My primary love language is probably
Quality Time
with a secondary love language being
Physical Touch.
| Quality Time: | 11 | |
| Physical Touch: | 8 | |
| Words of Affirmation: | 5 | |
| Acts of Service: | 3 | |
| Receiving Gifts: | 3 |
HMM,WOW my Love language change so much after time!!!
I am amazed at myself too!!!
(Wondering how,what,when,who caused the change? time? condition? environment? seasons?)Haha!!
I took this test from a webbie…it is very comprehensive and interesting..
to an extent, it describe who i am..
d link for it is http://www.personaldna.com/
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This compact Camera has just been launched..
I wanna get this camera to be my compact camera!
Found a nice read;
“
Since my choice to become reinvolved in the exciting world of professional photography, I’ve had cause to be a frequent poster on several wedding photography related forums. One of the biggest gripes of the photographers is that we often are accused of “price gouging”; in that hiring a wedding photographer can cost anything from £250 to thousands of pounds.
This is almost always something that an already stressed (and probably broke) bride doesn’t understand-why wedding photography costs more than the average digital camera. Surely, we’re all making thousands of pounds of profit, living in palaces and dining on filet mignon and lobster at our Secret Society of Wealthy Wedding Phototgraphers meetings, right?
Wedding photography starts, more often than not, with a prospective client contacting the photographer. This is where the clock starts ticking-if I’m answering e-mails, I’m not shooting an engagement session or working on a client’s images. Let’s say that between explaining package prices, coming up with a tailored package for the couple, drawing up the contract, and getting it posted, we’ve already spent an hour of our time on a bride who hasn’t even signed a contract.
Next comes the pre-planning. Apart from chasing down information from the bride-locations, time frames, a list of poses-unless the wedding is something of a destination wedding, we need to contact the venue to introduce ourselves and visit the venue if we’ve never worked there before. All of this is to ensure that the wedding day runs as smoothly as possible-that the photographer and the bride alike know what to expect. Again, there is the time (and expense for petrol!) involved-let’s say about five hours for various e-mails, phone calls, organizing, drive time and visits.
Already, we’ve spent six hours on a wedding and we haven’t even taken a single picture of the happy couple!
The night before, add an hour on for final equipment checks and to pack everything up. This is including a double check and not including any kind of emergency like, “Oh crap, I need a new backup battery!” or “My memory card has died!”.
On the wedding day-and this is really the first bit of work that a couple begins to see-the photographer must always be a step ahead of the bride and groom. Assuming our venue is within an hour of where we’re based, that adds three hours on to whatever amount of time we’ve already agreed to shoot for the bride and groom. Getting to the agreed location takes both time and petrol (about 40p a mile), and getting there early is again, more investment of time. Supposing that the bride and groom have contracted for eight hours of wedding photography, this takes closer to twelve hours of the day, plus mileage.
Now we’re home from the wedding, and exhausted. Here’s where the real work begins-in post processing! First, let’s assume we’ve shot a nice, even 500 raw digital images. First, we need to get those images to the computer-one hour. Next, we need to go through those images, sorting into “usable” and “unusable” (blinks, sneezes, blurs, etc). Assuming I spend a measly one minute on each image to analyze it (on average; obviously, some images will be instant duds and some borderline cases need to be carefully considered), that’s 500 minutes, or about eight and a half hours just to get your pretty pictures into the little folders they need to be in so I can start the real work!
Presuming I’ve shot well, there will be something like 350 “usable” images that make it into the proof package. I spent an average of twenty minutes per image on my last wedding; some were instantly usable with minimal fuss where some needed extensive editing (blinks and sneezes can be made usable sometimes!)-that’s 116 hours, or three 40-hour weeks to get finished, pretty images that are “just” proofs.
But we’re not done yet. Oh no.
These proofs have to be burned to a DVD and mailed to the client. (1 hour, including a trip to the post office, plus postage) Then we have to again have a round of e-mails with the client to get the list of images for the album (let’s say half an hour if we don’t have to do much chasing.), get the images to the printer (another hour plus printer cost), get the finished images into the album (assuming no snafus at the printer that makes us have to re-print, another two hours plus album cost of anything up to about £250), and finally, a last trip to the post office to ge album and prints to the bride (another hour plus cost of insured postage).
Let’s tally, shall we?
Total time investment, start to finish: about 150 hours, or 3.75 standard 40 hour work weeks.
Now, let’s do some more math. Let’s assume I charge £1600 for this package-”exhorbitant” by the standards of some brides, which includes proofs and an album with 30 images. It’s a local wedding, so we’ll assume mileage charges of £20 for filling the tank up with petrol once. The album costs me £150, the DVD I put the proofs on costs me £1, the printing is at £5 a print, so this totals £100. Already, £271 of my so called “profit” is gone. That leaves £1329 “profit” remaining. Divide that by the number of hours worked, and you get….just under £9 an hour.
Still think we’re overcharging? Oh, we’re not done yet.
At the beginning of the process, we have the prospective client. They didn’t pull my name out of thin air; it came from advertising. These ads cost anywhere from £10 to upwards of £1,000. Ditto for wedding faires-to register and attend is not only a cost expense, but time as well.
