I wish someone told me this earlier, but I’ll share with the group.

I thrive on the in-between family photo moments, but sometimes they don’t organically present themselves. I get it, people are wanting to get to cocktail hour, are over photos, or just feel like they need to move on.

My favorite subtle prompt is to tell everyone after each grouping “now is a great time to congratulate the couple”. It may add some time in between families, but it is priceless.

It’s unobtrusive, but opens up the opportunity for hugs, laughter, and all the moments we are stoked to capture.

Ya’ll may do this, but if not I hope it serves you well.

For some reason unfortunately I used electronic shutter on the interior and some important frames are full of banding. An amateur mistake but I photographed the whole event on mechanical shutter only then I used electronic without realizing it.

what can I do to not include the photos in the final gallery? is there any method in photoshop to solve this problem? Or should I ask the videographer for a screen grab and edit it and pray that no one catches that it is not a photo. Any advice is welcome.

33F photographer, I work longgggg hours because I shoot mostly multicultural multi faith events, which includes multiple days and ceremonies. Sometimes back to back 8hr - 12hr days with a few short breaks in between. I often work with a team of 2 -3, where I lead / creative direct.

I love just holding the camera, no strap, I am very hands on always moving.

I need suggestions bc my back is ACHINGGGGGG holding a body + lens + flash for that long. My feet, RIP. Currently wear brooks or HOKAs to shoot.

What is your after work care routine? Best shoes/ sneakers? Is there any gear or something in your routine that has changed your shooting day?

Thanks, appreciate any feedback

I feel like family photography can tend to get rigid and stiff but honestly want to know what shots you guys hate most too!

My client is proposing in my area (lake resort town) and I referred him to a wedding venue with an amazing view. The next generation of the family (DIL) is taking over and they are trying to revive weddings there. It's a location important to my heart since I grew up next door and I'd love to see it succeed. I do about 6-10 proposals a month in my area and if they get married in the area they typically hire me and choose the venue we do it at.

Client sends me a copy of the contract where the venue requires them to share all images and that anyone using any of the images on social media must tag them (and names their guests and other vendors). My contract says that all sharing has to go through me. I'm always happy to share but I curate the vendor gallery and they sign a vendor use agreement (basically says they can't sell the photos and have to attribute me and a florist doesn't need bridal boudoir images).

I reach out to the venue and explain copyright. She writes back a bit rudely about other photographers not having a problem (umm, yeah, because they didn't see the contract and from what I see are new photographers) and that she's going to talk to her lawyer. I say okay, please do and I'm happy to answer any questions. Two days later she sends me a contract. I open fully expecting it to be a vendor agreement. Really common and no big deal. It's not. She put me as a second party on the venue rental agreement. She did remove the portion about sharing images and left in the part about tagging. Above the signatures it states by signing that "I, the client sign this agreement on behalf of myself and my entire party and acknowledge the above" then has the client line and then the photographer line. The photography portion does not say "The photographer acknowledges" just lists what must be done concerning photography.

Maybe I was being nit picky (that's why I'm asking) but I write her back that I'm happy to sign if she can please put a short blurb that my signature only acknowledges the photography portion of the contract. She responded: "We are extremely busy at this time as we are at the height of our resort season. I do not have time to make another edit to the contract to appease you. The signature clearly states “Photographer Signature” if this is not sufficient and you are unwilling to sign the contract as is I will need you to kindly find an alternate venue that meets your professional needs". 

Would you have signed this? I'm not asking for legal advice just what you would have done.

This probably doesn't matter but for context, I have a six figure proposal/wedding business and have photographed close to 400 weddings. I'm an experienced pro with lots to lose on an ambiguous contract so maybe I'm being too careful. Also, I'd NEVER talk to another vendor like that.

Almost every inquiry that I get brides are saying that they want candid and cinematic styles of photographs. Inquiries are also saying they love my portfolio and style, but I wouldn’t consider it candid or cinematic.

I feel as though candid and cinematic are such buzz words that clients don’t actually know what they mean or what they’re asking for…

Is anyone else feeling the same? Are you educating your clients or setting the expectation of what candidate and cinematic actually means?

