The Process of Finding the Ideal Match as a Photographer and Client.

I have been thinking about this post for a while now. I think it’s a two parter, but I’ll start with this and see how it goes.

For the couples planning your wedding, this is for you. And for the wedding photographers who also read this, this too is for you.

So this post is both How to Choose your photographer, and How to find your ideal client. Same principals apply.

If you’re in the wedding business you’ll know there are 1001 different coaches online that will tell you that you “need” to define your “ideal client” - which for many, is just polite for saying “pretty couples with loads of cash”.

Seriously. It is. That’s what it comes down to for many. How beautiful is the bride, and how much money do they have to create this perfect wedding at one of the top five wedding venues so that they (the photographer) can get featured in Vogue or Harpers or some other website.

That’s the ideal client for many.

And I say this, because for quite a few years, that too was what I went after.

I only wanted a certain type of client that hosted weddings at certain posh venues in Toronto because I knew, if I shot them well, Wedluxe, Weddingbells, and a few other publications would showcase them in print and online.

And it worked.

But…after doing that for a while, things got..a little boring. Sure, they were beautiful and all, but there was something a little too perfect and easy about shooting a wedding like that.

I remember I worked with a fairly well known wedding planner on a million dollar wedding that was so over the top, with all the beautiful things, great food, huge band, $30,000 dress, and basically everything and anything you could imagine - but that was just the surface stuff - beyond that it wasn’t so interesting.

Where they my ideal client? Back in 2007 they sure were - now, not so much. Now I look for more.

And I think part of it comes down to my own background and my experiences as well.

I grew up in a fairly well off area in Toronto. I went to private school for a few years, and my friend group ranged from Rosedale to Regent Park (super rich, to not so much). I was equally comfortable in both homes, with both types of people. So when I got into the wedding business, getting a booking to shoot in Rosedale, or one of several homes on the Bridle Path was fun and all, but I wasn’t over the moon and blown away by the wealth, because I’d seen it before.

For many photographers, the “ideal” clients are those described above. They want that because it symbolizes “luxury” and “making it” in the wedding business.

Maybe my view on all this comes from the fact that I’ve shot hundreds of weddings over twenty years. It takes a L O T to really surprise me now…I mean…when you shoot a wedding with Earth Wind and Fire as the performers it’s kind of hard to top that right?

Okay, so what IS my ideal client type?

Are they wealthy? Yes. and No.

Does that matter? Not particularly. Obviously, having a wedding with a bigger budget does allow for nicer venues and nicer “things” to be used for the wedding to make it look a certain way, but I’m not really in weddings for that. Not anymore.

Are they nice people? (ding ding ding!!!) Yes, that is about 80% of the calculation in what my ideal client is. Are they generous, thoughtful, open minded, family oriented and sentimental? Perfect, that’s now 90%. Are they all those features AND they love my work and just let me shoot what I want to shoot in the way I shoot?

Yes?

Perfect - that’s my ideal client.

Generous, outgoing, friendly, sentimental, caring, trustworthy, down to earth…those would also be great words to describe my ideal client type.

Some photographers will say - the ideal client is the one that pays me. Which I suppose is also true, but for me, the main requirement is that you’re decent human beings with an interesting story and planning an interesting wedding. It doesn’t have to be a half million dollar budget, it can be a $20k budget. It can be five people or several hundred - as a photographer who is focused on the human side of the story of your wedding - the relationships and friendships, that’s all I need to do my job. People that are nice.

HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT PHOTOGRAPHER

For those still reading - thanks! I know reading a lot is hard for many these days so thanks for putting in a great effort. ;)

For most people, unless you work in advertising, marketing, publishing or some other type of creative business, you likely have never hired a photographer before, so the process can be a little stressful. Especially with all the trendy keywords that are used so much these days to try to attract your attention.

My only real piece of advice to you is this - once you establish that you like their work, arrange a time to talk on the phone. Don’t even talk about photography or what you are getting or how much it will be, get to know the person that you may be hiring to follow you around for a full day with a few cameras.

You do NOT need to be best friends with your photographer - despite what some are saying, this is 100% not needed - I mean, putting a wedding together is stressful enough, adding the stress of having to be friends with the people you’re hiring is a little much. But, you should be able to have a decent conversation with them.

For me - that’s a pretty big deal and it can be a deal breaker even - regardless of the budget or the venue or anything else - if you and I don’t get along enough to have a relaxed and interesting conversation on the phone, chances are that’s as far as things will go.

Was this helpful? I hope so.

