For Matt Clara

Dear Matt,

I have obviously stepped on your toes, which wasn't my intention. I
have great respect for people who photograph weddings. A friend once
suggested I add that to my repertoire and I told him he was out of his
mind. Not only did you need to be artistically and technically
proficient, but you needed to master a couple dozen set pieces, have the
timing of Henri Cartier-Bresson and the business acumen of Rockefeller
(John D., not Nelson).

I only questioned the idea of spending two days to perfect a photograph.
That would be 16 hours for an employee and maybe 30 for an owner. If
you only value your time at $10/hour, it is costing you $150-300, which
I felt could never be recovered. Later you referred to a shot with bad
WB, which usually can be corrected pretty quickly. In that case it
would make sense. I just felt that a shot that might actually take two
days to perfect wasn't worth saving.

There is an assumption here that you are talking about the typical
wedding shot that ends up in an album. There are shots that are blown
up to poster size, maybe printed on canvas, framed and hung over the
fireplace. There you might make enough for it to be worthwhile. A "fine
art" print could easily sell for $500-1000 or more. If that is what you
were talking about then I apologize. I was wrong.

Bob

--
Robert B. Peirce, Venetia, PA 724-941-6883
bob AT peirce-family.com [Mac]
rbp AT cooksonpeirce.com [Office]

Robert Peirce wrote:
Dear Matt,

snip

art" print could easily sell for $500-1000 or more. If that is what you
were talking about then I apologize. I was wrong.

Matt was right, of course, but it doesn't mean you need to prostrate
yourself in apology either. A simple acknowledgement is enough.

Chances are that for anything you say at least 1/3 of the people here
will disagree with you.

To put a point on it, anyone who takes photography seriously takes RAW
so that they have more to work with (in dynamic range) when finishing
the photo.

This goes far beyond merely saving blown highlights, though that is a
gift of it as well.

Cheers,
Alan

--
-- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm
-- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm
-- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin
-- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch.

In article ,
Robert Peirce wrote:

I just felt that a shot that might actually take two
days to perfect wasn't worth saving.

It takes a good person to admit anywhere that he/she has miss stepped.

To butt in for one second, I can think of maybe one or two exceptions to
the above. The bride coming down the aisle. Blow that shot and its all
over. Don't have it and you seriously in deep water. Just having a
backup camera is probably not good enough, one has to have both cameras
ready for making that shot.
--
"As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely,
the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great
and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire
at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
- H. L. Mencken, in the Baltimore Sun, July 26, 1920.


Reality-Is finding that perfect picture
and never looking back.

www.gregblankphoto.com

In article ,
Alan Browne wrote:

Chances are that for anything you say at least 1/3 of the people here
will disagree with you.

Not ah......no way, more like half will
--
"As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely,
the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great
and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire
at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
- H. L. Mencken, in the Baltimore Sun, July 26, 1920.


Reality-Is finding that perfect picture
and never looking back.

www.gregblankphoto.com

Robert Peirce wrote:

I only questioned the idea of spending two days to perfect a photograph.

Surely this must have refered to two days to correct the full set of a
couple hundred photos (most wouldn't need much). I don't think anyone
spends much more than an hour or two on the most fussy fine art shot. It
certainly could take an hour to carefully mask out highlights & shadows
in merging 3 raw conversions of a high dynamic range white gown & black
suit wedding shot.

There is an assumption here that you are talking about the typical
wedding shot that ends up in an album. There are shots that are blown
up to poster size, maybe printed on canvas, framed and hung over the
fireplace. There you might make enough for it to be worthwhile. A "fine
art" print could easily sell for $500-1000 or more. If that is what you
were talking about then I apologize. I was wrong.

Greg "_" wrote:
In article ,
Alan Browne wrote:


Chances are that for anything you say at least 1/3 of the people here
will disagree with you.


Not ah......no way, more like half will

"at least" ... and that's when your facts are about 99 44/100 perfect!

Cheers,
Alan

--
-- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm
-- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm
-- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin
-- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch.

"Rita Ä Berkowitz" ritaberk2O04 @aol.com wrote in message
...
Robert Peirce wrote:

I only questioned the idea of spending two days to perfect a
photograph. That would be 16 hours for an employee and maybe 30 for
an owner. If you only value your time at $10/hour, it is costing you
$150-300, which I felt could never be recovered. Later you referred
to a shot with bad WB, which usually can be corrected pretty quickly.
In that case it would make sense. I just felt that a shot that might
actually take two days to perfect wasn't worth saving.

Hi Bob,

Can't see your original post for some reason.

I put up the $500 for PhaseOne Capture One Pro software, which allows me to
sort through and make adjustments on 100+ snapshots in about twenty minutes.
It's great software, albeit, expensive.
http://www.phaseone.com/Content/EshopMenu/C1PRO.aspx Before that I thought
similarly to you, that is, it costs too much in terms of man hours to work
in RAW. After buying the software, well, I feel a little guilty charging
what I do for a wedding, 'cause now I'm not paying for film development, and
I'm not spending 20 hours in front of the computer working on it. I still
get a good 10 hours in there, but that includes a dvd video slide show and
sometimes an album.

Sorry if I was short with you the other day, my wife left me with our three
year old for the weekend, and I was really tired of arguing over everything.
I suppose that's not the best time to come to a group. Also, I should
commend you for not just accepting what people say, and running your own
tests--not enough of us do that.

Regards,
Matt Clara

--
www.mattclara.com

In article ,
"Matt Clara" wrote:

"Rita Ä Berkowitz" ritaberk2O04 @aol.com wrote in message
...
Robert Peirce wrote:

I only questioned the idea of spending two days to perfect a
photograph. That would be 16 hours for an employee and maybe 30 for
an owner. If you only value your time at $10/hour, it is costing you
$150-300, which I felt could never be recovered. Later you referred
to a shot with bad WB, which usually can be corrected pretty quickly.
In that case it would make sense. I just felt that a shot that might
actually take two days to perfect wasn't worth saving.

Hi Bob,

Can't see your original post for some reason.

I put up the $500 for PhaseOne Capture One Pro software, which allows me to
sort through and make adjustments on 100+ snapshots in about twenty minutes.
It's great software, albeit, expensive.
http://www.phaseone.com/Content/EshopMenu/C1PRO.aspx Before that I thought

Yeah I am curious about that software, doe that allow you to cable the
camera and directly have the image one screen when your shooting....I
guess I'll just have to look
--
"As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely,
the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great
and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire
at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
- H. L. Mencken, in the Baltimore Sun, July 26, 1920.


Reality-Is finding that perfect picture
and never looking back.

www.gregblankphoto.com

"Rita Ä Berkowitz" ritaberk2O04 @aol.com wrote in message
...
Robert Peirce wrote:

I only questioned the idea of spending two days to perfect a
photograph. That would be 16 hours for an employee and maybe 30 for
an owner. If you only value your time at $10/hour, it is costing you
$150-300, which I felt could never be recovered. Later you referred
to a shot with bad WB, which usually can be corrected pretty quickly.
In that case it would make sense. I just felt that a shot that might
actually take two days to perfect wasn't worth saving.

No need to be apologetic since your reasoning is correct. Some in here
feel
it's acceptable to machine gun 10,000 shots and sort through them in post.
Wading through 10,000 shots of crap is just as bad and costly to your
bottom
line.




Aint that the truth. My wife keeps saying, "We need to shoot less." Even
dumping 1/4 of the images shot is a waste of time, and time is money. (We
don't dump that many, but you get my point...)

--
Skip Middleton
www.shadowcatcherimagery.com
www.pbase.com/skipm