Frequently Asked Questions (a must read)

I love it!  What’s the music on your website?

• Depending on what day it is, it’s either Chase Jentz of The Way It Breaks, or Heather Jentz (formerly Heather Gasaway) of Spin 66.  They are clients of mine who got married a couple of years ago.  This is the most common question on my website that I seem to get   The music is under license from them and is not currently in their list of music (especially Chase’s music, it’s all from his older collection).

What’s new at Ku Photography LLC?

• For 2010, we’re really excited about this – we’ll offer custom prints as part of the wedding collection

What do you mean, custom prints?

• It means, as part of most wedding collections, you’ll get a set of custom prints on fine art linen paper.  The prints are made by me – the paper is a high-grade fine art, heavy linen paper.  The texture is so cool that I can’t even describe it.  I’ll give you a sample of it when you meet with me (namely, the price sheet).  It allows us to push the colors to the printers’ limit, as well as having total control on the consistency of the prints.

I can’t get those on my own?

• No.  Not even most professional print labs.  The thing is, pro labs print out tens and thousands of images per day – their printers are heavily used and not often properly maintained.  But, they’re still better than the consumer labs out there, just not as consistently as I can control with my prints.

Are the prints available for general public?  What size are they?

• Not yet.  Right now, these prints are only available for our wedding couples.  It takes time and effort to make them.  We’ll offer sizes up to 16×20″.

What happens on my wedding day? (or, how do you cover my wedding?)

• On your wedding day, we approach it in effect, as a documentary. We don’t pose or interrupt your day of events, EVER. Other than the formals/family portrait session which we ask you to allocate about 1 hour after the wedding, we do not pose you or interrupt moments of your day.  We don’t ever tell you to “Ok, when you put the dress on, bridesmaid, please put your hand here and smile at the bride” – in other words, we do not stage moments (all of the pictures on our site as well as on our blog that is not obviously posed, are real moments from the wedding day).  We don’t inject ourselves into the picture – it’s NOT about us, it’s about you and your moments.   We use whatever environment given to us and work with it or around it. It is a style that a lot of photographers out there claimed to do, but only a few actually follows it.
• This the question that all brides/grooms should ask their photographer.  In the end, you’re hiring the photographer and his/her “eyes/mind/heart” to cover your wedding.

What about portraits and formals?

• I am happy to do as many formals and portraits as you’d like, subject to time constraints.  While my focus is always about the moments of the day, family portraits and formals are an important part of that day.  I typically try to spend 1 hour on formals, about which 40 minutes is with the family and wedding party, 20 minutes is allocated for the couple alone.  I also photograph details too
• That’s another myth – people think that wedding photojournalists don’t take portraits.  We do, we just do it differently.  I am not going to bring 2-3 studio lights to take formals and spend 3 hours doing it – we tend to do it a lot faster.

How do I choose a photographer for my wedding? (or rather, “How important is photography to you?”)

• It’s a cliche’ but the only thing you will have after the wedding is your wedding photos.   You’re not going to wear the dress again (wait, unless you’re doing a day after session with me!), the cake is gone, the flowers will die in a week.   The only thing you have left after the wedding is the wedding photos.   It’s important to budget that in the wedding process and not let the left-over budget determine your wedding images.
• The prices for wedding photographers varies a lot, but it’s primarily based on experience (number of years a photographer has been in business in an area), followed by quality.  The experience part is sometimes overlooked but is extremely important – there is no way to replicate years of experience in variety of different weddings – weddings are not predicable – not two weddings are ever the same.  My experience allows me to confidently go into different situations of the day and different lighting environments and produce the images that I can.  The quality part you can determine by looking at the images and evaluating them to what you want.
• So that brings another question – how do I evaluate the images?  The best way is to get several weddings from the photographer (i.e. slideshows, etc.) so that you can see the complete coverage from beginning until the end, instead of just viewing a few images per wedding.  Anyone can produce a great image once in a while, it’s important to see the WHOLE event and to gauge how consistent the photographer is throughout the day.  I automatically email 3-4 RECENT wedding slideshows to our prospective clients – and I have 5-6 slideshows on our site.
• And lastly, you should meet them in person if possible or at least talk on the phone to make sure that you can get along with each other.  It’s an interview process for both you and the photographer.

