I only shoot weddings, and have been a photographer for over forty years. I don’t shoot corporate, don’t shoot sports, no boudoir, no head-shots, no pets, no architectural and no commercial.
Why should you care? Because as all I do is wedding related I’ve learned how to do it right, every time. You can’t shoot your wedding twice; it’s done right, or have a lifetime of regrets. I specialize in a lifetime of smiles. It’s my job to create permanent memories using my skills so I create art for your special day, that tells your story. Reach me at allanl@allanlevenephotography.com
Do you want a wedding photographer that’s -
* Reliable? Will be at the agreed location on time, when you expect him.
* Consistent? Will produce consistently high quality results.
* Responsive? Will answer your questions quickly and accurately.
* Thorough? Will carefully think through your wedding, and offer advice and recommendations to provide you with a better experience and less stress.
* Produces great, creative images? Makes photographs that jump off the page.
* Highly experienced? Has many years of photographic experience, resulting in better pictures.
* Offers great value for your dollar? Provides the best value in the metro Atlanta wedding marketplace.
See more posts further down this page …
I have been watching the (Internet) slideshow over and over. You made me look like a Super Model! I love the different angles and effects. The close-ups are exquisite. You made me feel so comfortable and able to experiment with different poses. A.T.
Everything turned out great, you did a wonderful job. You don’t know how much we appreciate all your hard work, everyone was talking about what a great job you did, and how dedicated you were. D.M.
I’m so happy that we have received our engagement photos. They more than exceeded our expectations! After showing a few family members and friends, all of them want copies. M.M.
Upon the receipt of the pictures you sent I have some things I would like you to know. Your work is unsurpassed. You are a master in the art of photography. You have gone so far past my expectations I cannot express it. Thank you for all you have done. C. P.
I cannot remember a wedding when the bride and groom didn’t rush the photographically important parts, where I didn’t have to ask them to s-l-o-w down. Some of those important parts are the processional (towards the altar), recessional (away from the altar), the first dances, throwing the garter and the bouquet and so on. My observations are that while the bride and groom are physically there, they are mentally in a thousand places and are so excited that they don’t move slowly enough or take their time. I think that the venue typically have a process and want to efficiently execute the wedding steps, because that’s what they do. The couple on the other hand want to experience every blissful moment, but feel pressured to go with the flow. I wish they would resist.
So my simple advice is “Don’t rush it”. As it’s your wedding, this is the one day where the world revolves around you. You’ve spent a huge amount of time planning, and a also lot of money so savor every single minute. In the years that follow, the cost of the wedding will be long forgotten, but the only things left will be your memories and your photographs, wall prints and albums. The longer you take in the key moments the better the chance that your photographer will get those great shots that will make you smile… forever.
There is one thing that almost no one ever thinks about when they choose a wedding photographer. And that one thing is “What is the end game? End game, what’s that?
The end game, in this instance is what do you want the final results of your wedding photography to be? An album, small prints, large prints, very large prints? On what types of materials, glossy, matte, canvas?
In general, the larger the end print the more megapixels you need to maintain a finely detailed image. And not only that. Asking the photographer to shoot in “RAW” becomes vital when you expect to receive large prints. I am ignoring the viewing distance in this example. Just about any digital SLR will produce excellent prints up to 16×20; the reason that camera manufacturers keep introducing cameras with up to 50 megapixels is to attempt to persuade the photographers that newer is better.They don’t make any money if people don’t continue to buy.
In truth, it doesn’t make a hill of beans difference to the end result. For example, I have a friend who is a motorcycle mechanic. If you give him the crappiest tools, he will do an excellent job. If you give me the finest tools, I will ruin the motorcycle. Giving someone the finest paint brush, does not make a Rembrandt.
Let’s talk about RAW files for a moment. Digital SLR camera can record digital data in several ways. Point and shoot cameras cannot. Point and shoot cameras process the image recorded on their tiny optical sensors and produce a jpg file which you are all familiar with. The problem with that, as well as their SLR cousins is that the cameras discard much of the data recorded to produce a file to the jpg specifications. It’s like buying a map of the country and then throwing away all but Georgia, thinking that’s all you need. Just don’t drive to Florida.
RAW files, however, are the closest representation to what the camera sensor can produce. The file sizes are much larger, just like the map. The RAW files are copied to the computer and then processed with infinitely more powerful software and computer hardware to produce an much better result. The good photographers shoot RAW to get the finest result they can for their clients. In addition, as software technology is leaping forward RAW files produced a few years ago can be reprocessed to create potentially, much better results.
So what should you take from this post? Just that if you don’t want to produce photographs of over 16×20 inches then the megapixels is not that significant, but do ask for RAW images. Today’s digital SLR cameras will produce great work, no matter what the generation. It’s the photographer that makes the difference.
