Wedding FAQs

A particularly legit question when you consider the investment involved in hiring a wedding photographer. Investment financially, yes, but also an investment in trust. Why should you hire me to tell the story of one of the most meaningful days of your life?

First of all, if a photographer’s work slays you, then by all means, choose that person. There’s nothing I’d want to say to pull you away from another shooter if his/her makes your insides feel like exploding butterflies. Rather, I’d suggest you do anything you can to ensure that *that* person is photographing you — save save save if he/she is expensive, or change your date if he/she is booked. I’m serious! Photos are the tangible remnants of your experiences — never scrimp on the chance to have breathtaking keepsakes.

But, if you’re here to learn more about me, I’d love to tell you! Please read on below for the key elements that differentiate me from other wedding photographers. You can also catch my bio here.

Five crucial points differentiate me from other photographers:

1. I have a professional background in photojournalism and still cover events, places, and people for magazines & publications. I have also shown my work at fine art galleries. So when I write that my style is ‘fine art photojournalism,’ I mean that literally (and have the experience to back it up).
2. I’ve assisted on National Geographic assignments [that’s pretty cool, if I do say so myself!], my work has been featured in 100+ publications, such as Wall Street Journal, InStyle, Martha Stewart Weddings, Forbes, Harper’s Bazaar, E!, USA Today, Huffington Post, Variety, Travel Channel, Style Me Pretty, and Ruffled, and I’ve been hired by Big Name clients such as Canon, Dove, Bose, Tinder, Minted, Refinery29, Boot Barn, Deer Valley Resort, Sundance Film Festival, Sunshine Sachs, the Olympic Committee, and OC Tanner.
3. Weddings are only a part of my repertoire. Since my body of work and professional experiences constantly vary (commercial, editorial, lifestyle, event, architecture, food), I bring a breadth and depth of perspective that sets me apart from other photographers. You’ll find my work in magazines & blogs and on billboards & websites & ad campaigns.  I think this is an important point to emphasize: because my business is not solely wedding photography, I bring an exclusive outlook to everything I shoot and can offer a wider scope of technical and stylistic perspectives.
4. I shoot with professional lighting. I don’t mean that I whip out huge lights & umbrellas & reflectors and unnecessarily overcomplicate a natural light shoot. I’m saying that, with me, you’ll have the option to explore any type of photography style you’d like. Do you want to do your engagement or bridal shoot in a studio? You got it. Is your reception in a low-light setting? No problem. Important to note: when you fall in love with a photographer’s wedding coverage, don’t forget to check out how he/she shoots the reception. Are the photos sharp, bright, and true-to-color? Or does he/she use a lot of filters & photoshop editing techniques to cover-up a lack of professional lighting experience? A lot of photographers take beautiful portraits & ceremony images but don’t always nail the reception shots due to a lack of experience shooting in low light. And, your reception photos are an important part of your Day! Everyone you love, kicking back & being silly & having FUN — you don’t want to miss out on those photo opps because your shooter doesn’t have a lighting plan. 
5. I photograph real people, all the time. Allow me to explain: I’ve noticed a huge trend for even the most talented of wedding photographers to put forth on their site all kinds of gorgeous styled shoots to attract clients. Don’t get me wrong, those images are beautiful. Magic, even. But it’s a bit of a bait-and-switch. Those few photos are the result of several hours of perfectly staged photo shoots, complete with models that pose for a living, a stylist for every single detail, florists & other vendors who are wholly invested in these images seeing publication, and soft, glorious lighting that was timed to the minute. Unless you are REALLY committed to getting idealized photos on your wedding day (most often at the expense of spending time with your loved ones and inconveniencing your guests), you won’t have that type of access to perfection. While I love staging shoots and will happily kill a styled bridal session for you, I just want to take this moment to acknowledge that my advertised imagery and portfolio is, at least 99% anyway, from a Real Wedding Day. Complete with perfect imperfections. 🙂

I’ve come to this five-point conclusion by clicking around through wedding photographer’s pages, so I figured it was worth a FAQ on my own site.  Please, feel free to view my comprehensive, not-just-weddings gallery for ideas about your own wedding coverage! 

I am a hybrid wedding photographer. No, that does not mean that I’m half alien or something akin to The Incredible Hulk. Rather, it means that I’m able to shoot both film and digital images on your Day.