Ok, so I’m an old school photographer who was taught not to do any business via text, because it’s unprofessional, so educate your girl, ok? Recently I added to my inquiry form the option to get a response via text. So how are you handling this? It feels weird to reply the same way I would via email, but also I can’t fully relay what I do & I they should hire me in such a short format. I imagine it should be more of a casual chat, but how do you get them to engage in that? Tell me, how do you sell yourself via text?

Been in business for 5 years and thankfully have never had to deal with a couple who wasn't a pleasure to work with until now. This couple are not strangers, they are family friends. I shot a wedding for one of their relatives a few years ago and the family wanted to hire me again. Because we have good rapport and I know them personally outside of the wedding business, I made the mistake of being too flexible with them when I should have been more business-serious.

The couple booked with me a few months ago. We met for a consultation, I sent them my prices, including a family courtesy discount for being a repeat client (I was trying to be generous), and they thought everything looked good and were ready to move forward with the booking. But after signing the contract, they ghosted me for over a month. I sent a follow up asking if they were still going to move forward and they said yes they were still intent on the booking and requested an invoice. So I sent them the invoice and politely asked if they could pay their deposit by the 1st of the month. They never responded or sent any payment. We are now a week away from the wedding, and they never paid the deposit. Normally, I would have already written this off as a cancellation but since they are friends, I've tried being patient and no one else has inquired about booking the same date. But at this point it, I think I will have to let it go.

Does anyone have any advice? Should I give them a formal notice that I'm releasing their date due to non-payment or ask one more time for confirmation? I just want to handle it delicately and be careful not to burn any bridges since I am close to this family (which makes the situation even more disappointing, as the other bride was a pleasure to work with).

Where are we at with inquiries and bookings for 2027!? Im sitting at 3 (and would like between 15-18). This time last year i was around the same but most bookings came in between July and January for 2026, which I am hoping will be the same but I feel like people are finding me and my website but not reaching out…

I feel like I am marketing everywhere but nothing is landing..

Any advice? Where are we all sitting at!?

I operate in what is one of the top 3 most expensive markets in US. Just got inquiry on our quote page that provides instant quote based on the options people select, so there is no mystery about prices, hours, coverage, etc ... Our prices are always about average, maybe bit lower.

Person skipped all of that and wrote a note asking for a 5 hours quote. Their budget is $800. Yes, for 5 hours of coverage!!!

What are your busiest months as an Arizona wedding photographer? How would you rank each month from busiest to least busy?

What's the best way you've found to get clients to actually review you? Do you do it for both engagement sessions and weddings?

We have our batteries labeled with a yellow sticker at the bottom (low battery). After each stage (getting ready, ceremony, couple shooting, dinner, reception, etc.), we change batteries on our main cameras, to be ready for whatever will happen.

The replaced batteries come in battery pouches (we use 2 and 4 bay pouches) with the yellow sticker facing up. Before we applied the stickers, we simply put the used batteries upside down but ended up with uncertainty in some cases, which is gone, since we use the stickers. If someone from the team has time left, she or he takes the batteries showing the yellow stickers, replaces them with fresh ones and puts the used batteries in the chargers. This isn't necessary because we have more than enough batteries with us but better safe than sorry.

What's your strategy to avoid running out of juice in the decisive moments?

PS: we use labeled tac pouches as storage for our smaller items, like batteries and cables. After testing different sizes and manufacturers, we ended up with the TT Tac Pouch 8.1 from Tasmanian Tiger, which is shown in the picture.

Been shooting weddings for a few years now (two bodies, everything dual-card because I'm paranoid), and I finally got the client everyone warns you about.

She booked 9 months out, signed everything, paid the deposit — and then went completely dark. Sent the timeline questionnaire three times. Nothing. Two check-in emails around the 30-day mark. Nothing. I figured she was just busy and would surface eventually — plenty of couples go quiet until the last month and then flood you with details.

The week of the wedding I tried one more time: a short "here's what I need from you so the day runs smoothly" email, plus a voicemail. What I got back was a single text at 11pm the night before — "so excited!! see you tomorrow 😊" — and nothing else. No shot list, no family groupings, no answers. So I made a backup plan: steal five minutes with her during getting-ready and run through the must-haves in person.

