The Power of a Same Day Slideshow
Lesson 21 from: Wedding Photography: Capturing the StoryRocco Ancora, Ryan Schembri
The Power of a Same Day Slideshow
Lesson 21 from: Wedding Photography: Capturing the StoryRocco Ancora, Ryan Schembri
Lesson Info
21. The Power of a Same Day Slideshow
Lessons
Class Introduction
04:18 2Define the Goals of Wedding Photographers
15:04 3The Importance of Wedding Photographers
11:42 4Shooting Philosophy
09:22 5How to Build a Shot List - Bride, Groom & Formals
22:42 6Tye the Wedding Story Together
07:19 7Capture Stories in Wedding Pictures
05:53 8Get the Right Exposure
16:20The Theory Behind Lighting
10:19 10The Power of Short Lighting & Backlight
30:08 11Shoot with Low Ambient Light Indoors
05:25 12Seven Fundamentals of Pose
13:56 13Continuous Light Sources for Indoor Photography
25:36 14Use Available Light for Indoor Photography
35:06 15Flash for Indoor Photography
18:59 16Outdoor Photographing with Available Light
20:27 17Group Posing & Lighting Techniques
12:22 18Groom and Groomsmen Posing & Lighting Techniques
11:43 19Couple Together Posing & Lighting Techniques
16:21 20Creating a Memorable Client Experience
12:40 21The Power of a Same Day Slideshow
12:07 22What do Couples Look For in Wedding Photographers?
05:51 23How to Successfully Interview a Couple
05:11 24The Importance of Wedding Photography
09:07 25Example Couple Interview
22:49 26A Workflow That Works in Lightroom
09:34 27Workflow Overview in Lightroom
19:28 28Manage Wedding Images in Lightroom
21:30 29Export Pictures to Animoto
04:28 30Color Correcting Images in Lightroom
14:09 31Optimize Images Through Lightroom
13:35 32Color Management in Photoshop
03:04 33Rocco's Skin Retouching Technique
33:27 34Image Toning to Create Distinct Looks in Photoshop
24:27 35The Value of a Wedding Album
05:27 36Traditional Design Elements in a Wedding Album
19:05 37Magazine Design Elements in a Wedding Album
20:04 38What Makes a Good Wedding Album?
07:47 39How to Sell the Wedding Album to Your Clients
10:37 40Wedding Album Workflow
08:13Lesson Info
The Power of a Same Day Slideshow
So once you get all these enquiry's, then they start coming through the doors, and you start doing interviews, you start interviewing your clients, and the success, or the outcome of that interview, begins with you. You are in control of the success or the failure, of how you conduct yourself through that interview. Remember that the first thing they see, when they come either to your studio, or when you're meeting them out somewhere, at a cafe is you. They know a little bit about your work, because they might have done the Google thing, but essentially, it's you. The way you look and your appearance, and your demeanor, your energy. Within three to four seconds they're gonna make up there mind whether, you're gonna suck the life out of them, or this guy, or this girl is an amazing photographer, I just can't wait to hear what she has to say, or he has to say, so everything begins with you. One of the things that we always become strong believers in, is that you've gotta dress as though ...
you can afford the prices that you're charging. It's very true. Absolutely. So a nice neat appearance, always, and you impress them. It's like going out on a first date, each and every time. You wanna impress the girl, and you know, a bit of aftershave goes a long way. Absolutely, yeah definitely. I think it goes further than that as well, in terms of appearance, we touched on it earlier. Even down to just your display albums, or the prints that you show people. If they're getting a little tired or run down, it's in your best interests, trust me, to freshen those things up, and have them constantly looking the best they can ever look. If you have a studio, even just the smallest things. What's at the front door, is there any rubbish on the floor, or anything like that, that's all gotta be looked at. There are a lot of things in terms of that marketing stuff, that we could go deeper into, sorta touch on, especially that Instagram success, that we've had recently I think is really important. Live feeding out these images, which has been amazing, but. It still comes down to, you gotta shoot these things properly. So that you have the confidence, to put it out there straight away. That brings us to our next big selling point, especially at weddings, and we've had a lot of success with, is doing these same day slideshows. Now if you're not familiar with same day slideshows, what it is, is basically putting a slideshow together, on the day of the wedding, and showing it, at the wedding that night. Say during the reception, just after speeches, something like that. If you think about it, same day slideshow's your ultimate piece of advertising. If you do some big weddings especially, I do some huge weddings. I have 500 captive audience members, looking at my work, for a total of five or six minutes, and at the end of it my logo comes up. I do one thing with my same day slideshows, at the end, which will be very, very important. Let's get into the process of actually getting these things done. Now, you've got to start with shooting things correctly. It makes this whole process a lot easier. Which makes sense. The previous sessions we've done are all about that. The first thing we do the minute we get to the reception, is have the assistant download all the RAWS, and create a Lightroom catalog with that. We then quickly go through, and we do minimal previews, so they light up really quickly, and we select our favorite 80 to 90 images. You wanna make it short, you wanna make it sweet, you wanna have impact. You don't need to make a slideshow that drags on for 15 minutes. People get bored, and it has a negative effect, as opposed to a positive effect. Then we apply our own pre-set's that we've created, available from roccoryan.com. So to apply effects like black and white, warm tones, et cetera, et cetera, different film looks and so on. This is the really cool part now. We export from Lightroom, using the Animoto plugin, directly through Animoto, which is a company that creates slideshows, and they're based out of New York. We upload the music track, it creates the