After 3 years of planning and 2 years of filming and editing, our newest tutorial: How To Become A Professional Commercial Wedding Photographer is now available. Our goal was to create the most complete and informative video on wedding photography and we believe we have done it with this 14 hours digital download. The world is filled with people trying to turn their passion for photography into a career and I believe that wedding photography is the easiest way to start making money with your camera.
This is the reason Fstoppers.com exists
Our goal
At the beginning of my career it was so frustrating trying to learn everything from scratch on my own. The information in books or on Youtube videos was a complete joke; it was either completely outdated or worthless generic information. The only way I "made it" as quickly as I did was by assisting other very talented photographers in my area. I learned all that I could from them but I still had to figure the majority of it out on my own. I didn't know how to legally start a business or pay my taxes, so I had to pay a CPA hundreds of dollars to explain it to me. I didn't know if magazine ads were valuable in my area so I took a $3000 loss to learn my lesson. Nobody in town had ever made a photobooth so over a 6 year period I created and perfected my own. When I met Patrick a few years into my career I told him everything that had taken me years to learn and within 1 year he went from not owning a camera to being a full time wedding photographer. Our goal was to make this tutorial that 3 year head-start that I gave Patrick. We wanted to cover every aspect of wedding photography, including the most important aspect, business.
What does it cover
As I said above this digital download is broken down into 8 chapters that house 27 chapters that equal over 14 hours of content. A basic over view of each chapter can be seen below.
Chapter 1
Intro - What is “Commercial Wedding Photography” - Mandatory Gear - The Importance of Assisting - Composition, Exposure, White Balance
Chapter 2
Advertising - Bridal Portraits: Lighting 101 - Pricing
Chapter 3
Meeting With Potential Clients -The Engagement Session - Designing Your Website - Music - Slideshows - The Importance of Video
Chapter 4
On Camera Flash - Getting Ready and Details - The Ceremony - Fusion
Chapter 5
Formals and Groups - Interview with Pye Jirsa
Chapter 6
Four Ways to Light a Reception - The Cake - The Rings - The Departure - Taxes, Write-offs, and Accounting
Chapter 7
Interview with Cliff Mautner
Chapter 8
Post Processing - Creating a Photobooth - Photo / Video Slideshow, SmugMug.com - Delivering Your Final Product - Final Words
Who's it for
We have designed this tutorial for photographers that already have a good understanding of their gear. We do not go over the basics in this video so don't expect to learn about standard camera settings here. Before you buy this you will need to learn all about cameras, lenses, shutter speed, ISO, aperture, and white balance. We will quickly jump into the basics of single, off camera lighting and then move quickly into more complex lighting scenarios. Our goal was to make this video helpful for those who have never shot a single wedding and those who are already professional wedding photographers who are looking to take their businesses to the next level. We even added over 4 hours of interviews with photographers that are far more successful than we are so no matter how good you are, there will be more to learn.
Money back guarantee
This isn't your standard fun workshop on lighting or how to use your camera. This tutorial is meant to make you money, way more money than the $300 we are asking for it. Luckily you don't have to take our word for it. We will give anyone their money back if they are unhappy with this tutorial for any reason. If you are on the fence about wedding photography we challenge you to buy it and watch it anyway. If after watching it you still don't want to shoot weddings, let us know and we will still give you a full refund. Due to advertising costs and affiliate programs, our money back guarantee must be applied to sales made within 30 days of the original invoice date.
We don't want to stray away from offering high quality content for free on Fstoppers and so over the next year we will be releasing parts from many of the shooting sections for free here on Fstoppers. The business portions of this tutorial were designed for professional photographers and the majority of them will never be released. You have absolutely nothing to lose. Give it a try and you may find out that wedding photography may be your quickest route to becoming a full time photographer.
The second review on this tutorials after finishing fourth chapter.
What's incredible about this tutorials, is that as I go through these tutorials, more question I found. Then in a next tutorial, they given me the answers for those questions.
Felt that lee and patrick tried to put everything they learned through their career.
I've been a big fan of fstoppers since I've found it's video on "eye-fi" and all the other BTS.
But first time to leave a comment.
All other BTSs given me so much about the techniques, but this is not just about the techniques but about overall knowledge on wedding photography business.
Hey hey hey Lee! Don't knock Dog portrait photography there bud! =)
I hope the DVD does well... thanks for all the relavent information you guys post on a daily basis. You have my support as a freelance wedding videographer and all of our support over at SmallHD!
at 17:30 you mention a kicker light on a cake in a flash disc... is that the new modifier you were working on? :)
maybe :)
then "maybe" I can't wait to see it :)
When will this disc be a available?
