I've been so excited for this post for a really long time. It's been a few years in the making...

As our business has continued to grow, we been faced with more and more great weddings that we simply can't fit into our schedule. You'd think the problem would be as easy as hiring someone else, but in this field that's a tricky situation. The simple fact is that although we've had lots of options for associate photographers over the past few years, we never found a photographer that we felt was the right fit. We simply weren't willing to sacrifice quality in order to have an associate photographer. In short, we wanted a photographer that made us jealous of his images, not someone to play second fiddle to us. Someone who was a legitimate expert at what they did and who could offer something different than what Amy and I do.

We got one.

A while back we started chatting with Chuck Anerino. Chuck is a friend of ours who has been operating Anerino Originals for the past few years and (as you're about to find out) his work is incredible. We're still counting our lucky stars that Chuck will be shooting under our name. As you'll see, Chuck's work is fantastic while being undeniably different than ours. For us, Chuck will not be a Hoffer Jr. Rather, he'll be representing a documentary style, focused on timeless moments. Chuck shoots lots of B&W images, is an expert at a candid, fine-art style with a wonderful sense of timing. For us, having an associate isn't really about trying to make more money. It's about having another amazing option for our clients.

If you're interested in an amazing documentary photographer, you can see more of Chuck's portfolio here or read more about him here. He'll be shooting a limited number of weddings per year and we'll start incorporating more of his work on this blog. We're so excited to have Chuck as an option to offer to our couples. Here's some highlights of one of his recent weddings...

It's been a bit of a strange blogging week. Between the holiday, some unfortunate weather and a few other random things, we haven't had many images to show. I thought'd it'd be a good opportunity to dust off some Q&A from our readers. These questions were submitted via our FB page...

From Jonathan

How do you usually end up with your shoot locations? Do a lot of clients look to you for suggestions or do you prefer they have something personal in mind?
Whenever possible, we have our clients pick them. There are some situations (commercial/portraits) where it makes the most sense for us to pick, but the majority of the time we prefer if others do. Part of our style is that we like to make things comfortable and meaningful for people. Often that involves putting them in places that mean the most to them. It's something we really stress with people as we're going through the process.

From KT

For clients that don't need time pressing shoots, when do you typically have slower months?
We don't really have much of a slow season these days. Winter is always the slowest because of the weather here in PA, but recently that's when we've been traveling and shooting in other locations. Generally speaking, the winter is a bit slower than the other 9 months though.

From Megan

What was your favorite photo session/wedding to date?? and is there somewhere you dream of shooting, that you haven't got to yet??
Oh man. Picking a favorite is like choosing your favorite child. You can probably do it, but you're not sure if you're allowed to say it publicly. :)

Most of our favorite work revolves around traveling or around trying new things. There's just something special about seeing something with a fresh pair of eyes. Some that stand out from this year are our Hawaii wedding and aftershoot, our Rhode Island engagement session, the portrait project, and a few other things.

As far as places to go, there's a list longer than I am tall. This next year we're hitting a few of them though and we couldn't be more excited!

From Ashley

How do you make a client not notice you during the ceremony at a wedding? where do you place yourself to help stay out of the way and let the ceremony shine but still capture the important up close emotional moments?
Ceremonies can certainly be tricky. We try to approach them on a case by case basis. Some weddings are very low-key, outdoor affairs, so it's no big deal to be a little closer. Others are traditional, big church weddings where we try to be very quiet. We have two goals: make great photos and don't be noticed. We can usually do both, both sometimes we end up sacrificing a little more of the latter to make the former :)

From Kiel

Have you noticed that people do not buy/want prints anymore but always ask for the digital files? How do you handle these requests?
Not really. There certainly has been a big push for digital images in the last few years. There's no doubt that people want to share them with others. We try to stress to people the importance of physical prints and albums. These are the kinds of things that only grow in sentiment over time. Although it's hard to think about the fact that Facebook won't be around forever, it's true. Having something special to hold, hang, or give to someone else is something that I don't see going out of style anytime too soon.