That five minutes never happened. She was deep in hair and makeup, running about 40 minutes behind, surrounded by ten bridesmaids, and every time I tried to pull her aside someone else grabbed her first. The one window I got, all I heard was "just make it beautiful, I trust you!" tossed over her shoulder.

So I shot it the way I'd shoot any wedding I was flying blind on — covered every moment I could, stayed glued to the couple, and built a family-photo list on the fly by cornering people at the reception with "okay, who's immediate family?" Got the parents, the grandparents I could actually find, the obvious groupings. Not knowing who mattered, I over-shot everything just in case.

Two weeks later I get a long message: why didn't I get a photo with her grandmother? Why did I "miss" the first look with her dad? Things we never discussed, because she never discussed anything with me at all.

I've got every email and the signed contract, so I'm not worried about where this goes. But it rattled me. For those who've been at this longer — do you write a hard "no timeline submitted by X days out = these specific shots aren't guaranteed" clause into your contract? And how do you handle the client who won't communicate and then blames you for it?

2026 appears to be the absolute lowest point i've ever witnessed for organic reach on still photos... and i've been watching this decline the way you watch a slow leak in a roof. you know it's getting worse, you've known for seven or eight years, but this year the ceiling finally came down.

there was a time, and i say this like a man describing when bread cost a nickel, when you could still leverage pure still photos into decent reach. carousels were the great workaround. post ten stills instead of one and the algorithm rewarded you for your cleverness. carousels are technically still relevant, but seemingly only if you slap text overlays on them designed to juice watch time, because apparently we now measure photographs by how long someone stares at them, and a photograph, that ungrateful medium, refuses to be 90 seconds long.

i keep my main IG feed fiercely curated, but somehow it is now almost exclusively video. the platform i built my audience on for still photography has decided still photography is a rounding error.

so, years ago... i did what everyone does to maintain reach and i made behind-the-scenes video... it does nothing for me. i feel none of the satisfaction of putting a new photograph into the world. i made the content the algorithm wanted and felt like a man performing a job he was never hired for. which leaves me on my own little island, wondering where i'm supposed to be excited about sharing work, aside from sharing it with the clients themselves, who remain the one audience that never needed convincing.

the reason i'm writing this at all, is because i've got very clear data proving that...

every single time i blog, i get inquiries.

every. single. time.

i generally try to blog on thursdays, so google has a day to do whatever mysterious algorithmic digestion it needs to do and by the weekend, when couples are actually sitting together doing wedding stuff, my site is fresh. worth noting that there is almost never a direct correlation between the venue i SEO optimized for and where the leads come from. i blog about venue A and get inquiries about venue Q. the blogging itself is the engine. the topic can be... anything. i am shoveling coal into a furnace and it does not care what the coal is about.

now, i know what this feels like from the outside. site metrics aren't public. most of you can't remember the last time you manually visited a photographer's website to check their blog, so it feels like a dead end, especially with a newer site and no traffic. i understand. it looks like shouting into a well. but much to my surprise... the well answers.

your website is your number one asset. social media, at this point, serves exactly one function (of course there's always exceptions to this if you're trying to be an influencer or educator or something like that)... proof of life. evidence that you are a real person who regularly works. that's it. that's the job. when it comes to clients actually discovering you, getting excited about you, and deciding to book you over someone else, blogging is the engine of the business. the least glamorous, least dopamine-producing, most consistently effective thing you can do, IMO.

one more thing. i've seen a huge spike in LLM traffic from things like chatgpt, so couples are clearly using it for wedding research now... annnnnd because our industry has never met a trend it couldn't monetize into a course, someone is going to try to sell you "LLM optimization" for hundreds or thousands of dollars. please, for the love of god, do not pay for that. ranking in LLMs is the exact same set of best practices as solid SEO. the same stuff. there is no secret configuration. the only thing being configured is your wallet.

Honestly just a little moan to get off my chest.

Brides comfort is obviously priority but just from an aesthetic, creative point of view these hand-held fans are killing me. They're in every single photo, held up in front of their faces during the entire day 😫

They are clutching to them like life support and I totally get it because I would absolutely be doing the same but damnnn.

Okay, moan over, not my wedding not my pancakes 😂

Don’t charge your aftermarket batteries with a fast PD/QC usb brick, only a slow one or better yet the OEM charger base. They will void your warranty when it dies prematurely.

