Weddings and Other Events
We're
super-unobtrusive, flexible, fun. We never push you or your guests around
to make "candid" photos. Instead we spend hours making genuine
candids.(If it's staged, if we ask you to smile, to turn to us, or stop
in your tracks, it's not candid! It's not documentary. It's just not real.)
Quietly, almost secretly, we'll capture the heart of your wedding day.
You'll hardly notice what's happening. The result: a truly candid record
of the day. Does that sound good? We think it's more than just a good
promise; it's the only way to get real wedding photographs! (Yes, we take
lots of "posed" family and wedding party photos, but we do that
fast and make it fun and actually pose you all as little as possible.)
You might want to have us make an engagement photo so you can see what it's like working with us. It's fun. Look at the happy couple above! If we make an engagement photo for you, you'll get to know very quickly whether we're the right photographers for your wedding. Since it's made deliberately and carefully, the engagement portrait itself can't really be candid; it's more like the family and wedding party photos made on your wedding day. But you'll find out how comfortable and easy it is to work with us and how natural even our lightly posed photographs turn out.
If you don't like the experience or the photos, you pay nothing; if you like the way we work and love the photos, you have probably found just the right photographer, though there's no obligation to go any further with us. Click on Portfolios here or in the bar above and then once you're safely in the "Portfolios" click the Portraits thumbnail and look for the engagements.
If you book us, then, before your wedding day you will:
Pick your own Principal Photographer for your wedding.
Meet with the photographer you choose, a month or more before the wedding. Together you'll plan your wedding photography so everything runs smoothly just as you'd like. You will also make sure that it conflicts with none of the other planning.
On the day itself we will:
Come to where you're dressing if you'd like us to.
Take lots and lots of unposed, unrehearsed photos that you'll love. A good number (the black and whites) will be captured on film. If that means nothing or little to you, click About Us and then "Our Photography" to read about our use of traditional film for black and white, along with high-tech digital cameras for color.
Make plenty of careful family and wedding party photos, very quickly, in half an hour.
Keep right out of your way the rest of the day.
Leave the reception after you do. (The principal photographer is generally the last person to leave the wedding.)
And right through the day you will have scarcely even noticed us. (Truly!)
Ten days or so after the wedding you should have a proof book and a printable
CD in your hands. Once you've checked through your photos we'll post them
on a secure website, for you and your friends to enjoy. There's more in
our basic package than proofs, a CD, and web-posting. In the next section
you'll discover what is in the package and why. You'll also read about
a special temporary offer we've thought up that may help you plan your
wedding in a time of financial unpredictability like the present.
Our Basic Package: What It Contains and Why
Hello,
the "I" in this section is Frank Heny, and I want to offer you some reflections
on wedding photography. I've spent a good few years photographing weddings
and thinking about what I was doing. Which doesn't make my ideas correct.
But I hope they may prove helpful to you as you plan your wedding.
First, choose a photographer with imagination and insight, someone able to reveal deep, often half-hidden meanings underlying the events of your wedding day, and the feelings experienced by your friends and families as they interact with you and each other. Not one who will manage your day, creating "happenings", wasting time on the obvious, the superficial, intruding upon your quiet times with people you love in order to make conventional, dull "essential" wedding photographs. In other words, make sure the photographer doesn't spoil your special day by taking it over!
Your wedding is not a photo op. It's so much more. It's yours; value your day for what it means in your life. Above all, don't try and do too much on your wedding day. Enjoy it. Don't spoil this unique day by turning it over to an eager but insensitive photographer! Have someone photograph the wedding who can catch you having fun or reflecting on the day's events without interfering with you. Someone who will leave you alone to do what you will — and then quietly record what is significant. Someone who is always digging beneath the surface. Someone inspired and driven by the desire to capture this day in a way that will engage both of you throughout your lives together and help to keep you close.
Just
documenting the wedding in some way is not enough. If the photos, no matter
how competent, glide across the surface of the day, the photographer has
failed dismally — as a wedding photographer. Because a wedding isn't
(or shouldn't be) just a superficial party. Even if the images capture
perfectly the colors of the pretty gowns and flowers and lots of smiles
and people standing carefully posed on the altar, before the chuppah,
or under beautiful trees. A wedding is not just pretty faces, smiles and
gathered family groups. Those all have a place, but much will be missing
if that is all your photographer gives you. Technical competence and ample
coverage are not enough. We need the inspiration and competence to dig
deeper.
Our goals when we shoot a wedding are ambitious: to make photographs, almost without being seen, that record and explore the feelings and meanings of your wedding day, distilling for you the essence of your own unique wedding. If we succeed, you will return to your wedding again and again, way into the future. Not just to the photos but through them to the day itself. Good photographs link you directly to a time and place in the past, and to the people who were there. That is what we are trying to create for you in our work. Our photography looks ahead to your future.