From Kiel

On your blog, why are there a few posts that are blocked?
Because they're more intimate shoots that we post just for the clients due to their nature. Oh be careful little eyes what you see...

Ok, that's it for now. As always, thanks to everyone for the great questions!

After a whirlwind week in Memphis, we're back home from the Genesis workshop. To all the non-photographers that frequent this blog, thanks so much for you patience while we pimped ourselves out the last few months. Hopefully this post will be a payoff of sorts for you since you finally get to see some photos! Memphis is an interesting city for sure. It's large and has a lot of culture, but has a 'downtown' area that's smaller than that of West Chester. With that said, it's a pretty incredible place to shoot.

Teaching a workshop is quite an interesting phenomenon to experience. On one hand completely nerve-wracking, on another completely exhilarating. At times feeling completely self-indulgent and at others feeling completely vulnerable. It's no wonder we come back absolutely drained of emotion every year. It's quite difficult to replicate real-world situations for our style of shooting (very personal and relational) but luckily we had an incredible group of students that really complimented our style and were soaking things up like a sponge. Our favorite part was our 'Branding' lecture. It came after talking for 10 straight hours that day, but I really loved sharing things that I feel are so important to our lives.

If I'm being honest, teaching workshops still feels like a very arrogant thing at times. After all, I really don't feel like there's much special about photographers. Our job is mostly to show the lives of other people. But if teaching the workshop teaches us anything it's a realization that our identity doesn't come from our job, but the relationships we make (with client and photographers alike) and from things that are much bigger than our own lives. After all, when the glitz of a workshop starts to fade, we get reminded that our 'normal' lives should be just as fulfilling (if not more) than the 'fantasy' life of the workshop... and for us that's the real challenge of Genesis.

Here's a few photos...

And a few photos from behind the scenes with our point and shoot camera...

It's been a whirlwind week. Plan on at least 4 or 5 new blog posts next week. Exciting and busy times! For now, here's two interviews we gave this week about our work, our creative process, and about some of our favorite shoots.

The first is with 121 Clicks, a photography website that shares the work of different photographers as well as tips and other things for those hungry to learn.

The 2nd is with The Emancipated Artist, a site dedicated to pursuing artistic work.

Hopefully you can check them out and enjoy the read. Have a great weekend blog-stalkers!

Over the past few months it's rained.... a lot! So, we've taken a few unexpected off days to blog some reader Q&A. If you missed the last two, you can see them here and here. These are actually questions from our Facebook fans. If you'd like to participate sometime, make sure to check in on our Facebook page. This time we've broken up the questions into things that could be helpful for clients and things that could be helpful for photographers. And since we know why you're really here, there's a few photos as well that we took of various critters with our point&shoot camera.

For Clients

From Stephanie

Do you have to be attractive to be your client or is that your super duper editing skillzzz at work???
Before we book each wedding, we do a thorough analysis of the attractiveness of each client. We have a 360 degree mirrored room where clients stand for 1-3 hours to be analyzed by us. If they're deemed attractive enough, we then check our calendar to see if we're open for their date. It works great!... Ok, not really. But if you have a 360 degree mirrored room, Amy would LOVE to have it to analyze my (Tony's) wardrobe!

From Marjorie

I'm interested in having family photos done next year, are you all booked and how can I get detailed pricing info?
Good question! Just send us an email to get the info. It's never too early to call. We shoot all non-wedding shoots on the weekdays and they usually fill up anywhere from a few weeks in advance (for the slower months) to more than a few months in advance (for the busy months). The busiest times are spring and fall. So, if you'd like to set something up, it's best to contact us early.

