Online Galleries of Weddings Posted by Photographers as Opposed to Bride and Groom Posting Their Own Images ~ Looking for Feedback

The other day we posted an image and a link to an online gallery to view images on Picasa. We are often asked about online galleries and what we have done in the past, and still continue to do, is to give our clients their images on a high resolution DVD of which they own the rights. They can choose to share, print, email, post, do anything they want with their images since we give our clients the rights to everything. Also, the bride and groom can pick and choose what they want to share instead of having all of their images up on the web (this is especially important to some brides who are very self conscious - even though every bride is stunning on her special day many women can be very critical of themselves). We have been asked about online galleries in the past and below is a short explanation of why we don’t use them. But we are considering a change.

Many Photographers have online galleries for people to view and purchase the images as well as cool merchandise but what most people don’t realize is that these galleries are run by companies (which I am not going to name so I don’t get in trouble) that have you sign in and create an account in order to view the images. The only issue with some of the companies is that you begin to get bombarded with emails trying to sell products and it reads as though they are coming from the Photographer but are in fact from the company itself. It is a marketing tool on their part to increase sales since they get a cut of anything purchased. They cater to the bride and groom’s parents and other family members. Anyway, we have always steered away from this because we know that we hate getting mass emails trying to sell us a lot of garbage. Also, these emails inevitably begin to be ignored and when we send an actual email out that we need to get a response to we are then ignored.

We would like to try to use Picasa since they don’t seem to send as many emails and the emails will be coming directly from Picasa if they do send anything. This is where we need our clients and friends feedback. So we hope to hear from you.

Thanks. I will post again soon, so until then…be well.