Over
the years, these photographs can bring you back, when you need that, to
the time and place and meaning of your wedding. But only if they are designed
to do so. Look now at the many wedding photographs on this site, here
and in the Portfolios. They reveal, in faces,
eyes, tears and hugs, and in many other ways, the meaning of one great
day in each couple's life. When things are rough, and rough they will
be at times, (or when you are overcome by happiness and really want to
share the day again with someone), you will turn back to your wedding
through such photographs, and continually recreate what it meant to you
when you stood there to make your vows, were married, and then celebrated
your marriage with your friends and families.
To serve you well on your wedding day, your photographers must understand people, inspire confidence, have confidence (but not too much), and relate well to you personally. They need to be sensitive, experienced, skilled, well equipped, and well prepared. Above all, though, they need to have thought deeply about their goals, and focus on achieving those goals. You know, now, something about our goals. We do everything we can to achieve them.
![[Note] Dear Frank and Emily, Thank you for photographing our wedding. I've just received the pictures and they are amazing. It was a real pleasure to work with both of you. I hope you were able to enjoy yourselves (even just a bit) on our wedding day. I would gladly sing your praises to any potential brides and grooms - although your work speaks for itself. Warmly, H & J [end note]](wedquote2.gif)
We
are confident that your photographs, taken this way, can be the greatest
treasure you carry from your wedding — because they will bind you
closely forever to the very core of your wedding: to each other, and to
your families and friends who were there.
But photographs mean little if they are never seen: stash your CD away, or your proof book, in a drawer, or just copy all the files onto a hard drive, and tell me, how often will they be seen? Even if the plan was to make an album — one day. The money will dribble away and the project lose momentum. Just when it's really needed!
What's the best way to preserve wedding photos? Keep them always out, of course, and accessible. Look at them often. Sit together on the couch and work slowly through the proof book or album. Let your kids look at your album any time they wish. (It'll be strong enough!) Put both books out on a coffee table and as you grow older keep encouraging your friends to leaf through them when they visit. Share with them. Turn, alone, to these images whenever you feel the need. I believe they will help you. And they will become more and more a part of your life. Like you, as the years pass, they will wear a little, but they will grow in signifiicance.
So here's our plan — a package:
Here is our basic package. We want you to have at least this, for it will provide you with what you need for the future: Two photographers at your wedding, a proof book, a printable, copyright-released CD keyed to the proof-book, all images posted on a secure web-site, a fine album, and an archival CD on your second anniversary. More details follow, just below.
Attendance, Proof Book, CDs and Album.
- Attendance throughout your wedding, generally by two photographers. The senior photographer will still be there when you leave.
- A magazine-style proof book generally containing between three and four hundred images, mostly color with about 25% black and white.
- A copyright-released CD (Files up to 1.5 MB each) containing all the images in the proof book, ordered and numbered as in the book. The color files on the CD have already been manipulated for printing so they can be printed at home, at drugstores, or on the internet, up to 4" X 5", 4" X 6", or perhaps even 5" X 7" for family and friends.
- On your second anniversary, a second, high-resolution CD with unmanipulated files direct from the cameras, for archiving.
- Free posting, when you receive your proof-book, of all or, if you wish, just selected photos from the proofbook on a secure web-site where you, your friends, and family can view them.
- A fine 8" X 8" leather-bound (flushbound) or looseleaf album containing 20 photographs which you will select.
This package costs $3,500. You can upgrade the album, adding pages to it or making larger pages. You can add parent albums, loose photographs, and so on.
We do not offer smaller packages, for the reasons given earlier, and we hope you will be able to afford our standard basic package set out just above.
Before you decide whether or not to contact us, here's three questions to help you make up your mind:
- Is ours the kind of photography you want?
- Do you know another reliable, cheaper source of thoughtful, meaningful work just like ours?
- Are there other wedding expenses that you could reduce? (Be honest with yourself!)
Remember this: long after the reception hall has closed, and the limo, the flowers, the tuxes, the cake, and, yes, even perhaps the gown, have all disappeared, our photographs will still be working for you year after year.
Why not come visit with us, even if you think you can't afford us? Believe me, if you find our photography is what you really want, I'll do my best to think up some way of making it affordable for you.
I do hope to hear from you,
Frank Heny
Your Wedding Day
Each wedding is unique. We love to work at weddings, and will search the whole day for what sets yours apart. We'll capture this in our images and give the heart of your wedding back to you in your proof book, album and enlargements. We truly enjoy the hours we spend at weddings; they feed us: intellectually, emotionally and artistically. And you benefit!
We watch for what matters, for significant happenings, interactions, feelings, and people. Quietly, without interfering, we photograph the day as it unfolds. We'll try to make many meaningful, natural images of you, of your families, and of your friends. Anything that will help keep your wedding day alive for you all your lives. We expect the unexpected. Happenings like this one:
To view slideshows of several recent weddings click Portfolios and then the Weddings thumbnail.
There are a few things we won't do: Drag you off to places you've never
visited and have no connection to, encouraging you to travel miles to
reach them, take several hours over the family and wedding party photographs.