From Kristal

What criteria do you use to determine a "great" photo? What can clients do to help you get that "great" shot?
Well, jumping in a pool at your wedding helps (For those that don't follow, Kristal and her husband literally took the plunge when we shot their wedding)! Realistically though, my idea of a great photo is often different than our clients. Our favorites are often technical achievements whereas our client's favorites are usually the photos where they look or feel the way that they usually feel in their minds (pretty, in love, ect...). So, I think that the photos that I truly love are a combination of both of those things. That's why I've always loved this shot. The candid nature of it really captures the love of Emily and Chip, but I was really happy with the technical parts as well.

The best thing that our clients can do is to be affectionate, happy, and just be themselves. We really encourage people to work with us in the creative process, to come up with ideas, tell us what they like and help us create things that are unique to them. That collaboration usually results in our best work.

From Tara

What are some of your favorite locations to take pictures (family, senior portraits)?

Good question! Our favorite places are almost always new places. We often do our best work when we can approach something with a fresh pair of eyes. That's why we love getting to travel for work. More than that though, we just like places and things that our meaningful to our clients. That's why we always let our clients pick where they want to shoot. We'll work on making it look great while they work on picking a great place.

From Joel

What are the most important things you try to communicate to your couples when you first meet with them?
Usually our first meetings don't consist of much 'instruction' from us. Our goal is really just to meet people, ask lots of questions, find out about their lives and the things they love. That really helps to inform our work. We really just try to get across that our main job isn't to photograph their wedding, but to photograph them as people. So most of our time really revolves around us trying to figure out how we can best do that and how we can make our clients the most comfortable so that we see the real them.

For Photographers

From Justin

What is the most important part about getting a bride to hire you after she has emailed to request prices and more information. Do you call her, email her, do both? What did you do when you were starting up and were desperate for clients?
Well, without being too judgmental, I think you might be approaching your clients/sales in a photographer oriented way. If someone writes and asks for information, we simply check to make sure that we're open and send them information. In this field, where your work can be seen so readily and quickly, we don't have to make 'sales' like a traditional 'salesperson' would. Since we blog everything we shoot, all of our work is out there, so people often already like it by the time they email us. At that point it's just a matter of making sure that we're the right fit for each other. Rather than focusing on being 'desperate for clients', I'd focus on being desperate to please your current clients. That will have a much better long term payoff.

From Kyle

I seem to shoot a lot in places with very unattractive wood floors, wood walls, and even wood ceilings sometimes. Everything just looks orange and ugly. Any suggestions besides doing lots of black & white conversions?
Oddly enough, we actually love shooting in places like that. Sure, it's very challenging, but that's the fun part! The biggest key for us is getting a look that looks like a photographically sound version of how the wedding felt. That means trying to incorporate a lot of environmental light. My advice would be to get into a room and to first think about how you want the finished product to look. Once you have that, start thinking through how you want the room to look in the background. Then, start going through your lighting options. This is something that takes practice. Find a similar room somewhere that you can go and practice in to get the look you'd like.

From Brian

How do you respond to prospective clients who want something 'less than' your starting prices? (ex: "I see your prices start at $___ but I only need ___ hours and I promise it won't be much work!"
This is something I see a lot of photographers struggle with and something that I frankly have a hard time grasping. I'll try to answer this without being too wordy:

The first thing that any business (photography or otherwise) needs to do is to take a look at what it costs them to do business. How much do you have to pay your staff? What is the cost of the goods you're selling? How much are your electric bills, equipment expenses, insurance, ect...? What taxes do you pay as an employer or self-employed person.

Almost every time I see a photographer asking/second-guessing their pricing, it's almost a guarantee that they haven't gone through and figured out how much it costs them to have a business or to shoot a wedding. The problem that most photographers run into is that they themselves ARE the business. So where most businesses have a President, Manager, Accountant, Designer, Photographer, Secretary, most photographers try to do it all themselves. The problem comes in when they start to forget they're running a business and start to think that they get to keep every dollar that comes in. In essence, they don't understand what their costs are.