This topic is white balance, the process of making the colors in the final print look the way they should. For example, a white wedding dress should look white and not orange or green. That process is called white balance adjustment by the camera manufacturers. Each SLR camera has a number of settings to resolve this, as cameras will just “see” a white dress based on the light color bounced off of it. If it fluorescent light, it will be recorded as green, if a light bulb, orange. The cameras make a valiant attempt to fix this problem by using a setting known as automatic white balance. The computer circuitry makes a best effort and usually is fairly close to what the colors should be. It will also have a variety of settings such as sunshine, cloudy, incandescent, fluorescent and so on. For example, if you’re shooting under clouds, the light is a little blueish. By changing the setting to cloudy, you’ll get a closer result by making a slight blueish cast become white; or you can leave as auto and you’ll likely get a similar result.
The problem is this, one that I’ve never read anybody commenting about. When a photographer leaves the settings on auto, the camera continually makes guesses from photo to photo to fine tune the white balance adjustment. That wouldn’t really matter if you only shoot a dozen shots (especially in RAW, see adjacent post) as the actual white setting can be adjusted in post production software. Here’s the problem… when I shoot a wedding it’s between 1-2,000 images so can you imagine trying a individually tweak the settings of 2,000 photographs after the fact to get consistent results in similar surroundings? It a horrendous task.
So what I do if to switch from auto to sunshine, cloudy or whatever and leave it there. Although the RAW files may have be off (sometimes way off) by having a distinct color caste, by shooting in RAW I can adjust that out for the entire session in a matter of seconds. And without a loss of quality. Whites looks exactly the same in the same settings.
If given time, I photograph a special card with white, gray and black panels. Not only does it let me set the white balance exactly for those lighting conditions, it also is very useful for setting the correct exposure. With a few button clicks, the custom white balance is set and the photography begins. The more you get it right in camera, the less work in post production. If you multiply 2,000 images by just 1 minute each, you get over 33 hours of non-stop work after the wedding. That’s why thinking ahead saves a huge amount of time.
When I shoot weddings, I’m not paying a lot of attention to the minutiae all of the time, but I am paying a lot to context. What’s context? Context is focusing on the subjects and the background. For example, when I shoot the cake cutting, I always stand behind the cake so I can photograph this couple, and the guests. Many photographers shoot couples from the side, and miss the context… in this instance the guests. After all, shooting the couple cake cutting without guests screams a staged shot. The guests make all of the difference.
I got a call from another popular metro Atlanta wedding photographer asking me to photograph her wedding. Naturally I was flattered, but I asked why? She said that she had seen my work, loved my unique approach to lighting and was confident that I would do a great job.
I visited with her at the hotel where she would prepare and the wedding venue and talked about lighting, wedding flow, rehearsals and so on. When all in order I got to the hotel on time and started photographing the preparations and then drove to the wedding location, Flint Hill in Norcross.
The wedding went very smoothly, with only one technical glitch, due to the venue’s professional staff and I got a lot of really good images, so good that when I emailed some proofs to the bride she wrote back - “Allan….they are BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!! Thank you soooooooo much!!!”
The glitch was simple… I didn’t fully plug in a cable so I had to quickly switch to the on camera strobe that most wedding photographers rely on (not me) and take a few shots. I then fixed the problem in under 30 seconds and used my standard lighting thereafter. Here is a typical on camera flash photograph and a shot using my lighting technique, both as proofs, in other words right out of the camera. You be the judge. I’ll post a slide show later.
| Off-camera flash. Look at their feet, they are jumping for joy! |
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| On camera flash (typical photographer’s kit). Notice the background is dull and dingy |
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It’s the photographer’s worst nightmare. The camera locks up just before the first kiss! Does the photographer -
1 Freeze like a statue and start to sweat?
2 Reach for his other camera and keep shooting?
3 Switch off the camera, pause and then back on again?
4 Switch off the camera, take the battery out, count to five, replace it and back on again?
5 Start thinking about his blood pressure going through the roof, and panic?
The right answer is 5, then 3, then 2, and finally 1 or 5; take your pick.
Cameras are modern marvels, packed with computer electronics and slivers of optical glass in the lenses. Unfortunately, we all know about computers that freeze from time to time. It’s not a disaster if your computer freezes and requires a reboot. It can be if the wedding photographer hasn’t thought through a quick recovery process and practiced the moves.
After all, the chances are that the wedding photographer will have an equipment malfunction sometime during a wedding. It’s just he should be prepared to take remedial action… FAST.
I suggest 5 (or 3 if you only have seconds) first in case an image is being written to the card which may be the “freeze”; then removing the battery which should always clear a freeze… unless the camera has failed. In which case, 2 as good photographers will always have a second camera to hand so they can move smoothly from one to another. And its likely that the second camera will be identical to the first as the controls are the same.
The only problem is that the preferred lens for that moment will be on the camera which just froze, so some deft lens changing may be in order. Personally, I keep a third camera in the trunk just in case.
You can’t shoot a wedding twice, so getting it right the first time is critical. And having a plan, practicing it and having backup is vital.
