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 The information in books or on Youtube videos was a complete joke; it was either completely outdated or worthless generic information.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.
I bought it an in my opinion it is the money worth!
I'm allready a wedding photographer, a lot of things in it are not "groundbracking" for me. But I'm still learning and I don't think that this process ends somewhen on a final destination. And so I took advantages out of this video too.
I don't understand why people here comment that the price is to high. How do they know that if they have not seen the video?
That with the size of the files could be improved in my oppinion. The bandwidth is a bottleneck and smaler resolution would have been enough for me. Maybe the sample pictures could be additional online somewhere else and in a higher resolution. The download problems caused allmost a refund request from me. Now I'm lucky that I was patient enough.
Good luck and success with this video from my side and thank you for your good work!
I bought it and don't have any regrets. I think you guys do a great job of explaining and IMO it's worth the three bills. I'm already a wedding shooter for a year now, and don't have extra cash laying around to waste. I haven't seen all of it yet, but what I've seen on lighting was worth the money for me. Best of luck, Lee and Patrick.
I still have a few sections of the DVD left to watch but so far it has been an incredibly valuable resource and well worth the investment. Lee and Patrick share so much information about wedding photography and their business. It's almost like going through a mentoring program because they take the time to explain what they do and why they do it. I think that if you are someone who has never shot a wedding, or maybe you've been shooting weddings but are ready to take your business to the next level, you'll definitely get a lot of of these videos.
The one complaint that I have is that there;s a reference to a product called the Flash Disk and it doesn't seem to be available and it seems like they sort of put the cart before the horse on that one. Maybe they'll consider giving us a little discount when it's finally released (hint hint)? :)
Seriously though if you've seen the promotional video and it looks like something that you might be interested in then go ahead and buy it!
saw an exert, used it on the next wedding. yeah. gonna buy it. worth it if you do weddings for money. not for a hobbyist
Hey Lee and Patrick, I can't tell you enough how much I love this DVD!!!
Love all the tips and tricks, especially the editing trick with the clouds...I never thought of that lol
And also I would love to buy a couple of those Flash Disks, where can I get them??
got it last week and shot my 3rd wedding this weekend. I only had a chance to watch part of the package but I tried my best to put your tips into practice and it really helped the way I approached my shooting, lighting, and lens choice!
Just a curious question on the background you used for the production of your video. Did you shoot this against your Lastolite Photobooth?
Watching this is the best thing that has happened to me lately. Very well done and very informative. There is a few things that I wish they went more in depth. But finding the info myself is not hard. Even tho their giving you hours and loads of information. Their still able to keep it interesting by balancing the fun stuff and boring stuff at a perfect pace along with music that keeps you feeling inspired.
Just bought your DVD!
Price is awesome for what you get :)
Can´t understand all the haters...
So once I purchase.....no matter what, if I don’t like it I’ll get refunded 100% within 30 days of purchase? What’s the catch?