Q: Why should I hire a professional photographer?
A: Short answer: Ric Wallace takes better pictures than the average Joe. He has higher end equipment, such as higher megapixel cameras and higher quality lenses. But most importantly, he has the training and experience to create images with good exposure and composition. A picture may be worth a 1000 words, but a great picture might be worth thousands of dollars in business. If you’re wondering if we’re the photographers you need, take a look at his online galleries.
Q: Why isn’t digital photography cheaper?
A: Many people assume that digital should be cheaper since there’s no film and processing involved. Film photographers could purchase a camera and lenses that would last them a lifetime. Their only expenses were film, paper, and processing. And it was a very time consuming process.
Digital equipment – cameras, computers, hardware, software – is often obsolete in less than a year and usually has to be replaced within two years. This ongoing investment exceeds the costs of film and processing.
In addition, many people mistakenly believe professional digital photography is instantaneous. Nothing could be further from the truth. Once the image is captured on a digital camera, it needs to be downloaded to a computer, renamed, perhaps color corrected, and provided with other digital processing like resizing, saving in different formats, backing up on external drives, burning CDs or DVDs, etc. All of this is very time consuming. From experience, we have that found shooting weddings, for every hour spent shooting, we may have an additional three hours or more of post production work. For example, charging $300/hour for wedding photography actually nets $75/hour or less for the services rendered.
Q: Which is better: film or digital?
A: We would say digital photography wins hands down. No longer is the photographer at the mercy of a lab for film processing. And digital gives the photographer the advantage of knowing that he’s got the right shot, properly exposed and composed.
With film photography, the negative emulsion is susceptible to fading and degradation. High humidity can be very damaging to old negatives. Digital “negatives” are computer files from which exact copies can be made at any time. While the permanence of CDs and DVDs is questionable, making regular backups of precious CDs/DVDs is highly advised. We personally have some CDs that are over 15 years old – some we can read and some we can’t. Digital also offers an unlimited number of image enhancement options that is not available to film users.
Large film companies like Kodak have fallen on hard times because of the switch to digital photography. Ric Wallace has liquidated all his film equipment and today offer digital photography only.
Q: What is your photography specialty?
A: Ric Wallace specialty is whatever’s in front of our lens. If you view the galleries on this site, you will see pictures of people, wildlife, landscapes, commercial, architecture, weddings… just about anything.
Q: What size of digital image do you take?
A: Ric Wallace is using Canon 18 MP cameras, which produce 5184 x 3456 pixel images. The images can range in size from 5 to 8 MB jpg, when shot at highest resolution. He can supply higher-res RAW or TIFF files, if needed. He can also create 1080p HD videos with the same cameras. Ric Wallace also has a wide angle and telephoto lenses to offer different perspectives. He has portable flash units and studio lighting capabilities.
Ric Wallace also have iPads and iPhones that can be used for some types of photography, such as meals in restaurants, producing images that are acceptable for display on websites.
Q: What do you charge for photography?
A: It depends on the type of photography, file sizes needed, the scope of the particular task – i.e. location shooting, propping for commercial photos, etc. It can also depend on the type of equipment needed for the job: backdrops, studio lighting, etc.
Call us to discuss your project and we’ll be happy to provide an estimate.
Q: Have you had any of your photographs published?
A: Yes! Ric Wallace has had photos in newspapers, magazines, annual reports and even shown on television.
Q: I love some of the photos on your site. Can I use them?
A: All photos on our site are copyrighted. If you’d like to license the use of a photo on your site, Ric Wallace can provide you an image to the size needed and even overlay text if required. Feel free to use our contact form to inquire about such usage and the cost. Let him know whether you want to use an image in print or online as that would dictate the image resolution required.
