14.10.11
iPhone Wedding Photography:
Brian Adams and Rainer Flor love iPhones. They love everything about Apple. They eagerly await every shiny new product the brand creates. Brian and Rainer are also professional wedding photographers, shooting on Canon DSLRs. It was only a matter of time, therefore, before they turned their attention to the iPhone 4 and what it could achieve with its 5MP camera.
The pair have established thriving – and separate – wedding businesses in the United States; Brian shooting stills and Rainer working as a videographer. Having been introduced six years ago, they started working in partnership and often shoot weddings together, travelling extensively around the United States and beyond. It was this partnership and shared love of technology that led to them shooting what they believe is the first wedding to be shot professionally on the iPhone 4.
Copyright Brian Adams PhotoGraphics, Inc. and iphoneshooters.com
Speaking from his Florida office, with Rainer joining us on the line, Brian explains how they took the leap. “At the time Rainer and I were sharing office space and every day we would talk about technology. We’re always first in line when an Apple product comes out, we always have the latest stuff. Then one day well over a year ago, Rainer showed me a video that was posted online of an iPhone fashion photo shoot. We looked at each other and almost at the same time burst out, ‘We should shoot a wedding with iPhones!’”
Given the competitive nature of the market, where a wedding photographer is only as good as his last album, surely capturing the happiest day of a paying client’s life on a mobile phone could potentially be committing career suicide? Brian replies: “We began brainstorming and the question came up: who would be crazy enough to allow us to shoot their wedding with an iPhone? Rainer said, ‘Well, my wedding’s coming up, so I’ll be the guinea pig.’”
Given Rainer’s unbridled enthusiasm for the mobile device, I could see how he would easily agree to such an experiment, but what about the bride-to-be? Rainer gives a huge laugh. “She trusts my judgment and has got to know Brian too, so she loves his work. Even so, I couldn’t rely solely on the iPhone to capture stills and video, and I wanted to have a plan B just in case. We were guinea pigs and wanted to test it out, but we still wanted good photos and video in case the experiment didn’t turn out the way we wanted. I had to give my fiancée some peace of mind that the photos and video were going to turn out well.”
Copyright Brian Adams PhotoGraphics, Inc. and iphoneshooters.com
As a test run, Brian took along his iPhone when he shot Rainer and bride-to-be Candice’s engagement pictures on his Canon EOS 5D Mk II just one month before the wedding. The aim was not only to practise shooting with the iPhone, but also to experiment with editing and to fine-tune that all-important aspect of wedding photography, shooting images of high enough quality for the album. The results were positive.
“I ended up printing a 12in x 12in album of their engagement session where I mixed in both iPhone and SLR images,” Brian says. “We actually showed it at Rainer’s wedding and people loved the photos; no one could tell the difference between the photos in the books.”
Having to consider the final format the client might want for the images caused some concern, but he knew that clients tended not to favour large prints these days.
“The world is changing,” he says. “In the last few years I’ve noticed that no one is really purchasing anything larger than an album-sized print. Some of my clients are interested in digital photos only for Facebook, for example. As someone who has been in the industry for a while, I try to make sure my client orders an album, so I am really concerned only about images up to around 12in x 12in. That was my biggest worry and we used the engagement session as the test, so when we got the album printed all my fears were alleviated.”
So far, so good; however, the engagement did highlight where the challenges lay. “I did expect them,” admits Brian. “One of the major ones was shutter lag; there’s a bit of a lag with the iPhone so you have to over-anticipate the moment, which means that when I shoot with it I’m planning to take the shots ½ a second before the moment happens. Lighting is a challenge; you can’t use a traditional flash or speedlight, so you must use constant light. In outdoor light, or bright indoor light, the camera functions exceptionally well, but once you are outside at night, or inside and it gets darker, it’s necessary to use continuous light. Obviously you can’t shoot RAW… these are all minor technical hurdles that you can get over with practice.
“Having said all that, as a photographer who shoots with two cameras and runs around all day with 70-200mm lenses, it was a release, it felt like I was almost naked! It was the first wedding I’ve shot in nine years where my back wasn’t aching afterwards. The biggest advantage was the access, you’re able to approach people more easily, they open up to you and when they realise what type of camera you’re shooting with, they have a reaction we never usually see. They are surprised, interested, and they become an active participant.”
On the big day, the team used three iPhone 4s in total, placed in OWLE Bubo mounts that featured a wide lens attachment. Brian also modified the rig to add an external battery pack to combat the short battery life, and added a neck strap. For the videography they used a tripod and monopod
For Brian and Rainer, another of the huge plus points of shooting on the iPhone –event photographers take note – is the ability to upload the images instantly to the internet at the wedding. This is an aspect where they feel the device has huge advantages over its DSLR counterparts, even if the quality of the images isn’t comparable. Rainer describes this element as “super powerful”.
