Chicago Wedding Photography | FAQ

Why are your wedding photographers so important?

Professional wedding photographers have been photographers for quite some time, and as such have acquired skills and competencies over a period of years that reflect their vision and artistry. In many cases the professional photographer has acquired degrees specifically in photography, or a related field, giving them required knowledge in camera work, exposure, posing, lighting, and a myriad of other skills related to business administration, marketing, and many other areas necessary to running a successful photography business. Good wedding photographers don’t just happen, the skills required to do such a job are vast. The wedding photographer carries a tremendous responsibility on the wedding day, there are many moments to capture as well as group and family photos that must be shot for the couple’s parents and grand parents, and all on a day that can’t be repeated.  In addition to all the things the wedding photographer must be aware of, he or she must also provide the creative artistry and skill necessary to develop a wedding book that presents the wedding day in a beautifully artistic manner that looks as good as a layout in any bridal magazine. Not only does the good wedding photographer need to possess all of the skills and abilities mentioned above, he or she must be using the latest professional photographic equipment available. From cameras and lenses to lighting equipment, professional camera gear is extremely expensive. A good studio these days may well spend six or seven thousand dollars on just one camera body. In addition, all the lenses required for top of the line images will also cost the photographer thousands of dollars.  A couple who came to see me about photographing their wedding had done so with a relatively little time left before their wedding, and waited quite some time before hiring a photographer. Their statement to me when asked why they had put off hiring a photographer was this: “Well, we had to get all the important stuff done first.” This couple appeared to have made photography of their wedding a very low priority. This is puzzling to me because the food and cake gets eaten, the flowers wilt and die, but the images of that very special and important day will live on for a great many years after the wedding. I know of couples that have spent a thousand or more on the wedding cake, three or four thousand on the dress and $10,000 for food, but only a thousand for the photography. If there is one area you do NOT skimp on, it’s the photography.

What’s your primary style? Posed and formal, relaxed, photojournalistic, creative, artistic, candid, traditional?

We are a photojournalistic wedding photography company with a splash of editorial styling.  What this means is, we capture the emotion of your wedding day with minimal intrusion, except when it is necessary.  e.g Bridal portraits, Bride and Groom formals, Engagement sessions, Day after sessions, Trash the dress sessions, Group pictures.  Our editorial style is similar to what you have seen in bridal magazines.  A perfect example is here: Chicago Wedding Photographer and here: Chicago Wedding Photography

Are you a one stop shop studio?

No we are not.  We are wedding photography specialists.  This allows us to focus all of our effort on being the best wedding photographers in Chicago.  Our belief is that a photographer can never really be great at any thing if he’s trying to be good at everything.

How many years have you been in business?

Gray Photography has been specializing in Chicago wedding photography since 2004.

How soon will I see my photos?

Gray Photography prides ourselves on quality workmanship.  Each image is culled over and color corrected.  This process normally takes 30 days for the images to be posted online, and 60 days for prints, albums, or canvases.  (Album, print, and canvas fulfillment is dependent on how quickly couples can choose their pictures.

What products do you offer?

High-end coffee table albums with professional album design.  (These are high quality press printed books.  Not the thick “hard paged” albums with with only 30 pages and 1000 pictures per page.) More pages means your images can be much larger because they don’t have to be squeezed into a smaller number of pages, High quality prints ranging from 4×6 to 30×40, Giclee’ gallery wrapped canvas (Sizes ranging 8×10 to 24×36), Parent albums, Thank you cards, Assorted press printed products.

Who will photograph my wedding?

Unlike the larger studios with 50 photographers on staff, and you don’t know who will be shooting your wedding until a week before the most important day of your life, we will always be the photographers.  You meet us from during your first consultation, and will be in constant contact with us until your big day.  We often get asked the question “what happens if you can’t make it?”  The answer is quite simple, that’s not going to happen.  But just in case of catastrophic world ending Armageddon, we work with several other studios which can offer an emergency replacement.

What kind of equipment will you bring with you? How intrusive will lighting, tripods, other equipment or assistants be?

Gray Photography is a photojournalistic/editorial wedding photography company.  Which means we aim to capture the emotion of the day with minimal intrusion.  We do not bring a backdrop or studio lighting to your event.  We do however bring small speedlite flashes to cover situations where available light is not sufficient.

We use top of the line Nikon D3s professional digital cameras with an assortment of high quality fast lenses, and dedicated Nikon flashes.

Can we buy the negatives from you?

The answer to this question is two part.  The first being no you cannot buy the NEGATIVES from us.  The term negative refers to an unedited, unaltered image.

You can however buy the high-resolution EDITED digital files.  These are the large picture files that have been culled over and color corrected as mentioned earlier.