1. Get your gear together and shoot a lot.
2. Work on your post-production skills.
3. Develop a portfolio strictly of “WOW” (high-impact) images.
4. Get a good, but simple, website together to show off your work.
5. Shoot ALL of your friends and family for free.
6. Make sure EVERYONE knows what you do and what you are trying to accomplish.
7. Put yourself out there on Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
8. Get a blog. Put some photos on it.
9. Shadow, assist, and interview a lot of photographers locally, nationally, and Internationally
10. Cruise the photography message boards/websites to glean information from other photogs.
11. Join a professional organization like WPPI, PPA
12. Go to local seminars
13. Go to national conferences
14. Join a group of local photographers
15. Figure out what field of photography you want to specialize in.

What else can you think of?

Online proofing, like Pictage, is another example... it makes it easy for photographers to post - and clients to choose - their wedding photos

This is all very good news, but it could be dangerous too.  At a wedding, photographers used to take 200 to 400 photos and show 50 to 200 photos to the couple.  Now, wedding photographers are shooting (and presenting) ten times that amount!  As technology increases our abilities, the bar is constantly raised, as it should be.  One thing has remained constant, though: The thing that sets professionals and amateurs apart is knowing when and when NOT to press the shutter release button.

Nowadays, it is easy to take a million photos at a wedding (but not so easy sorting and editing a million photos).  Similarly, it is very difficult to only take 1000 photos.  For me, it is absolutely imperative never to miss an important moment, expression, emotion, glance, or tear, but it is also equally important to know when to put my camera down.

The real question is: what is the perfect number of wedding photos?  How many photos make the first cut?  Make it into the album? Get put up on the wall? Are shown after 5 years? Pulled out after 25 years?

Of course the answer is different for everybody, but my answer (at least to the final question) is . . . one.  750 might make the first cut.  150 might make it to the album.  A handful may be hung on the wall, but probably just one is shown after the couples’ 10th anniversary.  One is certainly remembered.  Every wedding I have photographed in the past seven years has had that one moment . . . that one iconic image that the couple – and I – remember their wedding day by.

"The One" image from my very first wedding in 2002, taken with black-and-white FILM (gasp!), by Brian Adams PhotoGraphics, www.brianadamsphoto.com

For the last couple of years, I have half-joked that one day I will be “good enough” to start a wedding photography business where I go into a wedding with one small memory card in my camera, and stay with the bride and groom all day until I can “sense” that one image that sums up their entire wedding, snap it, walk away, then present it to them, printed on a beautiful wall canvas a couple weeks later.  We’ll see if that ever happens.  Until then, I’ll continue to take thousands of photos :)

http://weddings.theknot.com/Real-Weddings/29164/view.aspx?type=1&id=29164

Theme #1- Pinstripes. PERFECT for high-style weddings.

Theme #2- Flowers.  Plum and Lavender with white anemones. Springtime flowers that are modern and girly.

Theme #3- Polka Dots. Very fun, sweet and playful. Don’t be afraid to have some fun with your decorations!

Theme #4- Letters.  A beautiful monogram can be classic or contemporary.   Be creative, but be careful not to over do it.  

Theme #5- Flourishes.  Having a fairy tale wedding?  Flourishes are the perfect symbol for anyone looking for elegance.