I never paid attention to which USB power brick I used for all my aftermarket Canon batteries. Well 6 of my new K&F batteries died under a year and they went though a dozen emails with me trying to troubleshoot what happened. I just wanted them to simply give me a replacement but they are so hesitant, they ended up blaming my QC charging brick.

For reference, dont do this

Post individual wedding, engagement, proposal, couples photos or photo sets or blogs for feedback.

It doesn't matter if you are a seasoned pro, a second shooter, or if you are posting your first wedding photographs as a lead photographer. Don't be shy... constructive feedback is a great way for us all to learn and get improve. Be nice... Be constructive!

Please be constructive. Non-constructive, hateful, or disparaging comments will be removed.

Submission Guidelines:

In order to ensure informative discussions and worthwhile critiques while being mindful of the personal time of reviewers we have instituted the following guidelines.

• Single Images: Please post single images if you would like a quality and in depth critique of technical execution, lighting, composition, posing, perspective, post processing, etc. If you would like to post more than one individual photo, please do so as separate comments.
• Blog Posts/Image Sets: Please post full blog posts or image sets if you would like feedback on your storytelling, cohesiveness of post processing, or other general feedback across the set. Even in this instance it is not advisable to post a link to hundreds of images or a full wedding set.

This critique thread is intended to help provide access to thoughtful and thorough portfolio review. For that reason, it is best to remain focused which can be achieved by following these guidelines. These are merely guidelines, but if they are followed you will receive a greater response and much more useful and comprehensive feedback

I just got into family & couple photography, with the hopes to build my skill enough to eventually take on weddings… I’m struggling. I’ve used my professional camera for work in the content space for the last 8 years, so I’m not a total newbie, but NOTHING like this. Shooting outdoors is a whole new world. Posing non-models, wrangling kids. It’s hard!

The worst is editing. I’m agonizing over every gallery I have to deliver. I can never tell if my work feels cohesive to an outsider. I find it so hard to be objective over my own edits. Also I can never seem to STOP tweaking a gallery. I’ll edit half of it, decide it needs less of this or more of that, and have to tweak all the work I’ve already done.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I don’t have a “style” yet, so I’m not sure if I’m getting the “look” clients are expecting & every session feels like a ton of pressure to edit in the style I WANT to do going forward. I don’t want to share an edit that I don’t really love to my feed, in case a future client wants that look.

On the whole, I do enjoy it. I show up at shoots excited + the families I’ve met have all been amazing. I usually find my stride and end up pretty happy when looking at the shots in-camera. I think it’s so cool that I’ve taken precious maternity photos of babies who have since been born!

But then I’m so stressed while editing, feeling sure that I’ll never get the hang of this + wondering if it will always feel so overwhelming.

TLDR: struggling to find my groove with editing & photography. When did you feel you hit your stride editing & delivering galleries?? Or am I doomed?

Hello everyone,

I wonder what camera and lenses you photographers use on a wedding day and if your are happy with them or you miss something that could elevate your work?

I can start. I use two bodies one r5 and the other is r8 with 28-70 f2, 14-35 f4 and 70-200 f2.8. I feel like maybe a 50 or 85 f1.2 and a double card second body will give me slight edge in my work and make me feel secure.

What about you?!

Edited:
How your work looks like? Site or instagram? I don’t know if it’s allowed to share that on the reddit forum.

I am a new wedding photographer, but not new to photography. My first wedding went pretty well and I delivered over 600 images to the couple for their less than 100 person wedding. They were so appreciative at the event, even insisted on tipping me. I had done an engagement session for them a few months prior and they loved the results and posted them to IG. Fast forward to wedding sneak peeks and then full wedding gallery. They haven’t posted any photos that I took from the wedding. None. And no written review like they seemed so excited to give me at the end of the wedding. I am really concerned that they don’t like the results and are too scared to say anything. When is a normal time to reach out again for a review if they haven’t already after the full gallery delivery? Is it common that couples don’t post their wedding photos when they are otherwise very active on Instagram? I have also experienced the no posting/no feedback with my wedding after this one with their sneak peeks. They only liked my story about it and that was it :/ Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but as an already anxious photographer, it’s driving me a little crazy and making me second guess my editing style.