As a photographer, I work with light. Forgetting all of the fancy camera ads we’re all bombarded with, it all comes down to light – where it comes from in a scene, its intensity, color quality, reflections and so on.
As such, I compulsively pay attention to lighting when I enter a new room and almost always start looking at the ceiling to mentally calculate the correct exposure of a typical reception where flash is bounced off of (hopefully white) it. Sad isn’t it? Typically white is always good, and high ceilings much easier to work with than low ones.
On the other hand, I can see the effect of different types of lighting in a room without even turning on the lights, so I see it as a plus. Now if I can only stop doing it all of the time and just when I’m actually working on a project.
Here’s your homework if you’re interested. The next time you see a movie at the theater pay attention to the lighting in the film. You’ll quickly understand what lighting is romantic, dramatic, dull, edgy and so on and why the director wanted that effect in that scene. You may even start looking at ceilings when you enter rooms to see if they are white and how high. Sorry. 
I use Speedlights a lot, although I prefer studio flash, but as Speedlights weigh 1lb and studio flash 10, I tend to carry Speedlights. So much, you’d think that I really understand how they work to automatically set the exposure. I don’t. Here are my observations. The Nikon (and most likely, the others brands) have an electronic brain that detects the light bouncing off of the subject and then attempts to calculate how much flash to provide to properly light a scene. Unfortunately, from my experience they don’t work half the time and for no specific reason that I’ve been able to observe.
Let’s start at the beginning. Way back when, you’d but a Speedlight and note its full power GN or guide number, based on the ISO or ASA speed of the film you use. For example, you would use Tri-X which is rated at 400 ISO or ASA. The guide number of the Speedlight would be (fore example) 125 which required some simple calculations to get the correct exposure. If your subject in this example was 40 feet away you had to shoot at about f/2.8 to get the correct exposure. If 20 feet, the f/5.6. You just divide the guide number by the subject distance to get the basic aperture setting. In other words, divide the GN by the distance to find the approximate aperture setting.
I’m assuming that the flash is the only light source, so if you wanted lighten the shadows in daylight, you’d stop down (reduce the aperture) by a few stops to get the correct lighting balance. In the above illustration, to f/5.6 and f/11 respectively. Of course, you would need to modify the exposure based on experience.
Things got more complicated when the flash manufacturers developed methods to change the light output on demand so the GN would vary, and complicate your life. Eventually the GN concept went away in favor of automatic flashes… the only problem being that they don’t work very well.
Broadly speaking, just as you press the shutter release the flash fires a pre-flash (with a sensor) to gauge the subject distance and the surroundings to determine the correct flash output depending on the lens aperture. Sometimes it works well, and sometimes it doesn’t.
What I don’t know is why the flash tries to read the subject distance from the light bounce when it could read it from the focusing mechanism which should tell it how to set the GN. In this example, you’d point the camera at the subject 11 feet away and press the shutter release, the camera should tell the flash that the subject is 11 feet away, the ISO rating is X, the main subject is Y and the aperture is Z and set the corresponding amount of light output. Instead it uses its pre-flash to judge the distance. I just don’t know why.
In any instance, the Nikon Speedlights tend to overexposure the main subject, completely washing them out. Some time ago, I went back to manual flash exposure using either 1/2 or full power and having memorized the GN for each setting. It works fine almost every time.
I happened to visit dxomark.com and was surprised.
The DXO company produces a remarkably good software package for professional photographers that squeezes every bit of quality from the digital negatives, known as RAW files. If your wedding photographer says that he or she only shoots in jpg, doesn’t hire him or her. Jog image quality is severely compromised as the camera converts the image from the original RAW image it produces and saves the photography as a much smaller file, a jpg. Modern PCs are infinitely more powerful in their ability to squeeze out quality, and DXO is one of the best when they do the conversion and not the camera. Back to the story…
The DXOmark website shows the technical variables that go into the quality of the RAW files that each “pro” camera can produce, and the DXO Mark is a simple scale for the bottom line result. Here’s the surprise. The standard wedding photographers camera is in many instances the Nikon D300. It came out a few years ago and costs about $1,600 for just the body, without a lens. The new Nikon D5000 came out a few months ago, and its body sells for as little as $500 or about a third of the cost of the D300.
So you’d think that the image quality of the D300 will be up to three times better than the D5000 as they have the same 12.3 megapixel sensor size? Wrong, the D5000 is nearly 10% better at a quarter of the cost! Technology marches on, and very quickly. I know that the D300 has a better build and is more “heavy duty” (whatever that means to wedding photographers) than the D5000, but the D5000 has features that the D300 doesn’t have either.
So what’s the moral of the story? It’s that newly released cameras offer far better price/performance than the “old” cameras when comparing image quality versus cost. I’m not saying that the D300 is junk, but justifying its cost is getting more and more difficult even though it produces very high quality images.
