By Gary Rabenko
I am writing this while waiting for a client to visit my Woodmere studio to discuss her recent wedding photos so I can evaluate her views and make suggestions on how to best proceed with selecting her photos. My albums are my best advertisement. But only when they are in clients’ homes.
What would seem like a fun and fast task–selecting your photographs and submitting them to your photographer to be bound in an album so that you can enjoy them again and again–continues to be a frustrating delay for many. This discussion could benefit countless readers who may have recently had a simcha and should choose their photos quickly while the event is still a fresh memory. People are quick to tell me how long their photographer is taking with the album. Surely, some are faster than others. Also, some albums are simple and should be easily and quickly bound. Others are much more involved, and, generally, clients expecting masterpieces are much more patient, not wanting their album to be rushed. But that is nothing compared to the years–yes, I said years–that people delay before giving their photographer the image selections for the album!
For decades, there were few choices in album binding and design. The way images were arranged was straightforward. Now we have nicer technology that allows for more glamorous options. Books can lay flat when open. The image flows impressively across the entire double-page spread when the book is viewed. The hundred or so pages can hold any number of images that designer taste and client budget permit. And the books are much more of a pleasure to handle, as they are lighter, with thinner, high-tech, strong pages. Other styles of books open and handle just like a store-bought book. And you might find an inexplicably sweet charm in thumbing through those albums that can hold hundreds of pages. Yet books remain unbound. And this situation finds photographers, clients, parents, bar mitzvah boys, newlyweds, and many not-so-newlywed couples in a bind without bound albums.
For those whose event is a distant memory and you keep putting off your image suggestion, well, now is the time to dig out those boxes of paper proofs, look up your photographer’s online link, or check that the images are safe wherever you have them copied to your computer or hard drive, and do something to get the show on the road. Remember, doing something now will mean feeling great sooner rather than later and may mean that you don’t feel terrible one day when it is simply too late to enjoy, share, or ever get images that you already probably paid more than half to have.
It does not have to be perfect. Really. You get pleasure out of the snapshots you have on your phone, right? They are not perfect, yet you enjoy them. You would miss them if they disappeared. If your project is over 18 months old, flipping through your images and yanking out 50 or 60 can’t be a bad way to start.
Then contact your photographer and find out what they suggest now. But they will need to know your thinking–what is important to you. Find out how much it would cost to continue the project with them and how many images they suggest you select now that they know how many images exist. When the contract was written, no one could be sure of that. Were family members all on time for the portraits? Were there a lot of great moments? Now a realistic image number may be different than what was contracted, which often is just meant to be a start.
Then give thought to the purpose of the photo album. Do you want the book to be a holding place for some of your favorite photos? Or do you want it to tell the whole story of the event? Do you want it to be a book of favorites only, or do you appreciate the nuanced expressions and multitudes of personality some can exude, or even just hint at, in the most unexpected of times? When everyone is doing the same thing, is it of interest to know that this person is seeing or feeling things differently? Will that one day mean something to you or maybe to someone else?
Do you know all that can be done to enhance and improve photographic appearances? I find that unless clients have personally experienced today’s retouching, they will hesitate to select an image that with a little fixing can mean much, and will often select a weaker image for the wrong reason. They spend a huge amount of time trying to deal with the lesser of two bad options when all along a third good option exists!
Retouching is a tricky subject. Most photographers do some minimal retouching. Some do heavy-handed retouching, which is not desirable. Some do sweet retouching, but it can be a gamble because it is all about interpretation. Discuss the issues that are bothering you with your photographic artist. Perhaps it is something easy to address. Likely, it can be improved. Possibly, the improvement that you would like best could require a lot of steps and take more time. But if it is the difference between a collection of images that mean more to you and those that don’t or leave you with lasting regret every time you pick up the book, then it would be foolish to not invest the small amount to remedy what is a bother to you if that is at all possible.
If your book is to be a collection of your favorites, then style and transitions are not applicable. The more images that one has to play with for each segment of the book, the more creative options can be implemented. If you are having only three photos of the bar mitzvah boy, then one probably would open and end the book. One might be a full-length, one a close-up, and maybe one with tefillin. As you add more, the photographer can vary the way the shot is presented both in its crop, tonal values, contrast, color, density, brightness, and more to enhance and expand on the mood that the shot was creating or contrast it with another shot. They can be juxtaposed on the pages with other expressions and poses of the same subject or to show interaction or relationship with other family members.
Two vastly different approaches are the “narrowing down” approach, which often is how people start choosing images, and the “grab the most meaningful shots” approach. Narrowing down can be tremendously time-consuming, never achieve practical results, and often misses what would grab you if you started with the meaningful shots first.
Well, my client has just arrived. I will pay close attention to how the conversation develops and share my continuing advice with you next time.
Rabenko Photography & Video Arts is located at 1053 Broadway in Woodmere. To learn more, contact Gary@Rabenko.com, 1-888-RABENKO, 888-722-3656, or visit Rabenko.com.
