Friday, February 21, 2014
KITSAP WEDDING EXPO
Page 7
Get to know your photographer before the wedding
Sarah Musson photos
A bridal party holds a frame to center the newly wedded couple while Sarah Musson takes their photograph. Musson likes to try unique ways of capturing brides and grooms on their special day. BY LESLIE KELLY LKELLY@SOUNDPUBLISHING.COM
When it comes to wedding photography, the worst thing a bride and groom can do is pick someone who they can’t relate to. That’s the advice from Sarah Musson, owner of Snapshots Photography, and a wedding photographer for 11 years. “By the time the wedding day rolls around, I’m like family to my brides and grooms,” she said. “It’s gotta be that way.” That’s because brides and grooms need to be calm and relaxed around the photographer so that their natural
personalities come out in the photographs. Musson usually starts getting to know her couples by offering to take their engagement photo session as a gift for them. “I get to know their body language and I find out how comfortable they are in various settings, like if they are okay with kissing in front of people and the camera.” She’s even become such good friends with one couple that she’s their children’s God mother and she was called on to take the baby pictures. “I took their engagement photo and their wedding pictures and pictures of their son and daughter when they
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were first born,” she said. “It started out as an assignment, but it grew into so much more. That’s the way it should be.” Her busiest times are July and August and those dates can book as far as nine months out. “I recommend that once the couple gets engaged, they begin looking for a photographer from nine to 12 months out from their wedding date,” she said. She also advises against contracting with any photographer that charges less than $1,000. “Anything under that and
pretty much that photographer doesn’t have the experience to take the good shots and make the couple happy with their photographs,” she said. Wedding photography can run the gamut, depending on how many copies of the photographs the wedding party needs. Some photographers offer package deals. But Musson said she prefers to have it open-ended so the couple can get just the number of prints they need. As a wedding photographer, times can be stressful, she said. “But I’m easy going and I
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A bride and groom stand together in the background of this wedding photograph that Musson shot near the water. know that the right moments will happen and I’m going to get the shots I need,” she said. Musson said she knew she was going to be a photographer the moment she got her first camera. As a stayat-home mom, the career fits her because she can work weekends away from her kids and that’s when most weddings happen. “It’s just my passion,” she said of photography. “I love spending the best day of their lives with every couple I photograph.” She is well-acquainted with most of the wedding venues in Kitsap County and knows the best locations at them in which to pose the couple. “If it’s somewhere that I don’t know, I go and check it out ahead of time,” she said. “But I’ve been in the business so long that I know the venues and what they look like at various times of the year.” Taking wedding photographs outdoors remains
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very popular, she said. And most couples want candids. “They like the ones of them jumping in the air,” she said. “Anything that gets away from things that look posed.” Still, most couples have traditional group portraits taken, as a way to record history, and for the parents. Musson said wedding photographs are important because once everything is over, the photos are the lasting memory for years. “It’s the one thing that remains,” she said. “That’s why picking a wedding photographer is such an important decision.” In her years, she’s never had a disaster. Back when she used a film camera, there were never any times when the film wasn’t loaded, or got lost or destroyed. She did have a wedding, however, where she was called into action to distract the bride and groom. “The caterer never showed up,” she said. “We didn’t want the bride and groom to know, so after the wedding I took them off to take more photos. We spent about 30 minutes doing all sorts of poses and candids. And then when we returned to the wedding, everybody had ordered pizza.” Contact Musson at 360908-4704 or email sarah@ snapshotsportraits.com.