Photographers need to understand that their business is like any other business. They have to pay an editor, photographer, secretary, ect... Now, for a lot of people, they handle those tasks themselves, but it doesn't change the fact that they still need to pay the employee for performing it. Once the photographer is able to figure out how much it costs them to do business, then setting a price and sticking to it is easy. After all, you'd be losing money otherwise. So if someone asks you if they can hire you for an amount that you know isn't profitable, you're making a business decision based on profitability.

I obviously have a lot more thoughts on this topic, but that's the shortened version. Make sure to get your numbers down first to make sure you're being profitable. For more info on this topic, check out my buddy Todd's business blog.

Happy Friday! We're back from a brief vacation (some pics below) and ready for two weddings in the hot, hot, hot sun this weekend! We wanted to take a few minutes to answer some reader questions. We did some Q&A a few weeks back, so here's a few more. Some of these are client-related and some are photographer-related. Read on!

Also, we (somewhat unknowingly) got in a contest for best photog in Philly. If you like us, feel free to swing by and vote (we're currently in 2nd)! While you're at it, vote for our friends GMElliott, the cinema masters. On to the questions...

From Tiffany

How soon do clients get their wedding photos from you? Is it challenging meeting deadlines with the volume of work that you guys do? It's amazing to me how often you update your blog!
Good question, Tiffany. We usually tell our clients to expect their proofs from their engagement photos within 2 weeks of our shoot and to expect their wedding proofs within 4 weeks of the wedding. Most of the time it's a bit faster than that, but those are our end deadlines. Although we shoot a lot, I wouldn't say that we have to work quickly, just efficiently. Like any established business, the service we give our clients should be consistent and timely. Most of that comes from experience and from building a solid system, whether that's our workflow, our editor, ect... I will say that hiring and training an editor to help with the wedding workload really frees us up to do what we're best at... shooting!

From Marc

How do you decline a location or a shoot the couple insists in but you know it's not gonna work? Or do you just try to do your best?
Well this is sort of a two part question for us. First, we would never really decline a location if the client wants to go there. Surely some are better than others and we'll give advice about the best kinds of places, but we really like shooting in places that are meaningful to our clients and that are new and unique to us. I think the challenge of a new or different spot is one of the most exciting things about being a photographer.

On the other hand, if someone wants to do a shoot that we know 'won't work' or that we don't want to do, we'll simply refer another photographer. We work best when we love what we're doing. Part of the joy of self-employment is being able to choose our work environment, so if it's something we're not comfortable or excited about shooting, it's best for everyone if they find a photographer that is.

From Tetsuya

What is your preferred timeline if a wedding started at 6pm? For couples who want to do a first look, and that don't. And a follow-up question is what is the recommended hours of coverage?

Ooh, great question! We get this question a lot. First a few words about whether or not to do a 'first look':

If your wedding has a decent sized gap between the end of the ceremony and the reception (say 2 or 3 hours), then there is no need to consider doing a first look. You certainly can if you'd like, but there's ample time already built in for photos.

If your wedding does not have a built in gap (maybe the ceremony and reception are at the same place), then we HIGHLY recommend doing a first look. We recommend this for a number of reasons. Here's a few of them (starting with the selfish one):

1. If you're hiring a great photographer, rushing through the portraits might stifle their creativity. Certainly a professional should be able to produce good results anywhere, but having the extra time to set up extra lighting, walk around to find a better angle, ect. can make a huge difference.

2. Couples that do a first look generally seem to be more stress free and to enjoy their weddings more. Weddings should be a FUN day for EVERYONE! Worrying about deadlines isn't something most people want to do on their wedding day. Plus, many people don't like having 2 wedding events going on at the same time (cocktail hour and portraits). Most couples who do a first look really enjoy being able to attend all the parts of the wedding.

3. It can be very intimate and emotional to have some time to see your soon-to-be-spouse before every one else does... and you'll have as much time as you need.