While shooting for Canon last Sundance Film Festival (V & I were the in-house photographers for the Canon Creative Studio private lounge), I heard one of their senior film & television advisors say the following: “film will never look as good as it does right now, and digital will never look as bad.” That line resonated with me. Enormously. Because I believe it to be true. About two years ago, I started googling googling googling to find the types of images that most moved me, most inspired me, and I’d study them like crazy, trying to determine the je ne sais quoi that kept me coming back to them (whether pulling my hair out in envy or soaking my eyes in affected tears). Eventually, I came to the conclusion that the majority of the images that really caught me were shot in medium format film. The texture, color, creamy-gauzy-luciousness of film became a sheer phenomenon to me, and I spent another year trying to figure out how to best make my digital images echo that film-y quality.

I actually think I’ve gotten pretty good at mimicking the film look in my digital images; but, of course, nothing compares to the real-deal, so I also picked myself up a Contax 645 and a Canon EOS-IV, and some Portra & Fuji 120s and 35mms, and I started to craft my own film fantasies. Ohhhhhhh I love it. I.love.it. I still get goosebumps and hold my breath when I get my scans back from the lab. It’s like frikkin’ Christmas morning every time.

Does that mean that digital isn’t special? Hell no. I think technology has moved in the digital direction for many, many reasons, and I absolutely love what my digital camera bodies can do in, say, a low light ceremony or alongside a flash system during a super fun dance party reception. But digital technology is so new and still being so tweaked that, yes, I don’t think digital will ever look as bad as it does right now (hence all the playing I have to do in Lightroom to get my images to reflect the look/feel that I want). So, I take the best of both worlds, since, well, why not… and I shoot both technologies in order to satisfy my diehard need to create the most stunning collection I possibly can.

At this time, we do travel for weddings and do not charge any travel fees.

NO TRAVEL FEES!?!?  Yep.

You see, we love to travel. V is European, and I’ve lived all over the world. We think of your destination wedding as an opportunity for us to explore somewhere new or revisit somewhere familiar with our fabulous camera gear and new local friends!

Message me about your destination wedding!

I started with a big ol’ Canon EOS-1D (like, a 2004 model or something), a gift from National Geographic photojournalist Paul Nicklen (my ex-boss), and two used lenses (a 20mm and a 70-300mm) courtesy of my brother Jeff (to whom I’m forever indebted for getting me started). The lenses were totally standard series and the camera body had a bunch of water damage from Paul’s underwater work, but they offered the best training wheels ever. MAN when you learn on standard gear and then upgrade to the Big Boy stuff, it’s as though a whole new world opens up for you.

These days, I have five professional-grade Canon camera bodies, each top-of-the-line for digital photography professionals, a Canon EOS-IV 35mm body that I can use with all my gorgeous Canon lenses, and what’s considered *boss* in the medium film format world: a Contax 645 kit with the Zeiss glass.

I have 10 premium lenses — a mix of primes, zoom, and telephoto —  for every imaginable moment.

I also use a wider variety of lighting accoutrement than probably any lifestyle shooter I know. Once I’ve gotten a sense of the style you’d like for your coverage and the lighting available on location, I’ll decide upon a lighting plan, which my include speedlites, strobes, and/or constant lights. By no means will my gear get in the way of anything or detract from the day itself, but I always find that it’s best to be over-prepared and have gear for any situation.

The following is a list of my equipment:

1. Canon bodies (1 Mark IV, 3 Mark IIIs, 1 Mark II)
2. Canon L Series lenses (14mm, 24mm, 24-70mm, 24-105mm, 50mm, 85mm, 100mm, 70-200mm) & a Lomography Petzval lens
3. Contax 645 kit with Zeiss 80mm lens
4. Canon EOS-IV 35mm body
5. Portra & Fuji Pro 120 & 35mm film
6. Canon speedlites (3 600ex-rt)
7. Profoto A1s (2)
8. Cheetah battery pack
9. Lumedyne Tinycycler battery pack
10. Paul Buff Alien Bees (800 & 1600) and Ringflash
11. Paul Buff softboxes
12. Westcott Ice Light II (2)
13. Paul Buff Vagabond battery pack
14. Holdfast Moneymaker leather camera harnesses
15. Ona camera bags
16. Lowepro travel bags
17. ThinkTank travel bag
18. FotodioX constant lights
19. Cowboy Studio constant lights
20. Apple computers (desktop, laptops)
21. Lexar and SanDisk CF cards
22. Pelican CF card cases
23. a hodge-podge of reflectors, umbrellas, scrims, stands, clips, sync chords, backdrops, and props
24. Victor.  He’s a professional photographer and my assistant/second-shooter/technical advisor/creative director.  He’s also a goofball, and sometimes I think he has more fun on shoots than anyone else.  Anyway, I’ve found that having another set of eyes behind the lens is invaluable.