I also wanted to get one of these so-called flash disks! I've had a chance to go through some of the video so far with my partner
This looks amazing! One day if I get good enough for something like this, I know where to look!
nice
Lee and Patrick,
We purchased last night and are in the process of uploading all the videos... but I can already say without a doubt at only 3 hours in, it will be worth every penny! All photographers, from amateur to pro, can benefit. For everyone making negative remarks, don't be too proud to learn something new today! -Anna & Michael
Thanks Anna. Glad you are enjoying it
thanks for posting feedback I'm interested but I have to really justify the price.
I remember I entered the contest to win this tutorial DVD. Has there been a winner or winners announced?
yes we posted about the winners a week or two ago.
Hi,
I bought the peter hurly video and realy like it. It is more worth than the 300$! Therefore I consider to buy the wedding tutorial too.
I'm allready a professionall photographer and pro wedding photographer.
My consideration is your recomendation to use wedding as start to become a professionall.
Wedding is the kings disciplin in my opinion. And allmost everybody think that this is the a good starting point to make money. This results in a big mess very often where brides are crying and lawyers are smiling.
Possibly your video makes somebody to a formula one racer by overjump the GP2 and the lower categories. That is what you promiss with your statement and possitioning of the video.
I wish you less or no refunds, but I would have used a other positioning.
Greetings and thank you for your good work in the past!!!
Yeah I hope our promo didn't make it sound like you can start shooting $5000 weddings after watching a weekend course. That's not our goal. But I think most photographers who read Fstoppers are already more then proficient to start charging at least $1000 a wedding and get the ball rolling. If moms with cameras are shooting natural light weddings for $1000 and have no knowledge of their cameras or lighting, then it's pretty reasonable to say our readers can at least start at that point.
Can not wait to get my copy, great job as always guys!
Just hit the buy button, and started the download. Really looking forward to this, although I HATE wedding photography, and the very idea of doing weddings has never excited me, I have helped out a few friends by shooting part of their weddings, and perhaps is was not as bad as I thought it would be. It was Interesting to hear how both Lee and Patrick did not set out to be wedding photographers in the beginning, and both seemed to have a similar dislike of the whole concept until they got hooked, and fell in love with it.
I have my own photography business, which covers a number of non-conventional forms of commercial photography (360 Virtual Tours, 360 Objects, Architecture, Macro, Widlife), but am now seriously considering shooting a few weddings to test the waters. Fortunately my wife and I have all the right equipment, and know how to use a camera (lol), so now we are keen to learn the art of capturing weddings, as well as business behind it.
For all those above complaining about price, please try to hold yourself in. I'm sure you paid a lot more for your car, truck, mobile phone, iPad, TV, computer, etc? You were happy to pay for those because of the value you get out of them. Either something is worth the price for you, or not, but moaning about it will not get you anywhere. I live in a country where the exchange rate makes this 300 USD purchase 5x more expensive for me that it is for an American, and I do not even shoot weddings (yet), and still I see the value in it. Lee and Patrick have proved to all of us they know how to share info, and make interesting, entertaining, top class training videos. I can already see this video set as light years ahead of the other video training DVDs which I have bought in the past.
Sadly our internet speeds are so slow, it will take 9 hours to download the first chapter. :'(
Let me know what you think. I never thought I'd like wedding photography but now I enjoy it very much. I've met so many great people and it honestly is a job that never feels like work
The download just finished. I had to restart a few of the file a few times, but that is likely down to the poor internet speeds here in South Africa. :)
Im now on chapter 5, and loving the training! Its so jam packed full of info, and fast paced, it can be hard to keep up and little time to take notes. So Im watching through everything first, then will break it down.
Great advice about assisting, and I have actually already managed to pull strings and will hopefully be assisting a Pro next weekend, and likely a number of times over the next few months with him.
Watching through this training videos have grown my interest and understanding of just what pro wedding photography is all about, and also the importance of developing ones own style, and how one deals with clients is more important than the actual images much of the time (which is true in other forms of business too).
Tks for an excellent training video, well worth the investment!
I want my sister to buy this for me. Are you going to email the download link? And eshe can just send me the link?
Yes, it emails the downloadable links to the paypal email used
Great video guys. New order for the download coming in shortly...
Hi guys, have sent a message as well but I tried purchasing it, no luck, something about contact vendor, not sure if its cause im from Australia.
Did it ever get straightened out? It's a simple paypal transaction so it should go through
Unfortunately not, been trying for a few days now :(
I live in the UK, if i purchase this will I have any issues downloading etc?
cheers
I live in Korea. no issue at all ;)
It really depends on your internet connection. People all over the world have been downloading it but it may take some longer than others
I have downloaded in South Africa, and although it took 3 days, all worked fine. Im sure with UK internet speeds being 10x faster than in South Africa, you should have no problems. :)
hi lee, just want to know how big is the files? total space needed for the hdd, i want to make sure that i have the space to accommodate the entire dvd. thanks chris
The 8 chapters are roughly 1.6 - 1.9 GB each. If you have 16 GB you can store them all together.
oh yeah..... you know I will be getting this....
