I can easily free up some time to answer your questions and to get to know each other, be it by e-mail or by phone. We can browse through your planning, discuss your wishes, questions and address any concerns, no strings attached. For weddings, I prefer to meet you in person so we can get to know each other a little better and discuss your ideas and projects for the big day. Do you have a busy schedule, do you live abroad, or perhaps have we already met? In this case, we can arrange a time to meet or talk online.

Once I save your wedding date, we sign an agreement and plan an advance payment for your wedding reportage. For a family session, we simply find the best suitable date together. And, for sessions with newborns or small children, a little more flexibility is welcome. After all, photographing children is not an exact science! Their pace (and thus… your sleep!) is unpredictable, so we keep in touch to choose the most suitable moment together.

Before the big day, I thoroughly check my camera bag and all of my gear; I recharge the batteries and make sure to format enough memory cards. When I cover weddings, I save the date a very long time ahead. So I have to plan my personal projects and holidays around your date, and from time to time even pass on fun last minute invites: I want to be well rested and feel energized to shoot your big day!

On the day of the reportage, I make sure I have enough spare material, additional cameras, lenses, batteries, memory cards but also clothing: with weddings and events, there are no second chances! I will of course leave early enough so there’s no room for the unexpected, and to be fully energized and eager to start shooting upon arrival! Besides all of the practical prepping, photo sessions also request an important amount of mental availability. A crazy night before reportage? I don’t think so!

Obviously, covering a wedding is not only about the bride and groom: it also includes the parents and grandparents of the bride and groom, their brothers, sisters, and best men or maids of honor; and therefore also all the unique (and sometimes intricate) relationships that connect all these people together. Throughout the day, I dedicate all my energy to capturing your most precious moments with great simplicity but also in more complex ways, portraying your friends and family, the scenery and so much more. All this requires great attention and permanent observation, while keeping in mind our conversations and your desires at all times.

Once the day is over, I carefully transfer your photos and immediately save them on different hard drives, and in different locations. Why? Although highly unlikely, no one is safe from theft or a fire. And when it comes to a day you can never relive… There’s no room for unfortunate events!

After such an intense day, both from a physical and mental point of view, I allow myself a bit of well-deserved rest. A few days after the photo shoot, it’s time to select only the very best images. I carefully browse through all images and select the best shots from burst mode.

Once the selection is made, the real work can start: the editing! This is the time where I touch up colors, optimize contrast and brightness and, simply, prepare images for printing. The photos are analyzed, evaluated and optimized, image by image. From a few hours to a few days, how much time this step takes depends on the type and duration of the covered event. It’s also this step that allows me to give my personal touch to the pictures.

Once the images are ready, I will review them several times until the series is completely on point. The images are then exported to JPEG.

Once the pictures are ready and printable, I make a first selection of favorites. A little preview for you! Using specialized software, this selection is assembled in slideshow mode with music (specially intended for this purpose and therefore with the required legal license). This slideshow will be your first glimpse of the report, so I choose the photos very carefully and assemble them with lots of love.

The online gallery contains all of your images. It’s your very own private, password-protected gallery and contains different size options for you to download. This gallery allows you to share, download or watch your photos anywhere in the world, as long as you have an internet connection of course! It’s a nice and convenient way to share these memories with all of your friends and family.

All the images in your web gallery were made with great care, saved, edited, transferred and shared. They are available to you in high resolution. Lost your images? Don’t worry: they can be downloaded again (and again!) for an entire year. The finished images are of course also backed up both online and offline, and, again, in different places.

The images in your album? You’ll select them yourself right from your online gallery. Obviously, you have the final say when it comes to the choice of pictures and the layout of your album. Through a practical layout program, I’ll send you a layout proposal via e-mail. Here you will have the possibility to send me your feedback directly via the app so that I can make changes if needed.

www.joshuadhondt.be/photoalbums

Once I get your lay-out approval, I prep the album for printing and transfer it to the photo lab where it is checked once again before printing. Afterwards albums are perfected and hand bind. After a final check, the album is shipped to Antwerp where I will (you guessed right!) check it one last time. And then your album is – finally! – ready to be oohed and aahed at!

As you can see, the rates for a photo report include so much more than the hours spent taking pictures! I attach great importance to the careful preparation of your shoot, but also touch up your images with lots of love. And, as you probably already noticed, the presentation of the photos matters just as much to me. I also make sure to work with a perfectly cared for professional equipment, and am always ready to face the unexpected by having a plan B at all times! Not to mention the cost of the software subscriptions for editing and layout, presentation and backups, but also for my material and my professional liability insurance as well as training and so much more.