On Photography “Make the Most of Time”
It doesn’t matter how good the photographer can pose or how great equipment he has, if, he can’t make good use of his time and move people around in a friendly, yet timely manner, and control interruptions, you will not have many great quality shots. The more time that is wasted during the formals, the less pictures you will have and the longer your guests will be waiting. Questions, on the wedding day, to the bride will waste time, and put more stress on her, therefore we instruct our photographers not to ask a lot of unnecessary questions. We will ask you many questions leading up to the wedding day to find out what you want, but on the day of the wedding, we will limit the amount of questions. We have been on weddings where every 2 minutes the photographer is asking the bride, “Do you want to do this?”, “Do you want to do that?”, and many times the bride is not sure, so a family member voices their opinion, and before you know it, we’ve lost 5-10 minutes of precious time. There are times where a question is necessary, for example at the end of formals; “are there any other pictures you would like”, but most of the details we ask you before the wedding day, so that on that special day you can enjoy your friends and family. After the ceremony, we will try to keep you separated from “non-family” guests, so that we can work with as few of interruptions as possible, and therefore, finish our work, and allow you to spend time with your guests as soon as possible. This is where the photographer has to be a leader. (see Photographer Tips)
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On Video “People are More Important Than Things”
I have to credit Brett Culp, a Tampa Videographer, owner of Creative Video Productions for that motto. We will get the fancy shots of the shoes and the dress, however, the shots that will increase the value of your wedding video, as the years go by, are the shots of people. Unlike a photographer who can re-create shots, a videographer, gets one chance, he either captures the moment or misses it, therefore he has to be in the right place at the right time, and having a Keen Sense of Awareness, to catch the emotions of friends and family members. “Art is the process of recovering the sensation of being alive”. As one of our friends in the business, Stephen Dohring, a Photographer in St Petersburg, once said, “I have to shut myself off on a wedding”, in other words, a photographer or Videographer can’t be thinking about personal things, but has to have all of his attention on his surroundings. We live for capturing those shots, when the eyes will speak louder than words. We want to be artistic, but theres that fine line, you cross when you go from being creative to being abstract. Our goal is to allow you appreciate Life.
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On DJs “A Servant Leader”
DJs tend to fall in 2 extremes. Many DJs are very “flashy” or “showy” and love to be the center of attention and talk too much on the microphone. On the other extreme, some DJs just sit there behind their equipment and theres no direction. Our DJs are trained to be Leaders, to make the announcements, informing your guests what is happening, as well as communicating with the Videogrpaher, Photographer, and Caterer, however, we also understand that the guests are not there to hear the DJ constantly talk on the mic, telling Jokes etc. A Wedding DJ has the task of appealing to a wide group of people with varying tastes in music and therefore someone my criticize him for a song, when another guest has requested that song, he must respond politely. One of our DJs in Tampa said, “sometimes you just have to leave your eggo at home”. A DJ must always be very courteous, and understand it’s about the bride and groom not about “Master Jam MC Joe Cool DJ”!