A Week in the Life of a Wedding Photographer with Matt Saville

In this meetup we will discuss many of the aspects of the business of wedding, event, or portrait photography. Thinking artistically and creating beautiful images is just as important as being able to work under pressure, handle disaster situations, and making sure you deliver what the client envisioned. Matthew will demonstrate how to think creatively and achieve high-quality results practically anywhere!

Post-production workflow and data management are also a large aspect of any photo business. Some photographers prefer to do all of their own editing, while others prefer to out-source their post-production. We will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of both, and which workflow may be right for you.
Of course if any "9-5-er" believes that being a pro photographer is all fun and games, rest assured that on top of all the shooting and excitement, there are still at least 40-50 hours of desk work each week. We will briefly discuss strategies for managing things like marketing & branding, customer support, sales, paperwork, etc.

This event is not just for aspiring full-time wedding or portrait photographers, but also for anyone who has ever been asked or might ever be asked to photograph a wedding or a portrait session for a friend or family.

Matthew Saville is a full-time wedding photographer based in Orange County, working for one of Southern California's most prominent studios. Matt has been photographing weddings since the film-to-digital transition, and specializes in technical lighting tricks on an affordable budget. Matt is also a contributing writer for SLR Lounge and an expert in high-speed workflow techniques which the wedding photography industry often demands.

We ask for donations are $5 for regular meetings and $10 for meetings with speakers. Every meeting costs money, so the donations are appreciated as always. Donations are voluntary but requested.

Each meeting involves a little bit of show and tell. We used to run contests every meeting, and we'll do that sometimes - but mostly we'll have projects and get to show and discuss our work.

This month's project! Something Candid.

SUBMISSIONS: Send your photos directly to me at mn-at-docnicholas.com - Down rez them (remember, the projector's resolution is limited to about 1200 x 800), turn them into jpegs and place their quality at 80 percent. This will give us healthy, but not too massive of files. Remember the rules ... see below!

Photo must be taken after the assignment - so you have between now and the March meeting to give us some greatness.

Prize: for contests... the winner gets something. For non-contests, we are all winners (and get the pride of knowing that we're all winners)

Rules:

• Each participant should submit one photo. For non-contests, we'll allow two submissions if there is something special to share
• The pictures must be taken between the submission start and meeting date. This is to make sure it's not a "my best picture ever contest"
• Pictures may be processed/edited and worked on. HDRs and composites are fine.
• Rules and prizes can be changed at our whim. There is no contract here, just fun for all!

Ok folks - photo submission time! See you soon,