Weddingbee PRO

Oftentimes when people learn I am a wedding photographer, their immediate reaction is some variation of: “It must be nice to work just one day a week!” Ha! I wish. That's definitely not true, especially with digital photography.

I love digital for so many reasons, the least of which is the added work flow to download, cull and tone four times as many images as I take now versus just tracking rolls of film. Before, I used to drop off my used rolls of film at the photo lab and pick the developed prints up a few hours later. Today, memory cards for digital cameras allow for an insane amount of photographs, all of which are captured with a standard grayish cast that needs to be adjusted with computer software. There is also a tendency for dust spots on the images even if you are careful to clean your camera's sensor before each event (the camera sensor attracts more dust if you change lenses when the camera is on).

A typical week for me in the summer goes like this:

Weekend: photograph wedding
Monday: download images, back up to disc and external hard drive, import into Lightroom
Tuesday: cull and tone ~3000 images down to 900-1200, export from Lightroom, upload to Pictage overnight
Wednesday: finish any of Tuesday's tasks that might still need tending to, burn disc (2 copies) of edited wedding, back up edit to external hard drive, pull favorite images together for a slideshow, search Triple Scoop Music for slideshow song
Thursday: complete slideshow, create blog post, publish blog post
Friday: images are ready to view on Pictage

Some weekends I have two weddings myself and nearly every weekend J and Whitney are booked with their own weddings as well. Add that to the schedule above and you can see that my work flow is mighty crazy. Some days I spend 12 hours at the computer, hardly ever getting the chance to experience why people live in Maine during the summer as I'm plugging away indoors.

Enter Jenny and Nicki.

These two lovely ladies are former colleagues of my designer Christina from when she worked at William Arthur. With more than three decades of combined experience in commercial pre-press and printing, Jenny and Nicki know the color correction process better than most. They have been helping a local photographer with his wedding images for a while and dreamed up the idea of a potential side business doing the same for other local creatives. We sat down for a conversation months ago and talked through their idea, offering as much insight as I could on my own needs and what I've seen from inside the industry looking out. They have since done a tremendous amount of research and, as of Wednesday at our women's luncheon, are officially open for business operating under the name Pixel Chicks!

Jenny was born and raised in the Seattle area, where frequent long drives with her husband to the Washington coast and its famous Kite Festival had them investing in several big kites and a buggy. She moved from one coast to the other in 1995 with her husband Scott and their now, college-age daughter Candice, seeking many New England dreams… some fulfilled, some still working on. Jenny defines her personality as a creative soul over-ruled by a technical brain. She dabbles in pottery, glass blowing and creative welding. Perfectionism and creativity have a hard time co-habitating within one body. Currently she's enjoying the empty nest with her husband. Even though they miss their daughter terribly, Jenny is looking forward to embracing the next chapter in her life with hopes of many successes.

Nicki was born and raised in southern Michigan, where she attended Michigan State University and graduated with a degree in advertising. She moved to southern Maine in 1995, where she met her husband Mark. They live way back in the woods with their three Labs: Dakota, Bodhi, and Keeper - and two cats: Gabs and Fat Albert. Both are avid hikers, and have spent many weekends traversing the summits in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. They've also summited Mt. Whitney, the tallest peak in the lower 48 at 14,497 feet. Nicki loves music, and has everything from Van Morrison to Godsmack in her iTunes library. She has a highly irrational fear of bees, a borderline addiction to Starbucks Java Chip ice cream, and a love of Mexican food. Her favorite movie is The Princess Bride. One day she hopes to climb Kilimanjaro, and has lofty plans to hike the entire John Muir Trail.

Fortunate to have met them at the onset, I have already signed on with Jenny and Nicki's post-processing services this summer. Each Tuesday, Jenny and/or Nicki will come to my studio and tone my images for me (I will continue to do all the editing, of course. The Washington Post photo editor in me can't let go of that part of the process)! In addition, Christina will be at the studio during the week, too, putting together album designs from each wedding. So our new work flow will look like this:

weekend: photograph wedding
Monday: Emilie downloads, backs-up, edits wedding(s)
Tuesday: Pixel Chicks color correct images, upload to Pictage; Emilie selects slideshow images
Wednesday: Emilie backs-up edit, creates slideshow & blog post
Thursday: Christina designs album; Emilie finishes & publishes slideshow & blog post
Friday: Emilie presents album design to client, images are ready to view on Pictage

And although it doesn't look *too* different, it will save me leaps and bounds of time and stress to have some in-studio help.

If you are a local photographer and are looking to outsource your post-processing locally, don't hesitate to contact Jenny and Nicki to inquire about their availability. They will send you a self-addressed, stamped mailer with a blank disc to burn some of your images to give their service a try. Don't wait!

Welcome, Jenny and Nicki! So happy to have you as part of the Emilie Inc. team!