Here are a few questions we hear on a regular basis:
How many years’ worth of experience do you have?
All together, we have over 30 years of experience behind the camera. Paul started out as a crime scene photographer during his career as a police officer. Cyndy officially joined Paul in 2002 and started her professional career in wedding photography. We have photographed over 200 weddings together! That number doesn’t even touch the weddings we’ve photographed separately. And add to that over 150 boudoir sessions Cyndy has captured and all the family, commercial, engagement and baby sessions Paul has photographed. That’s a lot of pictures.
What kind of equipment do you use?
Paul and Cyndy both use high end Nikon bodies. The lenses are all Nikkor fast glass of f1.4 and f2.8 quality, great for low light receptions. All together, there are 7 individual camera bodies at each wedding. Why use so many? Like individual paint brushes, each camera gives a different look to the photos it produces. We use the camera and lenses to create a signature look for your wedding. Even more importantly, having extra equipment means that we’re ready with backup cameras in case of emergency. Just something we do to put your mind at ease…
What is your payment policy?
At the time of booking, we collect a $200 retainer to reserve our services for your special day. This is fully refundable up to 30 days prior to your wedding. As the wedding gets closer, we require payment in full 14 days prior to the event. For non-wedding sessions, we require payment in full at the time of your session.
How do you protect the digital files?
Normally Cyndy will leave the wedding reception prior to the end of the night. This gives her a chance to begin the long process of downloading the digital files from that day’s wedding. By the time Paul returns home at the end of the wedding evening, there will be two full backups in place in a fireproof, waterproof safe. After your wedding images have been completely processed and finished, the digital files are again copied to a separate hard drive and a DVD backup. We are that serious about your data.
What happens after the wedding?
Sometimes the general public thinks that a pro photographer just presses a button and the photo is finished. So why a delay between the wedding day shooting and when those files are available for shooting? In reality, there is a lot of work spent at the computer tweaking the image files to make them look better than what happened in reality. Lots of things influence a photo file, such as the “color of the light” or getting the white balance correct, cropping to strengthen the focus of the image, noise reduction from low light photography, and sharpening the photo so edges are nice and defined. And since this is happening to over 1000 photo files, you can see that the time does add up. Our personal goal is to have your wedding images online for viewing approximately 2 weeks after your wedding.
Where are you located?
Our studio is in Zelienople, just north of Cranberry Township. And we’ve photographed weddings all over the Pittsburgh area. But we don’t stop there! We’ve covered a ton of places from Delaware to California, Minnesota to Texas. And if you want to take us to someplace tropical, we have our passports!
Do you contract out to other photographers?
Nope. When you book Paul Meyer, you get Paul Meyer. Period.