Regarding digital back-up: My main camera body has a digital file back-up built into it in case one of the memory cards fails.  I travel with a 2013 MacBook Pro and an external drive, and I save every image to both immediately following the wedding (before I’ve even showered or unpacked from the day).  So, in addition to the memory cards themselves, the files are doubly backed up.  When I get home, I upload the photos to my Synology 15TB back-up system, which is also backed up by CrashPlan.  Phew.  Lots of back-up.

As for a back-up camera: I have two professional-grade Canon camera bodies, each top of the line for lifestyle photography professionals (Canon Mark III & Mark II).

You can expect 500-700 images; my minimum is 400 (say, 100 getting ready, 100 ceremony, 100 portrait, 100 reception — but that’s a guesstimate).

I literally craft every.single.photo for hours, days, & weeks following the wedding — the style of my work is fine art photojournalism, so I don’t just pop out the card and hand over the images untouched. Each image delivered is itself publishable or frame-worthy (no ‘junk’ images).  Just for reference: a wedding album has anywhere between 25-40 photos in it, and most of my clients have a really hard time narrowing down their favorites :).

I am a professional portrait and event photographer, so I can shoot anything you’d like!

To date, no one’s booked me for a Trash the Dress session and I’m dying to do one… so, if you’re my first, I’ll knock 10% off your booking!

Message me with any questions!

One nice thing about being a professional is that I have access to a wide variety of networks I can lean on in serious emergencies, and if for some act of God I was unable to shoot, I’d absolutely consider it my responsibility to try to replace myself.  I’d also claim the RAW files from the photographer that replaced me and handle the processing myself so that the images have the look & feel of a Carla Boecklin Photography wedding.

That said, photography is my career, and I am a consummate professional.  I’m extremely conscientious, so I would never take such matters casually.  I take immaculate care of myself in order to ensure good health for my shoots — after all, I’m on my feet (bending, running, standing, kneeling, etc) that day for 8-10 hours in total, and sheer adrenaline isn’t enough to keep you going!

I’m fine with social media & personal website usage (like, your wedding website).  I’m also okay with using one of the photos out of the wedding context (i.e., if you wanted to use one of the photos for a headshot photo on LinkedIn or something like that).   I’m always psyched when clients give me photo credit or link to my website or encourage their friends to “like” my Facebook page, but in truth you are paying for those photos, so you are welcome to put them on social media or your own website without so much as mentioning my name.

There is a clause in my wedding agreement that indicates the images are not to be published or sold in a commercial manner, or doled out to vendors for them to use for their advertising.  This clause is designed to protect me from people selling my work behind my back or using my images for advertising purposes without paying for that right (I’m happy to explain situations where this happens, if you’re curious).

Yes, let’s!

If you’re interested in seeing your wedding in the pages of a magazine or featured in a wedding blog viewed by millions, I’m all for it.  I enjoy publishing my work and spend a lot of time cultivating editorial and media contacts so I’m in the position to pitch your wedding to notable publications.

While I can’t guarantee publication with any of my weddings, I can assure you that I’ll work hard for both our sakes to get your wedding in front of an audience, if that interests you.

Before your Day, we’ll go over a handful of stylistic preferences together.  Yes, you hire me for my unique photographic style, totally.  But, I also want to deliver work that makes you super happy.  If you hate black and white photos but love my shooting style, then my goal will be to deliver color photos from your day (I blogged about this here, actually).  Let’s iron out your expectations for image style prior to the day and make sure our decisions are noted in your agreement.

I edit & process each image individually, so when I choose to make an image color or black & white for delivery, I craft the image for that specific style.  Conversions to color or black & white once I’ve gone the other way are not as simple as clicking a button on my software — I’m not saying it’s a huge challenge, but I do start processing again from scratch.  For this reason, if you ask me to re-edit a photo, and we hadn’t previously agreed upon photo edit preferences, I charge a small fee (as noted in your wedding agreement).

I have worked with the best Park City wedding vendors. Seriously. I know social stylists & event planners whose concepts constantly take my breath away, no matter how many times I’ve seen their work. I shoot with makeup artists and hair stylists that are frequently published and have traveled nationally for training and fashion opportunities. I work with a nationally-renowned videographer whose client list makes you drool, and another that, while budget friendly, is as hard-working and committed as they come.

Just ask me, and I’d be happy to share my coveted group of professionals. Similarly, I’m happy to help bounce ideas regarding any part of your wedding day.