Read Part 1, 2 and 3 at these links:

Anatomy of a Wedding Photography Job | Part 1

Anatomy of a Wedding Photography Job | Part 2

Anatomy of a Wedding Photography Job | Part 3

Backup, Backup, Backup

The very first thing I do post wedding shoot, is carve out some time to sit down in front of my desktop to download, verify and backup the wedding photos I have taken.

To do this and ensure no errors on my part, I follow these steps:

1. Use a pre-written workflow

   Though I have photographed countless weddings in and around Christchurch and further abroad, the reality is I always follow my step-by-step digital workflow. This ensures I don’t miss any steps with respect to backing up the photos and archiving them in the correct format

2. Verifying and converting to a digital archive format

   I’m not going to get too technical in this post, but one of the most important steps in my workflow is actually verifying the integrity of the files and then converting them from their proprietary Nikon format to the Adobe DNG open source format.

   Verifying the files ensures they have been copied to my server correctly.

   Converting them to the Adobe DNG format, ensures that I can still open them in years to come. Camera companies have a track record of dropping support for their proprietary files, meaning some photographers have files (digital images), they can no longer open.

3. Multiple backups

   Your wedding photos are backed up onto three hard drives, with one of those hard drives swapped out of my server and then stored off site.

   In the last year I have had two requests from previous Christchurch wedding clients, asking if I still have a copy of their Christchurch wedding photos in high res, as they had lost theirs.

   The answer of course is ‘yes’. For a nominal fee I do an archive pull of their photos and provide them via a password protected online gallery.

Wedding Photo Culling

I am paid as a Christchurch wedding photographer to create wedding photos you will love. In reality, I will take some photos that are not so great. These are the photos that I will cull from the wedding photos, which I have downloaded.

Ultimately, I am looking to cull your wedding photos down to the guaranteed number of photos for your wedding package and ensure that the photos tell the visual story of your day.

Wedding photo processing

Processing your photos is actually one of my favourite parts of the post-wedding work. Here I get to add my finishing touches to your photos within Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop. I am not going to reveal exactly what I do, as it is more about ensuring you receive photos that you love.

Wedding photo delivery

All wedding photos are delivered by password protected galleries, as high resolution files.

This means I can get your wedding photos to you fast and you can download them quickly.

Some wedding photographers take weeks to delivery their photos - I have heard of 6-8 weeks for wedding photos to be delivered. Frankly, that is ridiculous. I deliver all New Zealand wedding photographs within two-weeks of your wedding day. For destination weddings, it is three-weeks.

Given all the tools that are available to wedding photographers, I see no reason why any Christchurch wedding client should be waiting more than two-weeks to receive their wedding photographs.