Ok, now that I said all that, back to the original questions. First, we always tell couples that we'll deal with whatever time schedule you want us to. It's your day, not ours. Whatever your priorities are is completely fine with us! With that said, we usually recommend allotting around 45 mins for bridal party photos, 45 minutes for bride and groom photos and (if you choose to do them) anywhere from 15-45 minutes for family photos. If you'd like to give us more, GREAT! If we need to shoot in less, that's fine too and we'll make sure we're in turbo speed!

As far as how long coverage should last, that's completely up to you. Some people basically want us from the time they wake to the time they sleep. Others might not want getting ready photos or end of reception photos. We totally build our schedule around what our clients want us to do... well, within reason of course. :)

From JD

What does it take to get your manly robot sounding voice? Is it more then a hidden voice changer in your camera? HAHA!

I'm a transformer.

From Melissa

Will you or do you offer Mentoring online, or via phone?

Right now, the only teaching we have planned is in November at the Genesis workshop. We occasionally do some 1-on-1 mentoring and consulting, but that's mostly in our off season. With our schedule, we try to keep shooting as our first priority. If you're interested and can't make Genesis, give us a shout and we'll try to work it out for you!

From Jon-Mark

What's your favourite destination Wedding location you have travelled to?

That's really hard! I think for weddings it would have to be either Arizona, Hawaii or the Dominican Republic. They've all been gorgeous places. Arizona and Hawaii really made us want to move! Germany was fantastic as well, but that wasn't a wedding. We're traveling a lot next year, so we're ready for a new favorite!

From Tom

What would you suggest one do when there's just no quality light to be found; Say for example getting ready shots in a low lit room. Possibly a hotel room, maybe not enough window light, just some table lamps. First thing I normally do is open up all the curtains and shades to brighten up the room as much as I can but sometimes that's not enough.

Well I think the best solution to this problem is to avoid it entirely. We typically will ask people where they're getting ready and try to get a sense for where we're going and make suggestions about where the best types of spots are. I think that our clients will obviously want the best photos they can get, so we're usually happy to make suggestions about the best ways to make that happen. However, if we show up and the room is really low lit, then we'll usually step forward to suggest the best places for things to take place. Even if there's not much window light, having someone stand near it can make for some great results!

Thanks again to everyone for the questions! Hopefully we can do this again soon! If you want to ask a question, be sure to follow us on our Facebook page. Here's a shot of us from vacation last week!

After a long weekend with no weddings and a few days of no shooting, it's time for an (almost) photo-less blog post. We just wanted to take a few minutes to share a few things that have been on our mind, answer a few questions and talk about a few things we're doing. So if you're an existing client, soon-to-be client or a photographer, there's probably something in here for you. And since we're photographers after all, there's a few personal shots we've taken recently sprinkled in...

Facebook and Twitter

At the bottom of this page are links to our Facebook business page and Tony's twitter. The Facebook business page is a great place to keep up on things that we don't blog, such as when we need models or volunteers, when we have contests or when we ask for questions (like we did yesterday). The Twitter feed is mostly Tony talking about sports, music and photography and we (this is Tony talking) apologize in advance to anyone that follows it. :)

Booking Schedule

We get a lot of questions from soon-to-be brides asking about our booking schedule. For weddings, we typically fill up 12-18 months in advance. For the busiest months (May-June and Sept.-Oct.) its usually closer to the 18 month mark. For engagements, portraits and commercial work, we typically fill up at least 2-3 months ahead of time. For this reason, we do scale back our commercial and non-wedding-client work during the busy months. Fall is by far our busiest time for engagements and families, so if you want to shoot in the fall, it's good to get in touch way ahead of time (like now).

Shooting Days

For engagements, families and commercial work we shoot exclusively during the week. The evenings are typically the best time and we try to shoot on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Sundays are our day off.