Obviously, one of the expenses that a bride does see is equipment. Have you priced a professional quality digital camera lately? A single lens can cost anywhere from £99 to £2,000, depending on the quality and manufacturer. There is also the equipment you don’t see-the insurance policy (both a liability policy and on the equipment), the software (Photoshop CS2 currently retails for approximately £698, and it’s only one of the arsenal of programs a photographer will use to make your images look stunning), the computer that software runs on (my box of choice is a high end Mac). Then there’s the purchase, design, and upkeep of a professionally designed website-unless you happen to be a web developer (or are married to one!) these sites can run anywhere from £500 to £5000 to create and maintain; not to mention the time involved in making sure the best and most current work is displayed.
Other incidental expenses that may or may not occur include: training (I have a college education which didn’t come cheap), membership to professional associations for photographers such as the BIPP, refresher courses and courses in how to use the complex, constantly updated equipment and software…the list of things that go into making a good wedding photography business goes on and on-and the price tally grows and grows!
Photographers invest virtually every penny that we make back into our businesses; and most of us wind up doing it for love of the art, not for the huge profits we reap.
In the face of the prices which professionals charge for their labour, a lot of couples choose to opt for so-called “discount” photography. With the new availability of the consumer DSLR, more and more people are looking to make a quick buck in the wedding photography business, perceiving only the end profit and not the amount of work which goes into the production of professional images. Their aim is to part you from your money, plain and simple. These would-be wedding warriors can sometimes be diamonds in the rough, aspiring artists with unrefined talent; more often, they’re disasters waiting to happen, a ticking time-bomb primed to explode when the first unhappy customer appears. Photography as an art form is more complex than pushing a button and hoping for the best; it’s an intricate understanding of the nature of light and the functions of the camera, and how these play off of each other. Ask yourself this-does your “professional” take the camera off of auto mode? Do they understand what depth-of-field is, can they calculate the focal plane of a lens or use reciprocity to adjust the mood of an image? Can they tell a CCD from CMOS-do they even know what this means (without the help of Google)? How about lenses-do they know what to use and when…do they even own more than one? More often than not, the answer is no. Technical know-how is only half of the equation, though: can they work with the people in the crowd and wedding party to achieve consistent and professional results without interrupting the flow of your special day with endless posing? Do they understand how to compose a formal portrait at all? What about post-processing results-can they tell a level from a layer in Photoshop, and do they know how to use the tools to take a mediocre image and turn it into a spectacular one? The answer, again, is usually no. The results of hiring such a “professional” are, at best, wedding photographs you can live with. At worst, the memories of your day are inexorably and irreplaceably ruined.
Wedding photography is one of the areas of nupital expense where the inflation attached to the word “wedding” simply does not apply. The aim of a true wedding photographer is to provide you with images which will bring back the details of your day fifty years from now. Before booking that discount photographer, ask yourself how you really want to remember your day-by the blurred and amateur image that saved you some money, or by the rich and evocative images that can only be provided to you by someone who has the training, equipment, dedication, and passion to create them.
“
How?? Having a better understanding of why Wedding Photography is so Expensive!
Yes, Yes!!
It have been many months since i had blogged.
Many things have happened along the way…
Looking back, i believe i have come out nt too bad.
Yes, i believe the days ahead although with alot of challenges but they will be good..
There were times where my past came back to haunt me! But i think i m more or less over it. Possiblities of them happening again or rekindle is Zero on my side.
I am heading to HK tml. I am not sure what is to be expected. But i am planning to go there to relax myself. Take Some Pictures! And to enjoy my Break away from my work, my ministry.
Yupz! Will try to update my blog more often!
The wife of a regular officer wants to petition against the change in army uniform because she don’t find it sexy.”
Now rushing some work now for Wenling in Church Office!
Yeah it is indeed my pleasure and my Joy to be able to be of an help! Haha! Was here since 3pm.
May this be the first of many!!
Everything we do, We do onto the Lord, Believing and trusting that what we sow, we shall reap in time to come!
With regards to the things i have been doing lately, I havn’t been serving mindlessly like before.
It is not like the whole ministry will die without me!
Indeed each individual has special ability that some others are lacking.
Being able to work things out in a meeting with Michael and Jim with Gary around, was great. As we are able to clear things up and get things going! Indeed we have come a long way…
Things that have been in doubt, we clear them up.
Things that need to be confirmed, we firm them up.
Things that we have issues on, we raise them up to get them solved.
Indeed we shall go from glory to glory. We are not going to stay the same level as before. Everyone will have to raise their standards and their level of commitment.
By Resting myself, i was more able to sow into others life. I had more time and also more freedom. I was no longer a slave or servant to my time, always complaining not enough time. But it is abt being into priorty what needs to get done, when things are being done, and move on to the nxt task at hand.
My attitude isn’t tat bad anymore, i am now more in control with myself.
Working on my Countenance when serving and after servicing! That i will not affect the people around me! My actions and the words i say; does make a difference!
Indeed everywhere i go, i m telling myself that… check my attitude, check my heart.
Although at times i had some doubts abt things in my heart, i try to get them cleared up asap b4 the night is out. As leaving it around, will not be productive for me but in fact demoralise myself when i think more into it.
Meeting up with God is more becoming something to look forward to each time now. It is like taking a bath each time! Being able to just soak in His Presence is just awesome!
