Quality over Quantity in your Wedding Photography

I firmly believe in quality over quantity when it comes to my wedding photography. On my packages I advertise quite a low minimum amount of photographs compared to other wedding photographers. In a way I’m being very pessimistic, I often return a much higher yield, but I advertise it low to give myself room to create quality work. In this blog I’m going to explain why I believe a lower yield is better and helps you avoid disappointment later.

Disclaimer! I’m not having a dig at photographers that advertise a high return of photographs, it’s perfectly legitimate to offer that. It’s just not for me. Here’s why!

Don’t settle for a lot of the same

Have you ever heard the saying “spray and pray”? I believe it’s a term from shooting video games, but it very much applies here too. In Documentary Style photography the whole day is photographed from start to finish. It’s very easy for a photographer to take 100-150 photographs of the same moment in rapid succession. Especially in the morning when the Bride receives a gift from the Groom for example. At these times there can be a lot of ruckus and reaction that gets photographed. While there is no doubt these moments are precious and must be photographed, if there isn’t significant variation or thought put into the composition you could end up with 100-150 of what is essentially the same photograph to build up to the golden number you were promised. Similarly, if you were promised 1,200 photographs, the photographer could easily stay for an hour during the dancing at the end and rattle off another 400 shots to up the numbers. Dancing shots are cool, but are they 400 photographs cool? In these situations an experienced photographer will take their time and work the angles to return a good yield with a lot of variation.

“Above you can see how I worked the angles to get variation of the same moment. Variety is the spice of wedding photography!”

You can avoid disappointment

I choose to advertise a minimum of 300-400 photographs on my top packages so any potential clients will immediately see I am meticulous and care for my work. With a second shooter we could easily take 4,000 photographs on a full day wedding day. But not all weddings are the same! Knowing you can expect a generous minimum of 400 quality photographs gives you peace of mind. It also gives us a target so we can pace our work instead of resorting to “spray and pray” techniques to get to our target. It’s a bonus when you receive upwards of 600, which happens 99% of the time, but if I advertised for 600 and the photographs weren’t up to scratch, or they became repetitive you would be disappointed very quickly. Nobody wants that!

There’s quality to be found everywhere, even in the small details!

You don’t want to be afraid of your wedding photos

Another great reason to go for quality over quantity is sharing the photographs with your friends and family. Before the pandemic full day weddings with lots of entertainment would return 800+ photographs easily, more than double the 400 I advertise. It’s lovely to sit down at Christmas and stick a USB in the telly to look through the photos with your family. There’s a bit of maths here, but it pays off! The default time between slideshow transitions on most TVs is 5 seconds, so with your 800 photographs it would take 4000 seconds or 1 hour and 6 minutes to review all of the photos. That’s without Dad pausing it to tell his stories too! This is without doubt a lovely thing to do and time well spent with family, but if the quality of the photographs is lacking because you went for quantity over quality, it quickly becomes a lot like hard work. Even if I only hit the minimum of 400 photographs, when every photograph tells a story and sparks a memory you’ll enjoy reviewing your photographs a lot more!

“A picture paints a thousand words! Your wedding photographs should tell your story!”

In summary

It’s a question I get asked a lot, so I thought I’d write a blog about it. The last thing you want is anxiety at the thought of looking through you wedding photos, so keep in mind that a lot of the time quality > quantity in wedding photography!