You've got questions, we've got answers!

Q: Are you a film or digital photographer?
A: We have been shooting digital for about 4 years now exclusively. It offers superior quality to film and is much easier for us to deal with. Also, we feel that we produce a higher quality product thanks to digital photography. We are able to take more photographs at your wedding and attain a higher level of perfection with those images. Considering our photojournalistic style, digital is the best option for us. We are not able to photograph your wedding in it’s entirety with film. However, if you would like to have something special done with film, ie: some high iso black and white images etc. then let us know and I’m sure we can work something out for this. We have a film camera or two tucked away somewhere!

Q: How is it that you offer such affordable services, is your quality lower?
A: We definitely don’t think so! In fact we feel that we offer an extremely high quality product and excellent customer service. We are able to offer lower prices by having lower overhead. We don’t have a studio and we don’t have employees. While there are some instances where this might keep us from doing certain things, it’s a tradeoff we are more than willing to make. We don’t have to insure employees or facilities; we don’t have to pay rent, utilities etc. It also means that we have a VERY hands on approach to every part of our business, which helps us to provide the best customer service possible.

Q: Is your business insured?
A: Yes, we are fully insured for liability and all of our equipment through Hill and Usher. Our plan is specifically tailored to professional photographers!

Q: Is your business actually a real business or is this just a side thing for you?
A: While there are some “wedding photographers” out there who just run their business as a side thing, accept cash only etc. and don’t pay taxes, this is not how we operate. Shutter Snap Studios is a sole proprietorship, we had to fill out the DBA forms, get the tax ids etc. We have to pay our state sales taxes every year to the comptroller and pay income tax on our earnings to the federal government.

Q: Do you require a deposit for portrait sessions?
A: Yes, we require 50% of the sitting fee as a deposit to hold the date for you. The remaining 50% is due at the time of the session.

Q: Do you offer framing services?
A: This is not currently something that we offer. However, if we have enough interest in this in the future that may change. If this is something that interests you please let us know! If you have any questions about framing, or your framer needs to speak with us please let us know and we will help out!

Q: What forms of payment do you accept?
A: We currently accept check, money order, or cash. We do not have the ability to process credit cards at this time. If you are interested in using a credit or debit card with us please let us know. If we find that our customers are interested in this service it’s possible we will look into retaining a credit card processing service. After all, we want our customers to be happy!

Q: Do we really have to pay sales tax; is it for the full amount of the package?
A: Everything we offer from our services to our products is taxable in the state of Texas. We provide what is known as “taxable labor” when we photograph your wedding, portraits, etc. Our products are also taxable. For that matter, even shipping is taxable! It might sound crazy, but it’s true. We do not include tax in any of our packages, products etc. When you order a service or a product from us we will advise you on how much the tax will be. In San Antonio, the sales tax rate is 8.125%. Look on the bright side, here in Texas we don’t have to pay state income tax!

Q: How do I reserve you for my wedding day? What if there is someone else interested in that date?
A: We require a deposit and contract to hold the date; the deposit must be 1/3 of the package price. The first client to get their deposit and contract returned to us is the client who will retain our photographic services for this date. For this reason, you should try to reserve us as soon as possible to ensure that we will be available to handle your wedding photography.
One thing I want to address here is the issue of two people sending deposits for the same date. It has the potential to occur and can be a problem for everyone involved. Our studio policy is to NOT tell customers that someone else is interested in the same date. The reason for this is that it can be construed to be an attempt to gain your business in an underhanded manner. You have no way of actually knowing if this other “client” actually exists or not. If you wish to be informed if someone else is interested in your date please ask us to do so. We will not volunteer the information under normal circumstances however. If you are the unfortunate party who didn’t win the “check race” please understand that we are only trying to be as fair to all parties as possible. We are also more than happy to recommend other vendors and will get your deposit returned to you as soon as possible.

Q: I know you’re booked to photograph a wedding on “X” date, but can’t you squeeze our wedding in in the morning, evening etc?
A: Unfortunately no, we only accept one wedding per day and no more than 2 per weekend (we consider a weekend to be Friday through Sunday). To photograph any more weddings than this would tire us out and slow us down. We feel that quality would suffer and we could not promise our standard turnaround times for galleries etc.

Q: How many photos do you take at a wedding?
A: We take a LOT of pictures. Digital affords us this ability and our photojournalistic wedding photography necessitates it. Expect to see an average of around 60-75 pictures per hour of coverage in the online proof galleries. We take more than this obviously, but we do cull out the ones that don’t meet our quality standards.

Q: Will we see every picture from our wedding or session in the gallery?
A: No, in order to maintain our high standards for our portrait and wedding photography we do not show you images we would not happily have you display to your friends and family. We edit out images where a subject blinked, or is out of focus. Also, if we take three pictures of the same pose we will edit that down to show you the best of those three. Due to our photojournalistic style of wedding photography we will sometimes take several images in quick succession. It’s not always possible for the flash to keep up with these speeds and it will not fire for an image. These are images that we cull out. We try to show you as many images as possible, but the ultimate decision is ours as to what is in the proof galleries. Rest assured, you will still see more than enough images to overwhelm you! 400-500 images is about right for a 6 hour wedding.

