Book Review: "Digital Wedding Photography: Art, Business and Style"

Steve Sint, the former Popular Photography columnist and prolific writer, photographer, and wedding workshopper, has released a complete overhaul of his in-depth text on how to establish yourself in wedding photography field. The new volume adds the word ‘Digital’ to its title, your clue that it incorporates all things digital that Sint has learned since the first edition appeared in 1998 (second edition: 2005). Joining his books Digital Portrait Photography and The Bride’s Guide to Wedding Photography, the new volume rounds out his highly useful trio of texts that together can help any wedding/portrait photographer succeed.
Its best parts dig into the hard realities of why and how the business works. Why, for example, should the wedding pro sell prints in packages? How can a photographer maximize her investment in equipment? How can photographers efficiently manage expenses and man hours, so that a business is as profitable as possible? Sint explains these and other “back office” topics throughout the book’s 272 picture-packed pages.
As a wedding pro who shoots dozens of weddings each year, Sint shares many behind-the-camera strategies that are both useful and instructional. Most wedding tutorials, for example, include itemized shot lists. Sint’s is densely annotated, with each entry often several paragraphs long and offering specific points of guidance for each of the 107 images that he considers must-have wedding moments. His explanation of how pose the bride prior to a bouquet toss, for example, is alone worth the cost of this book. More generally, but no less helpful, he covers the nitty gritty of wedding portraiture: removing double chins, wrinkles, weight, eyeglass reflections, and more.

While his tips and tricks are uniformly interesting, it’s the upbeat, confident and engagingly conversational tone of the book that keeps you reading. Sint’s explanations are always clear and to the point, with many real-life anecdotes interspersed throughout that are educational and entertaining.

The book doesn’t cover everything one would need to succeed in wedding photography, and you will have to go elsewhere for guidance on portrait retouching, wedding album design, or inkjet printing of display portraits, for example. But for help with equipment selection, posing, lighting basics, relating and selling to clients, drawing up wedding contracts, and many other topics, you won’t find a better guide than Digital Wedding Photography: Art, Business and Style.

Digital Wedding Photography: Art, Business and Style
By Steve Sint
Pixiq; $29.95