Today in the life of a Seattle wedding photographer:

I live near Seattle and it’s Fall so today is grey, completely overcast and dumping rain then stopping then dumping all day long.
I’m bundled up in my ughs and flannel with a warm cup of Earl Grey tea.
I dropped the kids off at school. My dogs are usually pushing at the front door to go with us but not on this rainy day. We tried to synch up our steps, right-left-right-left so we could stay close enough to all fit under the umbrella.

Ok, straight to work. I choose to finish the blog I started yesterday. I hate leaving projects unfinished but it was getting too late last night to finish.
I love seeing all the pretty photos again and reliving the wedding day while creating blogs. With all of my favorite photos chosen (a few from each part of the day) I’m now ready to make the perfect collage to display them perfectly. I edit a few to black and white and a few crops then start collaging. The software is really great but the process is challenging. There’s so much to consider. Verticals must be in sets of 2. The topics of the pair must be the same and the lighting should match and of course, they must both be good photos.
You must think about the order of the day and how it actually unfolded because if you create these groupings out of order you’ll pay for it when you upload them to your blog and they land in a disorganized mess.
So, collaged, saved, uploaded to blog, words added, titles, keywords, props to vendors who were part of the wedding and preview then publish.
Blog done. Some mistakes in the final product. Must move on. Final product overall is beautiful and that’s what counts the most.

Lunch time. Left over stir-fry veggies and couscous with tea.
Consider watching t.v. for the rest of the day. Consider watching maybe just one show. Decide that’s a good idea. Wander back to desk to check on things, forget about t.v. and start working again.

Answer questions from Brandon about schedules.
Return emails to clients regarding scheduling. Scheduling takes up many small parts of each day. It’s a lot like juggling.

Submit photos taken yesterday to editing company, Evolve Edits. Yesterday I judged photos for a school contest, took real estate photos for a house going up for sale soon, drove to Issaquah to take photos of a charity event called Just As I Am- Supporting Down Syndrome Awareness.

It’s a girls high school soccer game where they sell all sorts of things like cupcakes, blankets & raffle tickets for gift baskets to collect money for Down Syndrome. During half time they recognize the star guests with Down Syndrome by having them run through a tunnel created by all of the players of both teams then stand on a stage box and have the announcer read nice things about them that their family members wrote. It’s quite touching. They turn out a nice crowd for this event. This is their 3rd year in a row now. My friend Melissa Wyman is the creator and director and I couldn’t be prouder of her for all the hard work she puts in. I will wear my t-shirt from her event proudly!

Check on our Wedding Wire account to make sure our photos are all high resolution and updated to the ones we took this year that might be better suited for marketing than others already posted.
Create album layout. Send to client.
Email print packages and pricing to client.
Check on PUG Group FB site. Post a comment to keep people interacting.
Reply to blog comments.
Reply to new client inquiry.

Brandon asks, “you’re getting the kids from school, right?”
me: no way is school out already.
Oi, today went quickly. Kids retrieved. Noise level in house escalated. Little more work done checking to see when next expo is, who is assisting us for it, what wedding albums should I create and order for it and which prints do we print. I should email some vendors and edit some album layouts but it’s been 8 hours so that’s it for today.

So, if you are considering becoming a photographer this is what it is like. Yes, playing with pretty photos is fun but that’s only a small part of what we do. All of the day-to-day desk work is a very high percentage of what we do. The trick is to do less of this and more shooting, of course. Create more of what you love.

Here are the vendors I used today:
ShootQ
Pictage
Album Exposure
Wordpress
Evolve Edits
Wedding Wire
Photoshop
Blogstomp
Facebook
Outlook
Apple (phone)
Samsung (fridge) 1f642