Photo of the Week...Again! Well, I don't like to gloat, but heck, I will :)

The previous gallery wrap montage which we featured here on the site has won "photo of the week" honors from Pieces of the Picture.

If you're curious about family photography, Pieces of the Picture goes beyond the typical photography tips type of site since it's about more than just a "how to"...it goes into a lot of the thought process and challenges to capturing a family's moments. Have a look at their site as well as their Flickr group if you have a chance.

As we've been getting more into family portraiture, we've been trying a lot of different things so that our work is fresh and can provide lasting memories for our clients. So that might mean portraits in front of a backdrop or outdoor portraits. The way it's presented, I think, makes a huge difference also. So the online versions of the montages we've shown might look great online, but I love seeing people's reactions when they see these huge wraps in person.

Here's the winning photo montage again in case you didn't see the previous blog post:

Labels: Family, Personal, Portfolio, Portraits, The Biz

  Permanent Link 6:09 PM  0 Comments Links to this post

  After the Shoot When we talk to prospective clients, we always try to give them an idea of what to expect before, during, and after their wedding. After all, we pride ourselves on end-to-end service. The last thing we want to do is just show up on the day of the wedding, shoot a few pictures, then disappear. Well, when we talk abut the process we go through after any wedding, we usually talk about our interaction with our clients, but there’s a lot of detail we leave out around our actual photography workflow – what we do with the photo files, what tools we use to edit, and how we finally deliver our clients’ photos.

These details are actually of wide interest amongst the photographer’s community and a few folks on twitter have begun a string of blog postings to describe their photography workflow. It’s all about learning from each other and improving our work to be the best possible. Well, here’s our contribution to that. For our clients, this may be way more details than you care to know about. You can just trust that you’re in good hands :) For other photographers, I hope this run-down helps you and we’d love to know more about your workflow. So post something on your blog and let us know on twitter.

Thanks to Ariston Collander for starting this string and getting all of us to spend a little time talking about the behind the scenes work we do! Seshu Photography is also part of the impetus for documenting our workflow.

So what happens when we leave the wedding or finish your portrait session??

1) Back-up

• Since we shoot digitally, ensuring that files are not lost is a huge concern for us. We actually start our back-up process at the events themselves using a portable memory card back-up device. Currently we use a Hyperdrive Colorspace since it’s fast and double-checks all the files before finishing the copy. We copy off cards as we use them up and them store the used CF cards away – we don’t re-use cards until we’ve verified everything the next day. So even before we leave the parking lot, we’ve already got two copies of your photos.
• Since most wedding receptions last well into the night, we pick up the next morning with backing up photos onto our desktop computers and external drives. Remember, we always want at least two copies of every photo we take! We only re-format memory cards after we’ve verified that these computer back-ups have completed properly.
  

2) Photo Organization

• This is a MUST for weddings we do since we take several thousand photos on a wedding day. Without organizing the photos, it would be near impossible for our clients to easily find photos they’re looking for later on, and we definitely don’t want to deliver just a stack of photos. So we do this organization up front.
• Our main tool for organization photos and doing a variety of photo editing is Adobe Lightroom. The integration with Photoshop and the rest of our workflow is so great that we often wonder how we got stuff done before Lightroom was released!
• In Lightroom, we create a folder structure to match our client’s events. Each event will have a top level folder. Portions of each event will be broken down into their own folders. So a couple’s portraits in their wedding outfits will be sitting a Portraits folder which is within the folder for their Wedding. Lightroom makes it easy to move around photos quickly so we can create folders on the fly and keep everything as organized as possible. Typically, for just a wedding day, we’ll end up with around 15-20 folders to ensure it’s easy for our clients to find specific photos. The folders may range from Getting Ready Shots, the Groom’s Baraat (Procession), Portraits, etc. Since each tradition is different, the folder will vary to match our clients.
  

3) Photo Editing

• As mentioned, Adobe Lightroom is our key tool which allows us to do a variety of editing on the photos we take.
• The first thing we’ll do is actually select photos which we think meet our final presentation standards. We tend to shoot many more shots than we expect to deliver to our clients. We may take a dozens of photos during the couple’s first dance, but not all of them will have the lighting and composition we love. So we’ll pick the best of the bunch. We do this for the entire set of photos first.
• Once we have our narrowed list of photos, we’ll begin with basic editing like color correction. This is pretty critical since the ambient light outdoors or in various rooms can affect the general tone of the photos we take. To ensure we have consistent color balance throughout the day, we correct against baseline photos which we take throughout the day using a white balance card. This ensure that the bride’s dress or sari looks the same color throughout the day. And since the South Asian events we do have such colorful elements, we really need to ensure we get the color right. Pink should always look pink, and not mauve, purple, red, or whatever! Much of this can be automated since Lightroom has great ability to match white balance and other elements across a series of photos.
• After we’ve done the basic color correction, we begin on the creative editing for every photo. This might include sepia, black & white, or other color conversions. We don’t always provide multiple versions of each photo, since usually, a photo looks best based on the editing we’ve done. For example, It may be an impressive & memorable photo when finished with a smooth sepia, but it may not be as remarkable when in full color. There’s a host of presets that we take advantage of in Lightroom, but rarely do we just leave it at those presets…they’re just a start. In case you're interested, Presets Heaven is a nice source for LightRoom presets.
  
