Welcome to the FAQ section. Feel free to ask any questions and I will be more than happy to answer as soon as possible.
Living in Russia, my grandfather was a photographer, and after a while both my father and mother joined the – what now became – family business of photography. After we immigrated to Israel in 1991, my grandfather stopped but both of my parents continued working in photography and were quite successful despite the difficulties they had with the language. Once I graduated from high school in 1999 I too joined the photography team of my parents. Since then I have a passion for wedding photography and have been constantly working in the industry.
I am a very responsible person, I give my very best on each and every wedding, I am always bringing with me two camera bodies with several lenses, but even that’s not satisfactory for me; I take back up to the next level: I have a high end cinema camera Canon C100 that records on two media cards simultaneously – providing instant backup of the footage. I record sound on two devices as well. I record directly on my camera through a wireless system and I am monitoring that sound at all times. The portable audio recorder is recording directly from the audio source. After that all of the footage sits on a Raid as well as another external HDD.
Insurance is very important. I am extremely careful everywhere as I know what is at stake, and so nothing has ever happened. But, freak-accidents do happen to people, and I am well aware of that. Some venues in Tel Aviv area will not let in the photographer if he has no insurance. My insurance covers 500.000nis and that is more than enough.
I’ve been working in wedding photography in Israel since 1999 and I have experience in all shooting styles. But for the last couple of years I developed a particular style which I call “documentary fashion” style. This style is about transparency – it’s about being invisible and taking the most authentic footage without interrupt the things that happen on their own – a moving away from the controlling styles which remove any taste of “spontaneity” and have a certain blandeness to them. The other part of this is the Fashion style – it is all about making things happen when they are not which is very important, as sometimes the events need a push in the right direction. Just a gentle push – not a hundred miles shove. Without knowing how to do this, sometimes it would not be possible to have any energy in the footage and I would end up with lots of boring footage from the shooting day. In my opinion a professional wedding Videographer must master both.
Every wedding day lasts 12-16 hours, for most of that time I search for compositions, lighting and special exciting moments to capture. I can end up with 3-5 hours of footage – which is quite a lot. All of the raw material requires editing with voice overs, special effects, color corrections and color grading. A typical estimate is 1-3 month.
One of the things that I ask from all of the couples I work with, is that they provide me with all of the audio they would like in their full length cinematic wedding movie. If you have some suggestions about how you would like your final wedding movie to look like, I would be glad to hear about it.
Yes I do, all my footage is very consistent with exposure and color balance because I shoot all footage in manual mode. At the end of the editing proccess, I am grading – which gives that special look to my clips.
I always record straight on the camera with a wireless system while monitoring the sound being recorded at all times. In addition to that, I connect a portable audio recorder straight to the audio source for backup. If your ceremony is in a rather wild place and there is no acoustic equipment I will connect a leveler (neckmicke) on the groom, which will give me clean audio.
I have two video cameras, my main cinema camera is Canon C100, the second, which serves as a back up is Canon 5D mark II. For audio I have senheisser wireless system and a portable audio recorder Zoom H1 and H4N. For support I have a slider, shoulder rig, steadycam, monopod and tripod. Most of my gear is listed here.
I am a very positive person, I am always in a good mood and make people around me feel the same. I know how to listen to you and to the things that are important to you.
I consider it very important that we understand each other and know the things that are important to each other – before and after the event. The contract makes things clear and simple – it removes any “but I thought…” kind of misunderstandings, and serves to make everybody at ease about the process, and what’s expected.
I will gladly send it to you so you may familiarize yourself and see that we are in agreement on how the things are going to proceed.
Absolutely. Though it’s rather uncommon for couples to ask for this, it is indeed entirely possible and not a problem at all.
Every couple wants to upload a promo clip, which is a short 3-5min movie about the entire wedding. If you would like your full length wedding to be online, it will not be a problem at all.
I always like to meet the people I will be working with before the wedding. If you come to Israel and have time I will be more than happy to sit down with you and we can get know each other.
If you like my work you should book me right away. There have been countless occasions on which I had to say “I am very sorry but someone already booked me on your wedding day”. Why won’t I call you? Because I do not want to put you in the position of pressure under which there’s a chance that you will book me not purely because you want me but because you’re afraid I might not be available later. It is extremly important that you book a professional that you like, as a person and in terms of his work and not because someone else might book him – booking a professional due to pressure will always end up with “what ifs”, which is unfair both to you and to me.
First of all I want you to go to my website and watch a few short wedding movies, read about me/ the testimonials, and some of the articles I wrote – all of this will help you understand whether or not you are really interested in me and the sort of work that I do. Once you’ve done that, I will send you links to full length weddings – it is very important that you will watch at least one of them from start to finish. Afterwards I will send you a contract that you will have to read, sign and send back to me. Also I will require a deposit from you.
As soon as you realize that I’m the guy for you and you want the sort of work that I do to be done on your wedding day.
All the work that you see on my website was shot by me. It is very important for me to deliver the best results to you, which is why I will be personally at your wedding.
The are two reasons that I will recommend a second videographer for your wedding. If you have a big wedding 400-1000 guests, or If you have a music band and you want lots of footage to be edited with it. However, even when an assistant is taken, I will still be doing the main body of work, I will still be the one shooting the vast majority of the material to be used in the end result, I will still be doing all of the editing, and the same careful safety protocols will be followed – backups and double backups on the video and audio.