And The Winners Are......

Just in case you didn't get a chance to read the Best of 2007 issues of the Colorado Springs Independent. We would like to share with you the winners in the wedding vendor categories. They had over 5,000 votes this year! So here you go:

Best Restaurant for Wedding Reception:

1st: Briarhurst Manor

2nd: The Cliff House

3rd: The Warehouse

Best Place for a Wedding:

1st Place: Hillside Gardens

2nd Place: Briarhurst Manor

3rd Place: The Broadmoor

Florist:

1st Place: Platte Floral

2nd Place: Gentry's Flowers

3rd Place: Burghard Floral

Photographer:

1st Place: Black Forest Photography

2nd Place: Cayton Photography

3rd Place: Shikai Photography

Outdoor Place to Pop The Question:

1st Place: Garden of the Gods

2nd Place: Top of Pikes Peak

3rd Place: Flower Garden at Monument Valley Park

So there you have it folks! Want the best for your wedding? Pick from these vendors and you can't go wrong! The people of Colorado Springs say so!

Photo courtesy Black Forest Photography, 1st place winner! Colorado Springs Independent 2007

Should Digital Wedding Photography Be Less Expensive Then Film

Unfortunately, this is a common misconception. While digital capture eliminates the need for film and developing, the difference is negated when you now add the time it takes for the photographer to process all of the images. When using film, you purchased film, photographed, sent it to the lab for developing and printing where the lab took care of color correcting and analyzing. Now, the photographer is responsible for all of the work that the lab used to do. This added workload is tremendous. It results in more man hours needed to process any given wedding (about 40 hours for an average wedding) or event, as well as the extra expense of hiring people to do so. In addition, the equipment needed to efficiently produce digital photography is of considerable expense. Not only are the cameras and associated equipment to perform digital capture much more expensive than their film counterparts, but
there is a considerable amount of ancillary equipment necessary. Computers are an important part of the digital photography scenario. With files from professional digital cameras being anywhere from 25 megabytes on up, powerful computers are needed to manipulate these files. With the average wedding consisting of 600 images, this comes to a whopping 15 gigabytes of digital images. Plus, these have to be backed up several times to ensure the security of your wedding photos. Oh, and files this size won't fit on CD's... they will only fit on DVD's and physical hard drives. Add in high capacity Flash Cards (4gigbyte
capacity or more) and the devices to read them, plus having a powerful laptop computer to take to the event for backup, etc. This translates to more expense for computers with the proper disc burners and processing power in the 3+Gigahertz range with RAM minimum of 1 gigabyte or more. Software to process these images is also pricey Not to mention the necessity for high speed internet to upload files of this size to online viewing and posting sites as well as to the photo labs for prints. In reality, digital photography should probably cost triple what it does!

Photo provided by: Black Forest Photography

Why is Wedding Photography So Expensive?

Hello! This is Becky & Ryan from Black Forest Photography. We are going to answer some common questions asked about wedding photography. So lets start with this one!

Q: Quality wedding photography is more expensive than I expected. Why is that?

A: Simply put, quality wedding photography is only 'too expensive' to those who do not believe it is important. Almost everyone knows someone who has had a bad wedding photography experience. They will generally tell you that the money they saved by cutting corners on their photography was not worth it... Especially now that their memories and images of their once in a lifetime day cannot be replaced... ever...at any cost! There are plenty of money saving tips and ideas for your wedding day but, photography is not one of them. Your wedding photos are the ONLY thing that you will take with you as a permanent record of that beautiful day. Quality wedding photography requires a remarkable amount of skill, patience, and people skills. The equipment necessary to provide the quality images we produce must be extremely reliable and of top quality. This equipment must also be redundant so you have a back up in case of failure. Other factors are also involved such as liability insurance, transportation, etc. Costs vary greatly in the Colorado Springs area. However, for this market, you should budget $2,000.00 and up for quality wedding photography. We hope this was helpful and informative.

If you have any questions you would like answered on the blog please email us at: info (at)blackforestphoto.com or visit us at: http://www.blackforestphoto.com/

Thanks!