slideshow for you, instantaneously. You then download the high definition MPEG, on your computer, and you're ready to go. And the process, which we'll show a little bit later on, through Lightroom, is very simple, and it's very, very easy. The idea though is to present, there and then on the night. We're not talking about just having a laptop, a computer in a foyer at a reception, we're talking about full screen projector. Every one sits down, and it is a feature of the evening. One thing we ask of our couples now, is if they'd like one of these done, is to actually ask their venue if we can use their projector and screen, because most venues will have one, if they don't we have. We have our own projector, and our own portable screen that we can set-up as well, but it's much better if the venue does have one. They usually come down from the ceiling. They're all neatly tucked away, and literally, it's as easy now as plugging in a HDMI cable into the wall. If the audio is an issue and we can't get that playing, I always have the track on my phone as well, and I give my phone to the DJ, and I get him to play the audio track, as I press play on the slideshow. But everything must be synced up to that audio, obviously. You've gotta use the same audio track so it syncs up properly, but that's just a quick solution if things go wrong, and we can't get the audio to play in a very quick amount of time. So we're actually gonna show you one that we did. Roc and I shot a wedding together in Barcelona, which is amazing. We shot the wedding together for a... Well, Lindsey, who's a photographer actually. It was an amazing experience, her dad John is a photographer as well. Lindsey's wedding was pretty special wasn't it? It was, the pressure was on 'cause, we're photographing photographers, so it was great. And Lindsey if you're out there, hey guys, and I hope you enjoy the slideshow again. (chuckles) So we'll play that out. Yeah, let's have a look at one. (soft dramatical music) There you go. (chuckles) Same day slideshow. Yeah. I think the really cool part about that was, we actually with that particular slideshow, it was quite an intimate wedding. So we held off on showing the slideshow until the next morning, when they had a brunch, sort of breakfast together didn't they? It was beautiful to see the reactions, especially from mum and dad, was absolutely gorgeous. This is actually something that we now charge for, as an extra on our price list. However, if I was probably starting out again, this would be something I'd give away for free, to every single wedding. It's incredible what it does, for wedding bookings especially, either that night, or the week following, is just absolutely crazy. What I do though, right at the end of playing a slideshow, let's say it's a big reception, the slideshow's played, everyone's cheered and yelled and screamed, and everything else, is that I make sure that I'm visible at some point, make sure I'm visible. Either I go up to the bride and groom, give them the big hug, or something. Just a point of reference for people, so they know, after that slideshow's done, they know who to come up to to get the business card, or whatever it may be. So that's another important part, have a lot of business cards on you, because I know I constantly run out as soon as I've played one.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Jerry Willis
Ryan & Rocco, in my very humble opinion, are THE best wedding photography instructors in the entire industry! I've been watching their work for years now, which just so happens to win a most grand-scaled competitions, and they somehow continue to keep getting better! I first drilled Ryan at WPPI inquiring about what made his workshop different from all the others. His response, me paraphrasing, "If you're looking for tools to learn, come to my workshop. If you're looking for inspiration and smoke blowing, don't come." That's exactly what I needed to hear. Straight tools, no fluff. THE BEST photography workshop I've EVER taken, by far. You want the best photography education, learn from the best. This CreativeLive workshop is the PERFECT complimentary refresher and companion to what I learned! Thank you so much for having them! It's not the same as the workshop, which it shouldn't be, but they ARE reinforcing many things that have slipped my memory! I'm for sure buying this! :-)
Neeraj Arora
WOW!!! I have started a few CL courses but not finished as I got distracted by "life" and it took me a while to get back and finish them. But these guys!! They were simply superb. I finished this course really fast. Amazing artists, they explain things so well, Ryan is such a charmer and engaging teacher, Rocco is a fountain of knowledge. I am an enthusiastic photographer with aspirations to start my own business soon. I learn't so much from this class that will help improve my photography even if I don't become a professional wedding photographer. Great job guys, keep it up. I will need to come back to the lessons and I very much appreciate the key note pdf. All CL courses should include the slides like they did here. Thanks CL.
user-3a41db
I am a newborn photographer by trade, but I really want to venture out and photograph more weddings so I decided to purchase a wedding class on creative live. Of course when I typed in wedding, quite a few classes came up. But when I saw the image and title "capture the story" I was definitely intrigued. I've always been touched by the photographs that have emotion and that's what I'm passionate to photograph! Always a little nervous when you purchase a class because you don't want to feel like it was a waste of money, but this knocked it out of the park for me! Thank you to Ryan and Rocco for explaining so much, showing the pull backs, and moving your subject and explaining why! This has opened my eyes so much to how beautiful photographing a wedding can be and not so terrifying as I've been making it out to be. I'm really so thankful to hopefully being a great wedding photographer and making more income for my family, while having fun creating something beautiful
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