Q: How quickly will you have the gallery of our wedding images online after the event? How long will it take to receive prints that we order?
A: This is one of the areas of our business that we really pride ourselves on. You can expect to see the online gallery active within 5 days of the event. We work very hard to get this done quickly because we know that you and your guests are very excited to see the pictures and relive the experience! When you order prints expect it to take 2 weeks from the day you place the order until you have the prints in hand. The process is as follows: You place the order and get payment to us. While we are waiting to receive your payment/for the check to clear we get the images ready to upload to the printer. As soon as we have received the payment we upload the images and receive them back within 3 business days. Then all we have to do is arrange delivery to you! We always have prints sent to us first so that we can verify the quality and that nothing was damaged during shipment.

Q: Can my guests take pictures at my wedding?
A: Yes, they certainly can. However, we do ask that guests refrain from taking pictures during any formal photographs you want us to take. Frequently we are in a time crunch for the formals since people need to go on to the reception and the church wants their facilities back. This means that we need to move as quickly and efficiently as possible. If there are numerous people taking pictures during this time it is distracting to the subjects and we get a lot of pictures where people are not looking at our camera. This is bad for everyone involved! Also, we sometimes use flash units that are triggered by seeing another flash fire. This will definitely ruin your guest’s pictures and will cause us problems because the flash will not recharge in time to fire when we need it. It also burns through batteries quickly. We also ask that guests refrain from using a flash on their cameras during the wedding ceremony. We refrain from using them and we think everyone else should too! We have no problem with guests taking pictures during the reception, cocktail hour etc. as long as they are not obviously interfering with our work.

Q: How long does it take to make our album?
A: You can expect to receive your album back within 4 weeks of approving the final layout.

Q: Do we get to choose the images in our album?
A: To a degree yes, you can give us a list of your must have pictures. Please make sure that the list is no more than 40 images long. It depends on which album you get and how many pages are in it as to how many images will ultimately be in the album. We will do everything we can to get your must have pictures into the album however. Also, you will be able to see an online proof of your album before we send it out to be printed. You will have the ability to make up to five album revisions. A revision constitutes any change to the albums layout or design.

Q: Why don’t you offer DVDs with all of the images from a wedding at a high resolution?
A: We offer several DVD products that do have high resolution images. The most we offer is 200 images at high resolution. The reason for this is that all images in these products are corrected for exposure, color, contrast, and cropping. Each image receives individual attention to ensure that it meets our standards and that it will give you the best print possible should you choose to reproduce it. In order to keep costs reasonable on these products we have to limit the maximum number of images in the product. Our quality would be forced to suffer if we offered all of the images at a high resolution for anything near the prices we are currently offering. Lower quality is simply unacceptable to us.

Q: I’m buying one of your DVD products with the high resolution images; does this mean I am purchasing the copyright from you?
A: You are receiving limited reprint rights. Shutter Snap Studios retains the copyright on the images. I’m going to quote our contract here:
“All photos are copyrighted. As the author of all images made hereunder and as provided for by United States Copyright Laws (Title 17, U.S. Code Section 101), Shutter Snap Studios (Nathan Kerr and Joanna Kerr) shall retain the copyrights in perpetuity, regardless of possession or ownership of photographs, digital files or any other format of reproduction. The negatives and or digital images (hereinafter collectively “images”) created by Shutter Snap Studios remain the property of Shutter Snap Studios. It is illegal to copy, scan, or reproduce elsewhere images created by Shutter Snap Studios without the written permission of Shutter Snap Studios. Violators of this federal law will be subject to its civil and criminal penalties.”
Please note the part where it says “written permission”. When you purchase our DVD product you are receiving written permission to reproduce the images. There will be a document included on the DVD stating your reprint rights; it will have our signature included as well. You can print this out and take it with you to whatever lab is your choice or upload it to online labs if necessary. We will also include a hard copy of this letter when we deliver the DVD to you as well. With this product you are getting “personal reprint rights” which means that you can reprint the images how ever many times at whatever size you desire for yourself. This means that you cannot reproduce the images for commercial purposes. If your images end up on billboards all over the country, that would be a violation of this policy.

Q: I bought one of your high resolution DVD products, who should I have print it?
A: We strongly recommend Mpix.com they are the consumer side of Millers Professional Imaging, the professional lab we print with. We know that images coming from them are of the highest possible quality and our images are calibrated to look best with their printers. Also, they are very affordable and quick. If you choose to print the images with a different company than www.Mpix.com and have any problems, PLEASE contact us. We know what we are talking about and can work with the printing company you are using to resolve any issues. Also, please ask any lab you are using to NOT apply any corrections to the images; we have already corrected them.

Q: I’ve heard that DVD media can fail or degrade, leaving it useless even just a few years from now, is this true?
A: Yes, this is most definitely true. This is the reason that we use the highest quality DVD’s possible. Our DVD’s are made by a company called Taiyo Yuden. They have a reputation as one of the highest quality manufacturers around. While they are a little hard to come by, we believe it’s worth the extra effort in order to offer our customers some degree of insurance against the unthinkable. We also recommend duplicating the DVD once per year. You should keep the old copies of the duplicate just in case.

Q: What steps do you take to ensure that you won’t loose any of our images because of a computer crash?
A: We take image backup very seriously! Currently we duplicate all images on two different hard drives. We also immediately burn two copies of your event onto Taiyo Yuden DVDs. We store one set of the DVDs off-site in case of fire etc. Once per year we make fresh copies of the archived DVDs.

Q: What happens if your camera or flash etc. breaks?
A: We pick up one of our backups and keep right on going! We have multiple cameras, flashes, memory cards, lenses etc. to ensure that our wedding photography goes off without a hitch!