I don't know if this is a sign or not, but I actually booked a wedding while watching this trailer....
Shooting as an assistant this weekend at a wedding. Going to be fun! Learned so much watching this DVD, thanks guys! Busy going through it for the second time!
Whilst i'm downloading the whole DVD, do you think it would be possible to make a "DVD Cover" available ? I like to have my stuff on DVD too, ripped, and in a nice case in my bookcase for when i want to pop it into my TV or so, and will use that to make a printed DVD case.
I look forward to providing feedback, and am very happy to have made the step to purchase the DVD. let's see where this takes me in my future pursuit of wedding photography.
PS : My previous post was deleted or doesn't appear... is it because i linked to my website with my name ?
Yeah we could do that. I can add it to the download list if you want.
And I don't know, we don't delete any posts here ever.....even if people are rude :) Maybe it didn't actually get published?
Hi patrick,
Would be grand if you could add it to the list, might make a few ppl happy too apart from me, but l understand if its a pain don't bother :) might be a non published issue, smartphones are way off smart these days... And it has happened to me a few times.
I just read below, how do we get access to that secret group ? :)
All the best and thanks for all the hard work
So I think I'm going to buy this video, but I'm left with one question. What if you know you would like to go into wedding photography, but you don't want to do it commercially. Through out 2012 I assisted in multiple weddings (for professionals), and I've shoot a few on my own, and I love it, but I hardly whip out my external flash, only when absolutely necessary. Personally I just prefer natural light, even when the image is slightly noisy, and I don't know two much about studio lighting.
My only concern is there might be too much attention to light, and I won't understand the "lingo." I do think it would be really fun to learn more about studio light though! excited to watch this! I've booked 4 weddings this year, it seems like an excellent resource.
Commercial Wedding Photography is a style but it doesn't mean strobed or natural light. It can be either. Honestly though, if you are thinking about shooting someone's wedding, you need to know how to use strobe. What are you doing to do when posed photos get pushed back later than you thought and it's dark outside? Or when you shoot the reception indoors...there is not enough light to take sharp photos at even the highest of ISOs. We cover a ton of business info but you will also want to learn to use your flash even if it's just bounce flash from your camera.
besides how to shoot, do you also teach how to sell and create packages/collections, etc.. i would also like to know if you'll offer *after sales support* just incase we need help or have questions.. thanks
Yep, anyone who buys the tutorial gets access to our secret facebook group. Everyone in there is helping each other out. As for packages, we talk about our business model, plus a few other photographer's models, as well as how we sell prints. Lee and I personally don't offer packages but offer everything ala carte.
Hi patrick,
looks like i'm not in the Art behind the headshot group (or can't find the group anymore in my list) either.
would it be possible to add me to both ?
thanks a lot,
Olivier
Wow. Do I order this or The Art Behind The Headshot? I really wish I was able to do both right now.
I'm very interested in this, as someone asked before, does the video cover paying for your own insurance, for gear, or especially for health insurance?
How about lawsuits and the legal aspect of a good contract to protect yourself from being sued by the wedding party for whatever reason? I've heard wedding photographers are some of the best paid, but also the most at risk, given the gravity of the occasion and all the emotions, time, and money behind a wedding.
Great stuff guys! Love the Cliff Mautner interview.
Quick question- What file size do you guys typically deliver to your clients? Native resolution of the camera or are you doing a batch reduction to make files a little more maneageable?
I am quite interested in this video, however a bit concerned about the 16GB, as my bandwidth allowance alone is 22GB for a month.
Also as a one woman tog, armed currently with a photography degree, a brand, a website and social media all aligned and ready to go but with still so much to learn about commercial lighting photography and running a business, coming from a fine art photography education and personal practice, I still don't know where to start with investing money into starting up professionally.
I'm getting good advice from my City's business commerce centre and have my business plan written with just my 1st year cash flow to finalise so about to go to market but I have no money except a credit card and support of other half with bills. (Usual redundancy story!) It is hard to know what to do for the best... buy my insurance first, without customers yet, buy another flash or 2 strobes? I'm concerned about how much equipment will be in the vid that I can't afford to buy yet and what should be the bare minimum I can start with.
I'm also in the UK and worried about how relevant the info on US tax and business stuff will be to me? Wish there were some reviews on here too from verified purchasers and from outside the US. I am usually so sceptical about buying into these things, as I so don't have money to burn but I know you say you give a refund if ness so, I'll have a think. Looks good though.
Investing in knowledge is the best thing you can do.
Great stuff. I love it!