• While we’re doing this creative editing, we’ll also do a number of touch-ups. Since the latest versions of Lightroom allow for a lot of control in this area, we tend to stick to Lightroom; previously we would export out to Photoshop to do some of these basic touch-ups. This includes some skin smoothing, brightening of the eyes, and selective darkening as needed.
• In parallel, we also think about the enhanced edited we can do such as adding textures or illustrative elements to the photo. We never want to over power the photo itself, but many times, these extra elements can add oh-so much punch! For this enhanced editing, we use Photoshop exclusively. We tend to stay away from pre-built photoshop actions since the type of editing we’re doing is so customized to each photo. However, there are a few actions from Kevin Kubota that we’ll utilize. Once we’re done with this editing step, it’s back to Lightroom!
• As we go through this process for every photo, we may add additional photos to the mix or remove photos which we originally thought would match our clients’ expectations.
  

4) Photo Delivery
Once we’ve completed editing our clients’ photos, there’s a variety of things we do to deliver photos:

• With the final editing complete, we re-name photos to a standard format which indicates the couple, the folder, and photo number. So our couples don't get something like IMG_XXXX, they get something which actually makes sense to them!
  
• For weddings, we actually deliver an online Webshow to them within a week of their wedding. So this happens before we’ve competed editing ALL of their photos. We tend to pick 100-200 memorable photos from the wedding day and go through the editing described above. We then deliver that Webshow set to music on a page on our site dedicated to the couple. It’s a nice little plus we like to provide our clients very quickly after their wedding. Since everyone loves to get a peek into the photos, this is a great way for our couple’s to share a small number of photos with their guests very quickly.
• The entire set of our couple’s photos will be delivered in a password protected section of our website and on disc for them to keep. The low-resolution photos go onto a photo hosting & ordering system we maintain ourselves. The high-resolution photos are delivered to our clients on disc in a nice package which couples can store away. Both the online & disc versions of the photos are organized in the same way that we’ve organized our Lightroom folders. It’s the easiest way for them to view their photos and select photos for future use.
• In addition to individual photos and the Webshow, we provide a DVD montage to our clients which can be played on any TV. The DVD montage is usually 10-15 minutes and set to music. The photos we use are the fully edited ones that our clients receive online and on disc. We’ve found that this DVD montage is especially appreciated by the parents of the couple since they don’t always have parent albums and the DVD is a great way to remember their children’s wedding as well as share those special moments with guests.
  

So what happens after we deliver all of these photos? Well, there’s album design, gallery wraps, photo montages, and host of other things which our clients may be receiving as part of their overall package. We’ll talk about that in another post!

Labels: The Biz

  Permanent Link 3:18 PM  2 Comments Links to this post

  Photo of the week Well, whaddya know, a photo from the last photo shoot I posted was selected as Photo of the Week for the "Pieces of the Picture" blog. Always nice to know that people enjoy the work we do and even a little recognition is appreciated. Thanks to Tommy over there for the consideration!

Here's the selected photo:


Here's the blog post on their site about the Photo of the Week

Have a look at the rest of their blog for some great advice on photographing families, especially children: Piece of the Picture

Labels: Family, Life Session, Portfolio, Portraits, The Biz

  Permanent Link 9:13 AM  0 Comments Links to this post

  Happy 2009! Well, it may be a little late, but hey, we got most of 2009 still ahead of us :)

Asad and I were blessed to be able to take the holidays off, but we're back at it in the New Year. It's good that we rested up since the first two weeks of the year have been flooded with lots of consultations with couples getting married later this year. We've also been busy with some shoots so you should see those on the blog shortly.

Speaking of which, we've got a backlog of events and photoshoots to share with you so those will start going up over the next few days.

The year ahead looks to be interesting since we've been looking at a lot photography outside of what we've been doing for the last 4 years. So expect to see some non-wedding work from us.

And, as usual, if you're interested in booking us for your photography needs, please drop us a line. We're always happy to talk!

Labels: The Biz

  Permanent Link 10:05 PM  0 Comments Links to this post

  Featured on Wedding Sutra A while back we received a request from the editors of WeddingSutra.com about the possibility of doing an interview to be featured on their site.

And recently our interview with them was finally posted to their site! Have a look at it here:
Interview with Wedding Sutra

In the past, I've interviewed people for a magazine I used to run...let me tell you, it's rather different being on the other end of the questions. Vasu over at Wedding Sutra definitely had some interesting questions which I think many brides are curious about so I'm glad we got the chance to talk about them. Our interview was done on the heels of another photographer friend of our's who had just been featured there (Seshu, who's based out of the East Coast). I found it interesting to compare our interviews. I think we got fairly similar questions and, not surprisingly, we've got our own takes on the art & creativity of wedding photography.