Travel Policy

As we've been traveling a lot for weddings, many of our clients have asked about our travel policy. Our policy is basically that there is no policy! We'll travel anywhere for anything (as evidenced by our recent engagement session in Germany). If you have an idea for us that involves travel, just let us know. We'll work up an all-inclusive quote that includes all our costs and we'll do all the planning. It's super easy for you.

Comment

We just wanted to say thanks to all the people who check out our work and comment on it either on our blog or on Facebook. It means so much to us that our clients can see that other people like their photos. So, come out of stalker-ville and leave a comment!

Workshops

A few people a week ask us about workshops, so we've added a 'Workshops' link to our menu. Right now, our only planned workshop is the Genesis workshop (which has a few seats still available). If we ever do a 1-on-1, small workshop, business consultation or anything else, we'll often post things to our Facebook page for help/models.

Reader Questions

Ok, so that's mostly it for stuff from us. So here's a few questions we got from people on our Facebook page. If you're interested in having a question answered here sometime, keep an eye on that page (rather than emailing us) and if it works out, we'll do it more often.

Quincy asks:

Do you plan on doing anything like Genesis closer to PHL?
The likelihood is extremely low. We only plan one workshop at a time. After it's over, we reevaluate to see if we'd like to do another one. If we ever do a third, it will most likely be on the west coast.

Karlo asks:

Can you dunk? Forward? Reverse? 360?
You're asking a very sensitive question Karlo. The answer is yes to all 3, but every year my hops are giving way more and more. Back in the day it was windmills and alley-oops. Now I'm lucky to do the things you mentioned above.

Heather asks:

Do you plan out your sessions (poses, locations, lighting tricks you want to use) in advance or do you do it on the fly...
The overwhelming answer is that we do everything on the fly. Every shoot is so different (weather, location, clients) that it's hard to plan things in advance. Occasionally we'll have ideas or thoughts, but we usually forget about them once we start. We always tell people that we want their sessions to be unique, so basing it on them is much easier than basing it on us.

Mike asks:

Without giving away any trade secrets... When using a flash/off camera lighting for outdoor shooting during the evening (before dark) do you have a go to lighting setup you use or change it up every time based on the conditions? i.e.- umbrellas or softboxes, typical number or lighting sources, etc. Your lighting just looks so much better than any others I've seen.
Well not really. For outdoor lighting, it mostly depends on how much time we have and how windy it is. We prefer softboxes whenever possible and are always looking for faster setup for softboxes. When it's windy, we use a lot less modifiers because we've broken so many that way :).

Angie asks:

Any tips for those of us learning Lightroom and the processing end? I have trouble finding presets that aren't too strong. I'm always longing for the perfect preset :)
Well you could always buy the Workflow DVD... :D. But the serious answer is that we don't use any presets that we didn't make ourselves. Since the processing sets our style in some ways, it's important to me that it's not available to everyone.

Megan asks:

If you had to shoot with 1 lens the rest of your career, what would it be?
Definitely a 35mm. I find it to be the most versatile and challenging focal length. I think it makes a person think about composition so much that I always feel challenged by it.

Adam asks:

I've seen some of your photos where your clients have been in the water or topless even, how do you talk your clients into doing some of those things?
Well we never talk anyone into anything really. We ask our clients to give us ideas and than run with it. Whether that's in the water, climbing something tall or what they do/don't wear, it's important that our clients tell us what they'd like. Then we just make suggestions and see what they want to do. If we start trying to convince people to do something, then we've gotten away from the main goal, which is to give them what they want.

Jonathan asks:

Your best advice on getting resistant participants (guys) to spend the time needed for a great engagement shoot?
This is one huge advantage of shooting with your wife. I (Tony) am not really a stereotypical "wedding" person, but Amy totally is. Like many of our clients, that's totally my wife's department. It works great because we can just be ourselves. I think it's easier to identify with men this way. I'm into sports, movies and other things that guys usually want to talk about. I find that working with both sexes is much easier when we can just be ourselves and connect on different things. After all, people have fun when they don't feel forced into something.