the unity candles, etc.) I ask this of you to ensure you will have professional quality images of that part of your big day. (my BIGGEST pet peeve is when I'm emphatically ordered by the wedding officiant not to use my flash during the ceremony - and then half the wedding guests proceed to pop their flash cameras off throughout the entire ceremony. How crazy is that? I'm the only one there being paid to produce professional photos!)

"I've been on a lot of the wedding planning websites and I don't see you listed as much as some other photographers. When I do see your name, it's just a basic listing that doesn't tell me much about you. Some of the other photographers have such nice fancy ads - why don't you?"

The web-based wedding planning services sites charge big $$$ for the wedding vendor internet ads you're seeing. That's their business - how they make their money. The bigger, slicker and closer to the top of the page those ads appear and the larger geographic area they cover, the more the photographer is charged. The more popular the website is, the more money they charge. On my end, I could easily spend a couple of thousand dollars or more a month advertising my business via Internet wedding planning sites. If I did that, I'd would have to pass the cost on to my customers - and that's you! I have a few ads out there in cyberspace right now - and I've decided that's all I'm going to do. I choose to keep my wedding package prices lower and let my body of photographic work posted on my website do my advertising for me. My photographic website details everything you need to know about me to make an informed decision regarding contracting my photographic services. If you want references from my former clients check out my website's customer feedback page - or contact me. And why not take a few moments to view my website's wedding galleries - after all, one photo is worth a thousand words, right?!! Here's a link to my portrait gallery too.

"I want to purchase one of your Wedding Packages - but my future husband argues that wedding photographers charge too much money for one day's work. How do you respond to that?"

Good question. What your future husband doesn't understand is that the seven to twelve hours that you see me shooting at your wedding is just the tip of the iceberg. To that you need to add the 40 or 50, or even more hours I'll spend in the downloading, sorting, cropping, Photoshopping and burning-to-disk hundreds of raw photos that I'll be shooting at your wedding event. Then add an additional 3-4 hours spent creating and posting your online photo proofing galleries. There are also expenses to pay at my processing lab for the 11x14, 8x10, 5x7 and wallet-size premium prints that comes as part of your wedding package. You also need to factor in the thousands of dollars worth of photographic equipment (and backup equipment) that I walk into your wedding event with so I can provide you with a truly professional photographic record of your wedding day. Also add the thousands of dollars I've invested in computer equipment and photographic software to process and enhance your wedding photos and DVD's. It's all necessary so I can hand you your final premium wedding prints. There's also the cost in time and money that I incur building and maintaining my web presence - and the 400 gigs of cyberspace I purchase every year to host all my professional photography information and proofing for my prospective clients. And finally, what value do you attach to the intangible element of over 35 years of professional experience successfully dealing with and helping people on one of the most stressful, yet most rewarding days in their lives? Factor all this into the package price and then tell me it's "too much". Now that I've enlightened you and your future mate, if you still believe it's too much you can always find somebody to do it cheaper - always. But ask yourself this: Why are they cheaper?  I am amazed at the large amounts of money many couples freely agree to invest in their reception venue, food, alcohol, flowers, wedding cake, the wedding dresses and entertainment for the reception - yet they want to nickel and dime when it comes to the photography - which is the ONLY permanent, lasting record of their wedding day! It's your wedding and your choice - if a professional photographic experience on your wedding day and great photos to capture the memories really aren't that important to you or your future hubby, I sincerely suggest that you have one of your pals do it for free - everyone has a digital camera these days, right? Or, you can hire a beginner that's offering his or her limited wedding photo services cheaply so they can develop their photography skills on your dime. It is your decision to make!

"What's the best way to ensure successful wedding photography?"

In my opinion the fundamental keys to wedding photography success are:
1. establishing a positive personal relationship between you and I;
2. identifying your wedding photographic priorities;
3. creating a proper  photographic plan to  accomplish your priorities;
4. on-going communication between you and me;
5. paying strict attention to detail (verify, verify, verify!);
6. and MOST importantly - your commitment to provide me with the necessary time on your wedding day that we agree I'll need to create the specific photos you want. It might take me one hour, it might take me twelve hours - it all depends upon what you want! Some couples place a great deal of emphasis upon getting the traditional family portraits - and other couples are much more interested in informal, candid (the current term for this is "photo journalistic") photos. I find most couples want some of both, but lean toward one or the other. With the Basic, Deluxe or Ultimate Wedding Packages, after you identify your wedding date and render your retainer, we'll meet to create a custom list of your desired shots and develop the game plan you want, which will be my action blueprint on your wedding day. We'll need to talk to your wedding officiant to see what rules regarding photography he/she has in effect during the ceremony. The secret is to have it all mapped out well BEFORE your wedding day. (Some couples however, just don't want to mess with meetings, photo strategy sessions, etc. They ask me to show up on their wedding day and have at it as I see fit. And that's fine - I can deal with that and they'll get great wedding photos too.)

"How long have you been in the photography business?"

A long time... My high school yearbook photographer experience - which started it all - began in 1965! Here are my baseline credentials: a Television, Radio and Film Production Bachelor's Degree from Michigan State University in 1976; a Master of Arts Degree in Liberal Studies from the University of Michigan in 1992; and over 35 years experience as a full time professional photographic and media producer. First came several years on the production staff at the Michigan State University Instructional Television Center. After that I produced a combination of audio/visual media, photography and video productions for one of the world's largest industrial corporations for over 28 years - along with editing and scripting various print publications. Suffice it to say that I have extensive photographic experience gained through corporate, private and public venues over the past 35 years. You can be confident that I will provide you with professional-grade photos and photographic services.

Happy New Year!

Brad Thrower's Bluewater Photography

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