Make "artistic" soft-focus or infra-red photos, generically
"beautiful" but ultimately meaningless "Pensive Bride"
photos, images superimposed on sheets of music, or on a photo of the church
or your cake. Follow you around all day. Turn you or others around to
face the camera, with or without a request to "Smile please!"
And happenings just have to happen: we'll never stage them unless you
ask us to.
Family and wedding party photographs we will definitely make. They will
be happy, often somewhat informal, relaxed images. You need these photos;
they're very important. But they can so easily be blown up way out of
proportion by a determined photographer!.
Don't worry about needing to strike poses for them or waste hours hanging
around to make them. (Of course, if you like posing, that's great; we
won't dream of stopping you!) The family and wedding party photos will
take about half an hour. The result should be natural, interesting, fun
photos of the people who are at the centre of your day, not generic, elegant,
bored fashion-book "wedding" pictures. Our biggest contribution
to them is often to crack a few jokes and work hard to photograph you
just as the underlying happiness of the day breaks through. This whole
experience, the making of the "posed" photos, will be an enjoyable and
light-hearted. It's the only event the whole day that we will direct.
It'll be short and fun. Promise: short and fun!
For the rest of the day, we will act as if we were wildlife photographers. At the end of the day, or evening, your principal photographer will still be there, quietly waiting till you go, continuing to document the day to the very end.
Is this photojournalism? We call it "documentary photography." rather than photojournalism, though even that isn't quite right. True, we document your wedding. In a quiet, spontaneous way. You can call it Wildlife Wedding Photography if you like — either will help you understand the spirit of our work better than labeling us photojournalists. Almost every wedding photographer calls himself or herself a photojournalist today. The word has all but lost its meaning.
![[Note] Frank and James, Thank you incredibly much for all you hard work! Our wedding day was the most amazing day of our lives so far. Thanks to your unparalleled talent we have amazing photos to remember it by! Looking forward to another special occasion to contact you... Thank you!!! B and A [end note]](wedquote1.gif)
Anyway, how can we be photojournalists when we're not producing images for publication? Our audience is a tiny group — centered on you, the couple. Crucially, our approach builds upon our relationship to you, your families, your best friends. We are trying to give you a deeply felt record of your own unique wedding day. So I guess we're not really wildlife photographers either!
There's another important reason why we don't much like being thought of as "photojournalists." Very seldom do real photojournalists (that is, photographers working for the media) get to produce truly natural, unrehearsed photographs. A small percentage of them do, those covering major catastrophes, wars and so on. The majority, however, spend most of their time photographing dignitaries cutting tapes, making speeches, or pretending to shake hands. Or they make posed photos of people who are in the news. This work is valuable. But it's not a bit like our spontaneous and utterly unrehearsed photography. The training of photojournalists is not designed to prepare them to create unique, sensitive, family-focused images like ours. Before hiring a "photojournalist" for your wedding, consider what kind of photos you really want. Look hard at our work.
Your Photographs
Your wedding is over. You are back from the honeymoon. Come pick up your proofs and CD. They are ready within about two weeks of the wedding, color and black and white, as they were taken. Generally three hundred or more.
The proofs come to you in a magazine-style proof album and on a printable
CD, both of which you will keep. We will also be posting any or all your
photographs on a secure website, where you, your friends, and family can
view them and place orders. There are a number of ways in which you and
your families and friends can make prints from your wedding — or
have them made. They can easily be ordered from the website where they
are posted. You can freely print small photographs from the files on your
CD. (You have a license to print them for personal use.)![[Note] Frank, Thank you very much for your fantastic work at our wedding. Everyone has had wonderful things to say. Your laid back manner and professionalism made it a worry free day for us. Thanks again, Z and A [end of note]](wedquote3.gif)
The color files should print well up to about 4" X 6" or perhaps
5" X 7" — though the black and white files were made by
scanning film and are not really intended for printing beyond your proof
book. We suggest that you have us make all your black and white enlargements.
Larger color images and any photographs that you want really good prints
of we will be happy to make for you too.
We will design your album with you as soon as you wish, and will complete the work as rapidly as possible, generally within about six weeks from your final order. At the same time we will make all the enlargements you have ordered. Finally, we permanently store your negatives and digital files, and you may come back at any time for more prints. For your second anniversary we will send you an archival copyright-released CD containing high resolution files of your wedding images.
Other Events: a Bar Mitzvah
We enjoy photographing other events, in much the same way as we photograph weddings. Here is one example of a Bar Mitzvah:
There are many ways to photograph a Bat or Bar Mitzvah. Some parents want us to come early in the morning to take family photos. Others have us take them just before the evening party. Sometimes we work very quietly during the service. Most congregations won't allow that. We may take photographs at the luncheon. Or not. We may go off for the afternoon and come back for the party, perhaps making group photos before that. We might be tied up from early morning till late at night. Or not! It's not just the time we spend taking photographs; and time is by no means the only variable.
So we can't possibly quote a price till we know what you want. We'd love to be there. Just think about what you want, and then come in and see us. Give us a call at 412 363 8918, or click here: Contact Us.