Send me an email if you have anything to add or ask - hello@andreasphoto.ca

Timeless? Or Personal and Meaningful?

Timeless Wedding Photography. What is that anyway? Is it a thing? Or really just a marketing word used to attract visits to a website?

It’s a pointless word to describe photography of a wedding. If anything, wedding photography should be called just that. But the internet and wedding industry gods have all convinced us that we need to attach certain keywords to what we do to stand out from others.

Wedding photographs shouldn’t try to be anything other than a visual record of the day.

They should be meaningful, important and personal documents that show what happened, and who was there. And if they happen to have a certain look - whether it’s from a camera type, lens type, way of post production being applied to it, then so be it.

All photographs age with time - that’s inevitable. To classify an image of a wedding as timeless is doing a disservice to the work.

If anything, the images of your wedding should reflect the times - the culture, the traditions, the fashion, and yes, in some ways, the aesthetic that is popular at that time within the wedding photography industry.

You’re not on Instagram???

Generally speaking, thats the reaction I get from almost everyone that asks me what my IG account is when they want to keep up with what I’m doing.

Sorry, not really on there anymore.

I do have an account, and I do have three or four photos on there, but I don’t actively maintain it or try to reach celebrity status on it.

It’s just not worth it for me for so many reasons.

I have had a few inquiries that didn’t book me specifically, and probably ONLY because I don’t have some high follower count (real or not) and there for at first glance I’m new, or ….not famous!!!

And that’s fine.

Those people aren’t my people anyway.

I’ve been shooting weddings for twenty years. I know what I like, I know who I like to work with, and those that get me from what I show and say online, well, they are the perfect fit and everything just works out.

I like to fly under the radar a little bit anyway.

So if you’re looking for me, and you found the two or three pages on google that references me, but didn’t see an instagram account with a huge follower count (again, likely not always real anyway) don’t fret. Not everything happens on IG anyway.

An Intimate Wedding at GEORGE Restaurant in Downtown Toronto.

This was my fourth wedding of the year.

A small, twenty person intimate wedding ceremony and dinner at George Restaurant in Downtown Toronto.

GEORGE Restaurant, a 2023 Michelin Star Restaurant, holds a special place in my heart - it’s where my wife and I had our first big lavish 15 course tasting menu dinner many years ago as a younger couple. And while we’ve had many dinners at fine restaurants across Toronto as well as a few hidden gems in the south of france, italy and greece, there is just something special about this first time for us as a couple.

So when someone asks me to photograph their wedding there, If I’m available, it’s always a YES for me.

The importance of formal photos

The majority of couples planning their wedding want more candid and journalistic style images. I am a documentary photographer, and much of the time spent at the wedding is photographing the events as they play out, without any intrusion or direction on my part.
And as much as I love photographing weddings like that and looking for moments and candid relaxed “portraits” a good formal photo of the couple is super important to take as well.

This photo is from quite a while ago.

Thanks to Facebook, I got reminded of this moment the other day and I decided to write about it because of what Sandra and Dave said about this image.

formal portrait of a married couple with their two dogs by their feet

“We LOVE all our photographs from our wedding that Andreas captured. Years later, we continue to get compliments on your lovely work. Sadly, sweet Toby & Mixer have both passed since our wedding when they were so young and full of beans…but they live on in our hearts, and in our many pictures, and this is one of my favourites that you made of us”

A Tale of Two Wedding Photographs.

A Standard family portrait in Greece

This is nice photo. It’s a fairly traditional wedding family group portrait.

Here, we have bride and groom, her two sisters, her father, his parents and brother.

It’s a nice, standard, respectable and classy image of the immediate family.

I make this image at each wedding in some variation.

Bahamas - Tara Morley, Diane Cole Morley and Laura Morley

This image however, is one of a kind. Unrepeatable, and unique to just this family.

In this image taken in the Bahamas, the bride, sister, and mother are sitting in the back of the same Rolls Royce that the brides mother used for her wedding.

They had just arrived at the church and were waiting together while waiting for the last of the guests to enter the church.

At this point I’d covered the inside, taking photographs of her soon to be husband and guests, and I knew that there was a lot of nostalgia and importance around the fact that Tara at her mum where in the same limo that she’d used years earlier for her wedding, so I waited for them to arrive.

This is a family portrait as well, but one that can’t be replicated in any way. The glow on Tara and Diane Morley’s faces say it all.

While I do make the standard images of people standing together, what I focus on is finding portraits within scenes as they play out in real time.

Images that can never be repeated or staged, and I do so because these are the images that are chosen and downloaded the most by family members, and the ones that resonate most with those in the photograph.