Q. Do you use assistants?
A. Rarely. We only bring an assistant if there is an unusual need for additional lighting, or an elaborate setup such as remote control cameras or a computer slideshow at the reception. Instead of assistants, we prefer to bring a second photographer. Twice the eyes, twice the brains, twice the cameras. It's a good thing.

Q. How many pictures do you take, and how many do we get?
A. The exact number of pictures we take depends on what happens at the wedding. A very elaborate wedding with lots of photo opportunities will cause us to take more pictures -- a very simple, quick  wedding without much going on will probably cause us to take less.

Some of the variables are -- do we shoot the bridal party at the hairdresser or salon? How about the guys -- do we shoot them getting ready? Are there one or more limo rides to photograph? Are you interested in a lot of romantic photography of just the two of you? How many formal group shots with family will be taken? Is the ceremony a simple five-minute affair at the reception venue, or a full Mass at a large church? Are there a lot of dances at the reception? Are the venues photogenic with lots of great places to take pictures, or is it difficult to find good places to take pictures? Are the bride and groom comfortable being photographed, or is one or both of them camera-shy?

As you can see -- there are a lot of possible variables -- so how many pictures we take, well, it depends! The most images we have ever taken at a wedding is around 4000, the fewest 500. The most images we've ever delivered is around 1000; the fewest 250. Typically, after we sort through all the images, there are anywhere from 300-500 which are good enough to deliver -- but we hesitate to promise an exact number, because there are just so many variables.

The engagement photo session is very much the same thing -- some couples have us shoot them in several different locations, and this produces a large number of pictures. Others are just looking for one nice image to give to their newspaper, and so we take just a few in the studio. But the bottom line is -- we love photographing weddings, and we tend to shoot and deliver a LOT of images!

Q. Do you carry backup equipment?
A. Each of our photographers carries two Canon or Nikon professional digital camera bodies and two flashes. In addition to these, we bring one complete extra set of equipment (body, lenses, flash, cards, batteries, cables, etc.) with us to every wedding. We bring over 48GB of memory cards, so no matter how interesting your wedding is, we won't run out of "film." Finally, when we get back to the studio after your wedding, we immediately transfer your images to a RAID-5 redundant disk array, and burn two copies onto DVD. So the chances of having an equipment malfunction or loss that impacts your wedding pictures is extremely low.

Q. Describe your photographic style.
A. We think our photographic strength lies in our ability to "get" and then tell your story. And not just in terms of what and how we photograph your wedding, but in terms of how we put together the final albums and slide shows. People often cry when they first look through one of our albums or watch one of our slideshows. We're not surprised -- a wedding is an emotional event, and we work hard to capture and portray that deep emotion.

Q. Do you consider yourselves to be mostly photojournalistic, or mostly portrait in style?
A. Well, probably everybody would say the same thing, but the truth is, we're BOTH! Seriously, we have thousands of hours of experience shooting news and events, and we have also shot thousands of portraits and groups. This unique combination gives us the ability to tell your wedding story in a very photojournalistic way, while at the same time, producing beautiful and fashionable, well-lit formal and informal portraits of you, your party, and your guests. We think one of our strongest assets is our equal comfort and ability with both photojournalistic and portrait styles of photography.

Q. Some wedding photographers are very bossy and pushy. Is that you too?
A. Ouch! We try hard to be everywhere at once, and yet never overpowering. It's your day, not ours, and we promise to never forget that. And we think that wedding planning is not the same as photography, so we'll leave the bossing around to you and your planner. That being said, there is one time during your day where we will be a little bossy -- during the half hour or less we spend on the formal group images. During that brief time, we will want everybody's undivided attention. But we work fast and keep it really fun, and as soon as that part is over, we go back to our usual style of being unobtrusive.

Q. Do you shoot in digital or film?
A. We choose digital for 95% of our work, for what we think are some pretty good reasons. Without going into a lot of technical detail, we feel digital lets us take great pictures in low light situations, in circumstances that would not be produce good results with film. We like digital's ability to shoot every frame in color, and then decide afterwards whether to process as color, or black and white. And the reduced expense of not having to pay for film and processing allows us to spend more time putting together your albums and slide shows.  However, if you have a special love for the look of film, we can shoot all or part of your wedding in 35mm or 6x7 medium format film (additional charges apply).

Q. What is your approach to lighting?
A. We prefer to use natural lighting whenever possible. We think it yields the most natural and artistic view of your wedding. Of course, when necessary, we use on-camera flash and/or studio flash to supplement or replace the natural lighting. We are experienced photojournalists AND studio photographers, and we are comfortable working with any type of lighting, from nothing but candle-light, to a complex studio lighting set up. Typically, winter weddings which are indoors and mostly at night require the most use of flash -- summer weddings tend to use more natural light. It all depends on variables like time of day, season, and the lighting in the venue.

Q. Who are your partners and suppliers?
A. Well, of course, this changes over time. But here's our current list:

Asuka Book for printing of our beautiful magazine-style coffee-table books. We're also experimenting with some of the books Apple offers through it's Aperture 2.1 software.

McGreevy ProLab of Albany, NY for film processing and printing

Dreamhost for our website hosting; using the Joomla development environment

Zenfolio for online proofing, and MPIX for online print ordering

Canon and Nikon professional digital cameras and Mamiya film cameras and lenses

Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Apple Aperture 2.1 photo editing software

Photodex ProShow Gold software for creation of DVD slideshows

Yervant Page Gallery and Kubota Auto Album for page layouts; Aperture 2.1 for Apple book page layouts

Availability and pricing on all items and services are subject to change without notice or obligation.