He explains: “Brian and I have been doing this for some time and guests are always asking, ‘When are the photos going to be up?’ I shot a wedding last week in California, an Indian wedding, and I took some pictures on my iPhone and was able to post it right then and there, and show it to the couple and the family. The expressions on their faces were priceless.”
The built-in editing software in the phone means decent quality images can be uploaded almost immediately “You can charge a premium for doing a same-day edit and post for a client and it’s really appreciated,” says Brian. “It didn’t used to be that way when I started nine years ago; people were very patient then but now I get calls the next day from clients wondering why their photos aren’t online.”
Copyright Brian Adams PhotoGraphics, Inc. and iphoneshooters.com
From a marketing perspective, the two men agree that being able to post images on the same day is certainly good for business. I tell them that often when I talk to editorial photographers, they lament how, on a digital shoot, the client will ask to see the image before any post-production has been done, before the photographer is ready to show it. “It’s funny,” Brian continues, “but people will remember you.
Particularly at weddings, if you can show photos or video to 200 wedding guests, those 200 people will remember you as a good photographer, whereas if you waited 30 days and posted those images only when they were 100 per cent perfect, then they might think, ‘He was good but he took a long time to post those photos.’ I do think you need that balance.”
This instantaneous upload changes the photographer-client experience, which is why Rainer and Brian get so excited about the iPhone experience, even as two passionate DSLR users. “I think this is the next evolution,” says Rainer. “Everyone is so concerned; there’s a misconception that the quality suffers and while a fraction of that might be true, there’s another half of the story, about the experience that the user gets out of it. I’m sure that in time companies such as Canon and Nikon will find a way to connect their cameras to the internet so photographers can post photos and videos right after they shoot them. The experience is completely different, it’s not just about the photo, it’s about what everyone gets out of it because we can post it right after we shoot.”
As successful professional photographers, are they afraid of sabotaging their own businesses by using mass market kit? “Not at all,” Brian replies confidently. “The cameras that we use [Brian shoots with a Canon EOS 5D Mk II while Rainer uses an EOS 7D] are available to everyone at consumer stores. A lot of my clients own the same equipment as me or use even better cameras but it all comes down to the skills of the photographer or videographer. It’s 90 per cent the eye of the shooter.
“I’m not worried at all, quite the opposite. I want more people to be able to use the technology for their own personal use. We are not out to try to convince people that they should shoot everything with iPhones. We’re not knocking SLR cameras, we love shooting with them. For the most part we’re mainly just proving that this kind of shooting with this piece of relatively inexpensive technology is totally possible, and if brides and grooms are interested it’s a perfect fit.”
Copyright Brian Adams PhotoGraphics, Inc. and iphoneshooters.com
I wonder if they have incurred the wrath of their fellow wedding photographers? “We have had some negative reactions from people who possibly don’t understand the whole story.” Brian concedes. “They are down on us, saying the bride and groom aren’t going to be happy with the quality of the photos or questioning why we would want to do such a thing where there is better quality technology out there.”
From the video side, Rainer says the views have been more positive. “A lot of people are wowed by it,” he says. “People have their own opinions but we honestly feel the iPhone thing is really cool. We don’t know in what direction we’ll take it, but we’d love to do more of it.”
And clearly some people are happy to have their wedding shot with a mobile phone. They’d already had one enquiry from Ireland about another iPhone wedding (“The groom’s a big Apple fan!”) and intend to price any iPhone weddings similarly to DSLR shoots.
So what’s the future for these iPhone sharpshooters? At the moment Brian and Rainer are waiting to see what happens next. “We are happy to shoot people’s weddings with iPhones,” Brian says, “but we may develop into a community of people who shoot things with iPhones. We want to keep it open at this point. We do need to embrace it rather than be afraid of it or fear that it’s having a negative impact on our business.”
Both are eagerly awaiting the next generation of iPhone, which they think might have longer battery life and a better camera, with less shutter lag and improved low light performance. The pair have also discovered a new SLR lens attachment for fixing a Canon 70-200mm lens to the iPhone, which could take their iPhone photography to a new level.
“Our intention was never for this to be a publicity stunt,” Brian concludes. “We just thought, ‘Hey, this is cool, let’s be the first to do it.’ Once we saw the results and everything was edited, we took a look at it and thought, ‘Wow, this is good, let’s put it out there!’”
To visit Brian and Rainer’s website visit http://iphoneshooters.com
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