Anyone shopping for a photographer must be informed and aware of the lack of quality control that most photographers and studios apply to the projects they sell. For so many years, I have been hearing from labs, printers, photographers, assistants, and staff, both mine and other’s that I am a perfectionist, or that others do not care like I do.
To me, there is only one way to do something, and that is the best that it can be! Photography is a science and an art. Many details must be based on feeling. So this is the artistic side of me. But that feeling cannot just be arbitrary, it must be based on sound reasoning, available only to one with great experience. In addition to there are technical aspects that extend far beyond lighting and angles and camera settings, but also aspects of facial topography and body language and positioning, that so few now days are sensitive to. Here, repeatedly at every step, from the advice given to clients even before the gig is booked, the concern over the practical planning and scheduling, the allotment of time, the availability of a venue’s areas to work in, the client’s personal tastes, and preferences through to the attention to detail in a myriad of ways during the portrait session, the purposeful use of light, the creative use of backgrounds, the skilled use of lenses and optics, that far exceed merely zooming an all purpose lens, but using specific focal lenses for a reason, and the sensitivity to and awareness of posture, body language, expression, eye movement and limb position everything makes a difference.
Repeatedly I see photographers work that just looks misinformed: faces that are not flattering. Expressions that are bad. Body language that is awkward. How can that be acceptable? Yet as technology allows anyone to get sharp photos, it also blurs the line and lowers the standards. There are two totally different approaches one can take to producing a collection of wedding photographs and possibly albums. One is very easy. The other is very difficult. One is fast and cheap. The other is very time consuming. The better way is better because of one major factor. You might think it involves better gear, and it usually does, or that it involves having more experience, and surely that plays a huge role. Or you must figure it involves fancier album bindings, or some special materials? Perhaps you guess that it involves more photographic skill, more skilled use of light, more knowledge of how to record people at their best? And those are all very valid factors. Yes, But the biggest difference between the best and the rest, is that from the shoot to the binding, there is thought at every step. Every action, routine, step, decision, is not made by habit, or because others do this, or because this is what was done last week. Everything from the choice of gear, the way the lights are set up, the photo composition, the crew staffing, and all the way through to album design and page layout and image retouching can involve wide ranging levels of skill. But skill without thought, is skill not implemented.
Skills applied routinely without specific thought, yield mechanical, lifeless and unfeeling imagery.
Thought makes all the difference between what you will be hard pressed to find anywhere else and that which anyone can do. Thought takes time. Repeatedly, every single photographer that I speak with , emphasized the importance of reducing the time involved at every step and cutting out whole stages of the workflow due to cost. Without thought, everything is the same, cheap, and worthless. With thought comes customization, individuality and meaning. Today, anyone can take pictures. But that was being said fifty years ago about a group of pros that learned rules of thumb, while the tiny minority of skilled photographers, understood there is no quick fix to the personalized craft that photography can be.
Here at Rabenko Photography and Video Arts, my first goal and approach is to do everything the right way for each particular situation. If you love imagery, you will most certainly feel the difference between my work and others. That does not mean that any one shot here will blow away any one shot elsewhere. But looking at a whole set of images, the value, meaning and excellence in mine, will be far greater than elsewhere. For those who insist that budget is their core value, for those who are shopping on a budget, my skills and experience will still produce more meaningful photos and represent a far greater value in the long run even if I am not personally at your event, or doing the photography myself, because my oversight, my studio’s handling of your project, means that from the simple to the complex – factors are approached with more thought, more experience and better judgment than the competition.