Can I see a complete wedding?

• On our website, there are weddings shows about 150-200 images – http://www.kuphotography.com.  When you send us an inquiry, we typically sent back a few slideshows of newer work, as well.  We believe the best way to evaluate images is to see the complete event.  This shows my ability to capture the images THROUGHOUT the wedding day, not just a few images, but the complete story.
• We’ve been asked this a lot – why do we password protect ALL wedding galleries on our proof site?  Simple – it’s privacy.   While our blog images shows unique, fun and sometimes wild imageries, we still do value our clients’ privacy fully.  This means, without their permission, no one else can see their wedding day other than the blogged images and images on our website.  If a couple does not want ANY images to be published on our blog or site or proofing site, we honor that as well.

What makes your photos different and unique than other photographers?

• We believe that wedding photography is more than just the bride and the groom.  Most wedding images, the typical ones, show either bride, the groom, or both.  Wedding photography, to us, is really about the love, the interactions, the moments between the couple and their family and friends.  We try our best to focus on the little things that you may miss in your day.  We focus on the guests and their interaction with you and with each other.  We focus on your family and the moments you share together.  We don’t just focus on the “formulated images” that every other photographers out there creates.  Every wedding is unique, special, and different and we want our images to reflect that as well.

Who are your typical clients/brides?

• As you can see in our blog as well as our website, our brides and clients come from all demographics and backgrounds.  I guess the only thing in common between all the brides that we have is that they are very confident and independent brides.  Our brides know what type of wedding they want, what style of wedding photographer they’re looking for, etc.   They wanted something different in their wedding photos than what they have seen in their parents and others’ – they wanted something unique and personal as well.

What is a wedding photojournalist (or what is wedding photojournalism)?

• A photojournalist is simply a news photographer.  A wedding photojournalist in today’s definition has a variety of different meanings.  Some photographers think they’re wedding photojournalists shooting formals/posed images by getting good expressions out of the clients (i.e. by DIRECTING action and making it “look natural”).  To us, that is not wedding photojournalism (or rather, that’s not what it means if that’s the majority of the images throughout the day).  On the other hand, we’re not newspaper photographers either which follows a much stricter rule of photography. I would turn on room lights or remove/open blinds to get better light, and use flash when i need it.  What I will never do is create moments or fake it – I don’t want my brides in 10 years to realize that their moments of their day are STAGED by the photographer.  In the end, you will know if it’s faked or not anyway.  A photographer that doesn’t stage moments throughout the whole day is still rare in today’s wedding photography.

What is the difference between candids and wedding photojournalism?

• This another great question.  There is a difference between the two.  A lot of wedding photographers define candids as something that ‘aren’t posed’.  In other words, the people in the photograph can be looking at the photographer and totally aware of his/her presence and still be called ‘candids’.  Documentary photography/wedding photojournalism by definition means the photographer is minimally impacting the scene.  That is, the subject being photographed should be as much into their world/moments and not be affected by the photographer.
• A great article about wedding photojournalism myths can be found here.

How do you get those great moments of the day as shown on the blog and on your website and you didn’t pose them?

• Hey, that’s our trade secret!   But seriously, it’s all about one word:  trust.  We couldn’t have captured those moments without the complete trust of our clients.  The trust of allowing us into their personal space, to enjoy their day without us directing the action, is what makes it possible.

OK, I love your work!  How can I book you?

• To check our availability, schedule an appointment to meet/talk on the phone, please go to our main website at: Ku Photography LLC and use the CONTACT US section.

If you still have questions, feel free to post your questions via email above or on the comment section and I will answer it here.