On another funny coincidence, a previous bride of our's was also featured on Wedding Sutra at almost the same time as us. Funny how that works...the Indian community is obviously a small world. Parveen was married in August of 2007 and you can have a look at her "Real Brides" feature on Wedding Sutra here. Photos courtesy Samay Studio, of course :)

Labels: The Biz

  Permanent Link 10:58 AM  2 Comments Links to this post

  Enhanced website features: Our Albums The feature which has always needed the MOST work on our site has been the albums section. Afterall, wedding albums are how most of our clients end up seeing their work for posterity. We used to have a few sample layouts, but really nothing spectacular; definitely not anything which reflects the latest direction we've taken our wedding albums. While the online view still doesn't do these layouts justice we hope these new galleries of a few demo albums give everyone a better idea of what sets our work apart.

Check out the albums when you have a moment:
http://www.samaystudio.com/album.shtml

Labels: The Biz

  Permanent Link 4:29 PM  0 Comments Links to this post

  Enhanced website features: Our Portfolio To be honest, we've been meaning to completely revamp our site for quite a long time. We've been making updates along the way, but they were just small changes. Our portfolio section would occassionally have problems with some browsers and the photos themselves just didn't look as crisp and clean as possible.

Well, since we now use Lightroom and there are some great utilities built-in, we've been able to provide a very consistent and much more impressive overview of our portfolio. You'll now find 6 sections in the portfolio area - 5 for some recent weddings and 1 for a lot of the Engagement Portraits we've been doing.

Check it all out when you get a chance!
http://www.samaystudio.com/portfolio.shtml

Labels: The Biz

  Permanent Link 4:25 PM  0 Comments Links to this post

  Notice something? Well, if you've stopped by our site recently, you've probably noticed that we've upgraded the site to a brand new look and feel. In addition to a new look, we've vastly improved the portfolio & albums sections to reflect our latest work. We'll post a bit more on the changes since we've satisfied a lot of the requests we've received from prospective clients.

Check out the main site here:
http://www.samaystudio.com/

And as with any website update, we'd definitely appreciate your thoughts on the changes as well as letting us know about any problems you might be having with the site. We may have some bugs here and there and your feedback is the only way we'll get rid of 'em all. Thanks for visiting!

Labels: The Biz

  Permanent Link 4:20 PM  0 Comments Links to this post

  Vivah 2008 Bridal Faire: Thanks for stopping by! If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area, then you probably saw us at the Vivah Bridal Faire yesterday. Thanks to everyone that stopped by. We had the chance to talk to several dozen brides and it's always a great time when we get the opportunity to show off our work.

We'll be posting more about the Couples Portrait Session once we've had a chance to get in touch with the winning couple.

If you stopped by and want to get in touch with us, you can drop us a line at info@samaystudio.com or give us a call at 650-386-6808.

Thanks!

Labels: The Biz

  Permanent Link 4:44 PM  1 Comments Links to this post

  Multi-Cultural Affairs Articles in American newspapers about the meshing of cultures is nothing new. In fact, the New York Times tends to have at least one of those every few months (keeps the readership interested I suppose). Just noticed an article in the Washington Post which hits on many points that we see every weekend while we're covering wedding events.

Two Cultures, Slowly Uniting In Matrimony

For so much of this cultural meshing, it's basically just a part of life. the callout of a wedding aisle where the bride enters is basically a part of the culture here along with so many elements that never see the light of day in India. The non-Indian horse trainer? Check. The bridesmaids in matching attire? Check. Etc, etc. So nothing really new here for a wedding photographer, but definitely something interesting to track regardless.

Labels: The Biz, Weddings

  Permanent Link 1:44 PM  0 Comments Links to this post

  Where Did Time Fly? Wow, it's been two and half weeks since we posted...where the heck did we lose track of time?! With lots of coverage and lots of travel it's actually been a bit tough setting aside time for this blog. We promise to be more diligent with it if you promise to keep coming back :)

We've got lots of recent work to show off so expect a few posts pretty quickly. Hope you enjoy.

Labels: The Biz

  Permanent Link 9:24 PM  0 Comments Links to this post

  Thank You Can't help but smile at a recent email we received from a recent couple, Deepa & Neel (photos to come)...this is why I still love covering weddings...

...I really appreciate how you handled everything at all the events -your prompt attendance, gathering family and friends together, and most importantly - just simply being there every step of the way to capture all the special moments and now working on telling our story through pictures and video. We definitely appreciate your work and your efforts in putting it all together for us.

We are grateful to have had you as our photographer. You probably didn't realize this but you made our experience run smoothly and made it memorable for both of us....

Congrats guys and Thank You!

Labels: The Biz

  Permanent Link 4:43 PM  0 Comments Links to this post

  Hello World! Check us out...we're on the interwebs :)

This blog has been a loooong time coming so look out for a bunch of posts pretty quickly. We're already in the midst of wedding season so there's a lot to talk about. Check back shortly.

Labels: The Biz

  Permanent Link 8:35 PM  0 Comments Links to this post